Episode 182 - Grace Over Grind with Shae Bynes
Since founding Kingdom Driven Entrepreneurs in 2012, Shae Bynes has reached over a half-million aspiring and current entrepreneurs around the globe through her devotionals, books, courses, and podcasts. She has written numerous books including Doing Business God’s Way and Grace Over Grind. She is a self proclaimed fire igniter and is a gifted storyteller. Shae Bynes, joins us today to share her story, discuss what is happening in the faith driven entrepreneur movement, and explain what it means to walk in grace vs. grinding it out 24/7.
Episode Transcript
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Shae Bynes: That's what I would call working and his rest, having just that active awareness of the presence of God with you as you work, because a lot of times believers will come into business and say, Oh, I'm doing this business for God, I'm doing this for the glory of God. I'm on a mission. I'm going to I'm going to do this kingdom business and we're like, Wait, wait, wait, that's nice. But what we really want you to do is experience is best by doing business with God, which will also reveal his glory, which will also be for him, right? It is for the glory of God. But doing that with God. That's the difference maker, because you can certainly grind it out, do all kinds of things and be all out of whack doing things. You know, under this banner of this burden of I'm doing this for God and missing his presence in the midst of it.
Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast, I'm back here with Rusty Rusty Good morning.
Rusty Rueff: Good morning. How are you? How's your jet lag?
Henry Kaestner: Jet lag is doing fine. You know, in the first day after getting back from a big trip, it's usually pretty good until about noon and then the wheels start falling off. So it's still morning here. And I think that I'm doing well. I think that, you know, we've got the video going. I think we can both agree that I look great as always, but I don't look as good as our guest, Shay Bynes, who's with us from you're from Florida, right?
Shae Bynes: I am Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Henry Kaestner: I love Fort Lauderdale, and I know that she is from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, because she has been nice enough to have me on her podcast before. And we talked about that my family used to go to Fort Lauderdale when I was growing up. My great grandmother lived there, and there's just something about the air and the beach in Port Everglades and the cruise ships going off and all that stuff that Fort Lauderdale just I love it. So it's great to be kind of virtually transported there. More importantly, it's great to be with you. I so enjoyed our time together when you were nice enough to have me on the podcast and people ask us a lot about where the different places I can go for more resources. And one of the things we always tell people, of course, is that Faith Driven Entrepreneur is a small, nimble organization that is meant to catalyze and bring attention to a broader movement of what God is doing in the world. And there are some terrific ministries that people can get tied into, and I think about C12 and Ocean and Praxis. I think that convene FCAI overseas, there's ocean and there's it's NEA, there's blue fields. There's some really, really great ministries focusing on serving the Faith Driven Entrepreneur. And there's some great content out there as well. In a podcast out very, very much recommend is KDE Kingdom driven entrepreneur. She has been doing this for a long, long time. She tell us about Katie at How many podcast episodes are you done?
Shae Bynes: I think it's 300 and something interviews, but a total of four hundred and something episodes because you have some mentoring moments in there.
Henry Kaestner: There's one for every day. That's amazing.
Shae Bynes: I think seven years, eight years of podcasting, something like that.
Henry Kaestner: That is awesome, OK? To only be eclipsed by Rusty Rueff blogging prowess. Rusty Where are you with your daily blog?
Rusty Rueff: Three thousand twenty eight today?
Henry Kaestner: Wow. So with Faith Driven Entrepreneur now being only about 180 or so, we've got a long ways to go. Shay, thank you for your faith, obedience and the ministry. It's great to have you on, you know enough about our podcast and know that we like to get started and we just we'd like to meet our guests and love. Everybody now knows, of course, that you're in Fort Lauderdale. I hope that will be able to have some of the video images from this. You get chief fire igniter behind you and some really, really cool, motivated grace over drawing some really cool things right behind you. But who are you? And yeah, who are you? What would you come from?
Shae Bynes: Well, I'm a daughter of the king. I'm a mother of three daughters, four, 13 and 20. So they're based
Rusty Rueff: spacing, spacing.
Shae Bynes: Yes, I'm the wife to my husband, Phil. For twenty two years now, we've been together since we are six years old. I have been a business owner for many, many years. It started off as the side and my corporate career, but I have been a full time entrepreneur since 2010, after the Lord very not so gently urged me to leave the corporate world behind to to go into business full time. And so it's been an incredible journey. I've been doing kingdom driven entrepreneurs since gosh as 2012, so we will be nine years old in November, and it was the most beautiful God interruption of my life while I was just kind of minding my own business and got interrupted everything and I ended up doing kingdom driven entrepreneur. So that's that's a whole nother story. We can get into it or not.
Henry Kaestner: I'm going to right now. I got that interruption.
Shae Bynes: OK, so here's what happened. So when I was leaving my corporate career at that time, I was in real estate investing, and so my husband, I were investing. We were active real estate investors in the South Florida area. And so when I left my job, I didn't ask God, like, now, what am I doing? I just assumed I'm just going to go deep into this real estate investing thing, and I was hustling hard. I mean, I was, I call it my season, a faithless action taking at about six months in, I heard the Lord, he said. Are you done yet? And I'm like, Oh, well, yeah, like, why did you even have me leave my job? You know, what am I supposed to be doing here? You know? And that was really my first time of kind of playing my ear to the Lord as it concerns my work life. And so over those next couple of years, I was still continuing real estate, but now with a sensitive ear to hear him as I. Is going along, and in March of 2012, one of my real estate buddies contacted me and said, Hey, I met this woman, and when I met her, I really felt like I was supposed to connect the two of you and I said, great. And so he connects the two of us. We're on the phone and I'm like, This one is nice, but I have no idea why he was so adamant that we meet. And at the end of that chat, she says, I had this client that I really think you're supposed to meet. So we hop on the phone and her name is Anthony the. We hit it off right away and I couldn't deny that we hadn't met for a very specific reason. And so about six to eight weeks into us getting to know one another as friends, you know, I said to her, I really feel like there's something specific. There's a reason why we met. She goes, I've been since I'm the same, and I said, Well, let's pray about it and come back in a week. So we prayed, came back and we talked about some stuff. She was a business owner, too. And I'm like, No, it's none of that. Let's pray and come back. We did this three times. So on the third time, she says, the Lord gave me these words. I have no idea what they mean, what they're for, what it's about. But I wrote them down and the words are kingdom driven entrepreneur. And when she said those words, what flew out of my mouth before I could even think about it? This was the Holy Spirit. I said, That's a community. It's a movement, and it starts with a book. She's like, Oh, and I'm like, Oh, because it happened so fast out of my mouth. So here we are. Me and this woman, who had just met six to eight weeks prior in a whole nother state are then sitting with the Lord. Like, What is this community and movement that starts with a book called Kingdom Driven Entrepreneur? And by the way, Lord, what is it, kingdom driven entrepreneur? And have we ever been that before? And how are we writing a book about it? It was the craziest, craziest year. And so for the next several months, it was us and the Lord just in this rhythm of just like, this is what it's like to walk with me. This is what it's like to walk in obedience to be yielded to me and all of these things. And we wrote this book based off of just what we'd been learning, and we released it for free. And then in it, we invited people to join us in a community that we just started on Facebook. And then a couple of thousand folks showed up and we're like, OK, Lord, now what? So Kingdom driven entrepreneurs started in 2012 from two essential strangers and who didn't really know what the phrase meant, even though we were both believers. But those words were very specific, kingdom driven entrepreneur. And so it was just such a wild time, and I and I always share with people. And this was very unusual for me to just be taking these steps. You know, that didn't make any sense to me. Based off of the leading of the Holy Spirit, I was a computer software engineer. I was a program manager, a program director of highly analytical. I had to make sense and I had to have risk mitigation plan. So all of this Holy Spirit led stuff was so just different for me. But I could not deny God's presence all over, and so I just kept following the breadcrumbs.
Henry Kaestner: So when when people say to you, what does it mean to be a kingdom driven entrepreneur? How do I get there? How do I figure out whether I've achieved it or I'm on the path toward it? But what does it mean to be kingdom driven and what do you say?
Shae Bynes: Yeah. So if we look at each of the words, we'll leave entrepreneur alone. Essentially, we're just talking about someone who's creating something, doing a business. So we'll leave that alone, but driven. When you think about that word, it has these two definitions that I focus in on. One of those is motivated, like what's motivating you? And then the other one is propel. So what's propelling you forward? So when we say a kingdom driven entrepreneur, we're saying that your entrepreneurial endeavors, they are motivated by seeing an increase of the Kingdom of God on Earth, and they are propelled forward by seeking first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, knowing that all things will be added.
Henry Kaestner: OK, to hit that again, that's important. So one was propel. Yes. And what was the other one?
Shae Bynes: The other one was motivated murder. What's driving you? What's motivating you and then what's propelling you
Henry Kaestner: forward like that? I like the propelling part. You know, I spent a little bit of time thinking about the driven part, too, because we're Faith Driven Entrepreneur and I want to get away from any type of connotation where it's just limited to, well, like you drive a team of oxen or something like that, right? And there's this kind of yoke that becomes heavier. But I like what you've really just described right there with this propelled. And so that's really key. So thank you for that.
Shae Bynes: Absolutely, absolutely. And so in essence, what we're talking about is doing business and partnership with God, you know, let an empowered by the Holy Spirit so experiences best and have a greater kingdom impact through the work that we do. So that's pretty much what we're about.
Henry Kaestner: Gotcha. Good. OK. So as you go through and you've been doing this for a long time, obviously, what are some of the challenges you see entrepreneurs and business leaders facing today?
Shae Bynes: Yeah. Well, when people show up to kingdom driven entrepreneur, it's often because they were compelled by the idea of doing business in partnership with God. It was almost like, that sounds about right, like what I should be doing as a believer in Jesus, but I don't really know what that looks like. And so what we find as. One of the most significant challenges, as we've been mentoring folks for years now, is people building their confidence that they do hear from God. Period. You would think that that would be an obvious thing, but it's not. And so for many people, they're just like, Hey, well, you know, have a prayer life. And yes, I read the scriptures and all of those things. But the idea of the Lord being so interested in the details of their business life, their professional life, all of those things for a lot of people, the beginning struggle for them is building that confidence that he actually cares a lot about this business. And he actually speaks to me. He is. There's actually a source of a blueprint in my business. There's a source of provision for my business. There's a source of divine insight and a vision. All of these things that can come just in that secret place with the Lord. And so that's something that we find that takes a bit of time for people, depending on what their upbringing was and the faith. There's some and more untangling to do with some people than others, but I do find that people do struggle with that a little bit with that idea. They like the idea. But then when it comes to walking it on a practicality, they end up doing what I call a lot of grinding in their head about it. Yeah, the mind grind.
Henry Kaestner: So I think that's really, really important. And that guy gets really actively involved. And I think that a barometer. I'm wondering if you'd agree with this, I guess, is I'm about to talking about prayer. Being so important is probably hard to disagree about prayer. But what I've found is that when I can really tap into that truth that you just laid out that can actually really does care about the business, it's a blueprint or framework. He cares about the interactions that I have and that I actually have an opportunity to check in with him then regularly through the day. And if I'm in a season where I'm praying a lot and not necessarily always this deep, deep, deep prayers, but Lord, help me understand this. Or Lord, please forgive me for that. Lord, thank you for that. Then I'm more conscious of the fact that he actually does care about the business. Do you find the same?
Shae Bynes: Absolutely. I mean, that's what I would call working and his rest having just that active awareness of the presence of God with you as you work, because a lot of times believers will come into business and say, Oh, I'm doing this business for God, I'm doing this for the glory of God. I'm on a mission. I'm going to I'm going to do this kingdom business and we're like, Wait, wait, wait, that's nice. But what we really want you to do is experience is best by doing business with God, which will also reveal his glory, which will also be for him. Right. It is for the glory of God. But doing that with God. That's the difference maker, because you can certainly grind it out, do all kinds of things and be all out of whack doing things. You know, under this banner of this burden of I'm doing this for God and missing his presence in the midst of it.
Rusty Rueff: Yeah, I find it fascinating. Shay, we recently had a guest on the podcast who says that if you walk close enough with God and you listen close enough to God, God will tell you, you know, the things that you should or shouldn't do in your business. But the most interesting thing that he said after that was, and it's my responsibility to listen to what God is telling me. And then it's my responsibility to accept that and understand that, you know, I might go out and ask a bunch of advisors. I may ask my pastor, you know, is God saying the right things to me? And but it's really my responsibility. He's talking to me. It's a personal relationship. And therefore I may make a different decision in my business than somebody else would think I should. But you know, God wouldn't talk to them. He's talking to me.
Shae Bynes: Yes. That's it. It's, you know, God is the source. Everyone. Everything else is a resource. I mean, I find myself saying that to people every single week. It's just like and part and in business that can be very hard for people if they're led by experts or, you know, led by opportunity or led by the money or led by whatever, but not led by the Holy Spirit. You can just find yourself in these places where you're capturing blueprints from other people that really aren't there. It's not the design for what God's placed on your heart, you know? And so that's why it's so important to do this thing with God.
Henry Kaestner: God is the source. We are just a resource.
Shae Bynes: Everyone and everything else is a resource. Everything and everyone.
Rusty Rueff: Yeah, yeah. That's a really, really good. So that's the communication with God's side. What are some of the other challenges of being in, you know, in business partnership with God?
Shae Bynes: Yeah. So in kingdom driven entrepreneur, we're focusing on, you know, doing business with the presence of the King of Kings, with the mindset of the King of Kings and in the ways of the King of Kings. And when it comes to that mindset and ways of the King of Kings, I find another challenge is just the unlearning of certain worldly things that create success for business owners. But yet? Are not aligned with the kingdom, weigh the ways of our king. And so there's a tension in that because, you know, there's a lot of people who when they learned business, they learned how to do it X, Y and Z, and then they show up and they're like, Oh, wait, this doesn't even really quite feel right. And I'm especially talking about things and marketing just the operations of business and marketing and sales and all of those things. And then they're having to unlearn so many things that they tie to success because what they saw was someone else experiencing success. And so getting people to one, be willing to go through that unlearning and to redefine success as faith plus their obedience equaling your success. You know, when you make that shift, then you can realize as long as I'm operating in faith in God, as I'm moving forward, as long as I'm operating and responsive and obedient to what he's speaking to me, whether it's in the scripture or just spoke by the spirit, whatever that is, I'm already a success. All the other things are fruit and manifestations of that as you walk it out. But getting people to get that from here to here is a process. It really is.
Rusty Rueff: So what do you see going on in the bigger movement? I mean, we just got done having our Faith Driven Entrepreneur conference and Faith Driven Investor conference and how many watch parties Henry
Henry Kaestner: 294 in 53 countries. But who's counting?
Shae Bynes: Amazing, you guys.
Henry Kaestner: Amazing Asians on the move chair. You've seen an uptick too. I mean, you get any sense that they're God's doing something.
Shae Bynes: Yes, I have been feeling that way since kingdom driven entrepreneurs started. And over the past three years, an increasing measure. As you watch the dynamics of what has happened and kind of globally, this idea of the marketplace and how we show up as believers in the marketplace is and also our ability to seek the wisdom of heaven versus the wisdom of the world for our ability to operate out of heaven's economy and kingdom economy versus the world's economy. All of these things are becoming increasingly important. Our ability to collaborate with one another is becoming increasingly important, right? And so for me, I just sense that as we continue over these next five years, 10 years, 15 years, that things that we thought were kind of a nice that sounds nice 10 years ago were saying, No, this is an imperative right now.
Rusty Rueff: I feel that I absolutely feel that. I mean, if you if you cast that against the things that are going on in the world, right? And you go, how how could we make it through right if not growing this movement, you know, making sure that, you know, the kingdom driven entrepreneur of the kingdom, you know, the Faith Driven Entrepreneur. However, anybody wants to define it are being supported and equipped to make it through this time because we're in, you know, I guess every generation province says this, you know, we're in it. We're at a time like no other. So so we're not the first ones to say it. But, you know, I certainly feel the burden to equip absolutely to help, you know.
Shae Bynes: And the thing is, there's a desire for kingdom solutions. There's a need for kingdom solutions. And so if we don't have people in the marketplace who are doing business with God right, then we miss out on these opportunities to bring solutions to real challenges that are not just we're not trying to talk about, you know, creating a Christian club, but like really having an impact on cities, having an impact on industries, all of those things for the glory of God, you know? And so it's just increasingly important. It really is.
Henry Kaestner: Share what's on your T-shirt. There's a big word stay, yes.
Shae Bynes: What's under one of my mentees is her shirt. It says, stay sane. I like
Henry Kaestner: that. I like that. You learn so much about what somebody got in this world is so much about what's in their background. And so one of the things that I see on on your lower right is just this very simple sign. You are loved.
Shae Bynes: Yes.
Henry Kaestner: And I think that that's easy to kind of just throw away and just like, well, of course of love, you know, it's a Christian thing and makes me feel good. But you've got this book grace over a grind where you kind of really go into what that means. You are love. Yeah, yeah. Tell Rusty, you know, in our audience more about that.
Shae Bynes: What the you are loved part is so key because if we don't have revelation of the love of God for us, yes for the world, yes for humanity, but for you as an individual, it is very difficult to grow in your trust. And I mean, your complete yielded surrendered trust in him without a revelation of love, because this is perfect love that casts out our fear of being fully yielded and trusting to God. And so one of the things that God did for me, which was such a gift, is just in those months prior to kingdom driven entrepreneur even launching, you know, at the end of 2012, as I just had, I had a series of amazing life-changing encounters with God where he was revealing his love to me. And after that it broke all of my need to know all the details. My need to have the backup plans, the the need for it to make sense. Based off of my experience and my wisdom, it broke that for me. And so I'm a huge, huge advocate. I'm consistently praying for people to have personal encounters with the love of God because it's that love that breaks a lot of the stuff that goes on in our minds and in our hearts so that we can really walk and experience experiences best. So that aspect of love is. It really is everything it's and it's the foundation of really growing an intimacy with God, which is everything.
Rusty Rueff: It is, isn't it? Yeah. I'm so glad you're reinforcing that. Take us into this book Grace over grind, Andrew and I've been sitting here thinking to ourselves, OK, you know, we know that grind part. You know, we feel that grind part, you know? Tell us about the grace part.
Shae Bynes: Sure. OK, so here's how this book came up about maybe six months after kingdom driven entrepreneurs started. I mean, I still had some grind in me, OK? I mean, that's how I grew up in business. So I had that hustle and grime mentality, but now it's going to be doing it, you know, for Jesus. But about six months in after we started, I was in church and our pastor did a sermon and it was on Matthew Chapter 11, verse 28 through 30. And this is the scripture that most people are familiar with. When Jesus is saying, you know, come to me, all of those who are weary, you'll fight, you know, I'll give you rest. And he talks about how his yoke is easy and his burden is light, right? But our pastor read it in the message that particular day and I had never heard it before, and it says, Are you tired, worn out, burnt out on religion? Come to me, get away with me and you will recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me. Work with me. Watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't let anything heavy or ill fitting on. You keep company with me and you will learn to live freely and lightly. Gentlemen.
Henry Kaestner: Eugene Peterson is the man you know, I tell you. He was maybe a modern day John the Baptist. But that is poetry, isn't it?
Shae Bynes: It resonated so strongly with me, and I now call this the width factor it was. Come with me. Work with me, you know. Walk with me. Watch me. Do it. Keep company with me. That was the invitation there. And so I'm thinking, Oh, wow, like, I'm really I'm really missing something here. What is an unforced rhythm of grace? That sounds amazing? And what is it like to truly do all things with you? So that was the invitation that I was experiencing in my heart, and I just said, Yes, show me all of that. And so the book was birthed out of years of walking that out of doing business with him and then ended up being a book release. But you had asked about this whole idea of grind and grace, and so I define grind as excessive hard work. You know, you're doing things primarily in your own strength, which is what a lot of people do. And if they don't do it all the time, they certainly have seasons of time that that's what they do, or maybe 25 percent or 50 percent of the time that they do that. But when we think about what's available to us with God's grace, which is just this empowerment, it's an empowerment from God to do all you were called to do, to be all you were called to be and to actually experience things that you would never, ever, ever. Be able to experience on your own just because of the favor of God through that alignment with him. And so when I talk about grace, it's funny because a lot of times people will hear the message and they immediately say, Oh, this is all about working too many hours. Oh, OK, so I work 80 hours a week or I work 60 hours a week. Well, you can grind 10 hours a week. You can work in your own strength 10 hours a week. You can work in your own strength five hours a week. So I've been spending this time just like, no, no, no, no. If you're doing it primarily in your own strength, no matter how many hours you're doing it, you are not experiencing God's best, which is doing all things with him, right? And so that's what's available to us. And so and the book I talk about, you know, some of the signs of that you're grinding and what those things look like and people who want to put it in the box of how many hours they work immediately start finding themselves within that.
Rusty Rueff: I think I think you should tell us some of those steps. Yeah, sure, sure. I think our listeners would love to know what those are.
Shae Bynes: Absolutely. So one of them is financial anxiety, which, by the way, you can have whether you have a lot of money or a little money. OK? Financial anxiety is when you're constantly concerned about the finances. For people who have a lot of finances, they're thinking, Oh my gosh, I'm one step away from the shoe dropping or Oh my gosh, I have to be cuts. I'm going to bed with anxiety because I just don't know if we're going to be in this place for long or what's going to happen. It's just this constant concern about the finances, which is also a sign of a lack of revelation of God as provision, but that's a different podcast episode. So there's financial anxiety, there's prayer looseness, and I don't mean you never pray, but it just may be a routine. You know, I pray because I'm about to eat. I pray because I'm about to go to bed. I pray and thank God because I woke up this morning, but not that intentional communication with God throughout the day, inviting him into your spaces of life, including your work life, and also that willingness to be still enough to hear him as he will interrupt your day. Right? So just that communication with God. So prayer. Listen, this is another sign, the sign that people, if they haven't heard it yet, they find it now is what I call the mind grind. And that's where you have over analysis. You have analysis paralysis. You end up procrastinating because you're constantly churning in your head. For those who have decided to do business with God, their churn often looks like, I don't know, was it God? Was this me? Was it the pizza I ate last night? Is this really what God desires for me to do and just stay stagnated out of that place because they're not experiencing the freedom that they have in Christ to go and create? And by the way, to be course corrected if you go in the wrong direction, right? Which is the benefit of doing it with him in his rest, right? So those are some of the signs people who say things like, Hey, if it's going to be, it's up to me. They take a burden that actually doesn't belong to them. It's about operating in diligence, but it's not about taking on this burden as if, Oh, it all depends on me and people who have backgrounds with people where maybe someone said that they weren't going to amount to anything or someone who doesn't believe in their dream or someone who was, you know, said something rude to them when they were 10 or whatever. Sometimes there's these things in their heart that they carry out later that then you feel like I have something to prove. So now I'm doing this because I'm going to show such and such. So now I've carried on this burden, I'm going to do this in my own strength because I need to prove something to either myself or to somebody else, right? So those those are just some of the ways, but there's so many ways that we end up operating primarily in our own strength. And that's just not God's best, and it's not the way that we really begin to reveal his glory. If you grind it out in your own strength, you know at the end of the day and say to God, be the glory. Nobody believes you. It's like, Well, yeah, if I did all of that right? But it's like, No, when you are actually doing this thing with God, you will experience so much favor and supernatural productivity and all these things that you can only say. Well, I got a God story on that. And that really reveals his goodness. And it also helps us to access the heavenly solutions that are available to us and not just the solutions based off of our own wisdom and experiences, but really, you know, leaning into the voice of the Lord on things too. I got so many ridiculous testimonies of that. It's not even funny.
Henry Kaestner: I believe it. I believe it. And I think that not only can we, if we tap into him, can we get his design, his blueprint, but then we can also get this sense of joy and gratitude. And when we really realize the depths of his love for us and what this grace really means, then we can just we're happy. We're joyful, we're grateful. And then it's almost like a nuclear source of energy, right? And then what ends up happening? Is she any time you spend any time with you, it's it's you've got this attractiveness to you that's coming about because you really. Have received this grace, you know, there's a joy in your heart because you understand that you're the daughter of the most high. And then, as it turns out, what ends up? Not only do you have his ideas, but then you've got this energy that doesn't flag because the other sources are trying to show somebody else or, you know, doing things out are your own shape. It's just fatiguing, right? But it is. You've got this. If you're part by joy and gratitude, you've got you've got something right?
Shae Bynes: That's right. And that's actually one of them. One of the signs of the grind. No joy. No peace. That's one of them, right? Because sometimes people are like, Oh, you're saying everything's going to be easy? No, I'm saying that even when it's inevitably challenging because it will. You know, and I've got plenty of those testimonies, too. I can still move through those challenges with God and with joy and with peace despite circumstances. And if we're not doing that, it doesn't mean that we're not as kids, we're still as kids, but it means that we're not operating in him right with him. And so that's the difference maker.
Rusty Rueff: So I'm going to ask the question of the skeptic who's probably listening and going, Wow, that sounds great. That's exactly what I want to get to. But right now, it's, you know, I've got to hustle, I've got to grind it out. I'm the only one that can get this done. I'm the leader, I've got investors, I've got a board. I've got to beat the competition. If I can only grind it out a little longer, a lot longer, I'm sure I can get to where she's telling me to get to. But right now, right now, what is what do you say?
Shae Bynes: I'd first say you can't grind your way to grace. Number one. So there's already something in your mindset that makes you believe that you have to do this on your own. I'm telling you that if the thought is that if I just do more of this, then I can experience this, that that's not his best for you. His best for you is to take a moment to step back and to seek his heart concerning what you're doing. What are your thoughts concerning this, Lord? These are my plans. Here's what I'm thinking. What are your thoughts? What's your heart concerning these people? I'm serving through business. What are your heart concerning? You know the people in this company? What's your heart concerning the investors who are showing up and supporting taking that step back and aligning your thoughts with his, your heart and your thoughts with his is everything. And so I would say you will experience that much more when you get in alignment with him rather than trying to do it all in your own strength to then later say, OK, now that I've done it, now that I've done it, you know all of my own strength. Lord, what do you have to say about that? I promise you, it's an invitation from me. You don't have to take it. But if you take that invitation, you will be so glad that you did and you will not want to do business any other way. Those are the facts.
Rusty Rueff: That's a challenge. That is a good challenge, right?
Shae Bynes: It's the best challenge.
Rusty Rueff: Is there any other challenge or call to action you'd like to give our listeners because you've got them right now?
Shae Bynes: Yeah, sure. So a call to action for someone who might be that skeptic or maybe isn't a skeptic, but is like, OK, well, what is this really practical look like? I'll give one step one first action step that you can take, and that's what I call a daily business meetings with God. And so if you've never really engaged God in a practical way with your business, one way you can do it as a starting point is just as opposed to looking at your personal devotional time as, Hey, I read the scripture, you know, hey, I I prayed this prayer. I sang this one worship song even include like your to do list surrender your to do list. Actually have a conversation with the Lord concerning your plans for the week, your plans for the day, that important meeting that you had coming up and ask God for his thoughts. Ask God to give you his heart concerning those things. And even if you feel like I'm not sure that I really heard him, I'm not sure that this is him. I could be making all this stuff up. I want you to operate as if if it doesn't go counter to the word of God, I want you to operate as if, because that's part of the faith walk. But the Bible says that my sheep hear my voice, which means he does speak to you and you have the ability to hear and to walk that out. So that's when I want to challenge anyone who's just like, wondering, Well, what's my first step on that? I would challenge them with that as the first step.
Rusty Rueff: I love this. I love this daily business meeting with God, Henry, you don't have to do it on Zoom. Know how to do that on my own.
Shae Bynes: No, you and your office, you taking a walk, whatever you know. But to just really do it
Henry Kaestner: right before we go to Rusty daily blog. So I'm fascinated by this. I would like you free you to make. It gives a real example if you can. You may have listened to a podcast before and understand that at the end, we always ask somebody. And this is what William will ask and Williams out today. But when we ask somebody what they're hearing from God recently through his word, so I'm going to combine that question with what you're hearing from God in your daily business meetings recently. And maybe it's day, maybe it's a couple of weeks ago and you're thinking about. Your business, are you thinking about the ministry? What's something that you've heard from God because you've gone to him?
Shae Bynes: Yes, recently. Yeah, so, so many things. But the first thing that popped in my head is so I'm in the midst of a little bit of a transition. My husband became CEO of Kingdom Driven LLC last November. That's a whole nother God story. And so when he became CEO, I knew it was because the Lord was opening up some new things for me to take Kingdom solutions and some other areas outside of entrepreneurship. And so I've been kind of doing that wrestling with the Lord in terms of how to walk that out, because what he's shown me from a vision perspective is way outside of my experience, way outside of what I could even create an action plan for. And so one of the things that I heard from the Lord as I was just really seeking his heart concerning how do I steward what you've shown me now, even though I just it just doesn't make sense. I don't, I don't know how to do it. He said to me, Right now, I want you to connect the dots and connect the people. And so when I heard that it was cool because that made sense because I noticed that he was sending people my way, I was having a conversation with people about topics I normally wouldn't have. And then I was realizing, I'm not having conversations with people that this person really needs to know this person and that person really needs to know that person. And so God's been doing is, as I've been researching things like an economics and a government and all kinds of things that guys got me up into now that were beyond my, you know, thoughts as I'm doing that, he's connecting all the pieces together. And so he just gave me that one assignments want to have to create a whole action plan, a blueprint, a 10 year strategy around it. I just need to walk this thing out, Stewart at step by step and it starts with me with connecting the dots and connecting the people. So that's a really practical thing that he gave me to do.
Henry Kaestner: So what does that look like then for you, how you do that?
Shae Bynes: So it literally means when there's been books that I needed to read on particular topics, I'm asking him, OK, I said before I buy the books, which ones do you want me to read? I'm reading those books, and as I'm reading those books and as he think connecting people to me, I'm saying, OK, Lord, what is what's the purpose of this meeting? What's your heart concerning this meeting? And I've been literally connecting people and connecting the dots between things that they're sharing, things that I'm reading and putting those things together. Because at this point, for that aspect of an assignment that is coming, that's how I steward that right now on the kingdom driven entrepreneur side. Earlier this year, I got an instruction which was, This is a season for you to invest. Well, I didn't want to assume, OK, well, this means I need to invest in X, Y and Z. I was like, I have more questions. Invest in what? Invest in whom I went and looked up the word invest to go. Look at all the definitions of the word invest. It was like, OK, Lord, what aspect of this invest? Are you speaking to me about? And I ended up with like a little list of things I needed to do to invest in myself, things I needed to do to invest in the business that were not things that we had invested in before, right? There were things that we need to invest in and other people. And I just had this list of what this looks like to invest. And I didn't operate out of assumption. I asked and I sat with him and I worked through that thing, and then I would take steps for those things. And we are seeing the fruit already of that instruction that I got in April to make the investments that he put on our heart to invest in.
Henry Kaestner: Talk a little bit about investing, if you can. You may know that we have a ministry called Faith Driven Investor. We've got a blog and we have podcast and a conference, but riff a little bit more about that, about the investment concept. And maybe even I shouldn't limit it by any stretch to financial investment. But just tell us a little bit more about a mindset that we might share with our Faith Driven Investor audience.
Shae Bynes: Yeah, sure. So when I was my immediate thought, which is, I said, an operating assumption, when I think invest, I was really I'm a real estate investor, so I immediately think invest financially in something, right? So that's why I didn't want to operate just off of that assumption. But it ended up being invest in several different ways, investing financially and some areas of our business. There were areas to financially invest in, and we did. There was areas to invest time in. There were things that I needed to make sure I allocated and blocked aspects of time on my calendar to intentionally invest time in either researching something which was the case for me. There were things I need to research. I need to invest time in doing because it was a season for now. There was things I need to invest in in my family life. There were things I need to invest in with my kids. This last three months has been an intensely family focused investment for me, right? So there was all these areas, so I didn't put the word invest in a box, and I allowed him to unpack that for me so that I can see where it was investing in things that were related to my mindset, investing in things that were related to relationships, investing in things that required a financial investment that maybe ordinarily I wouldn't have made at this time. But because I'm doing this by the leading Holy Spirit, I'm going to trust God and go, right.
Henry Kaestner: So I want you to know that I'm hearing you when you're talking about this broader sense of investing, I think it's very important for every investor to know that. And yet I still find myself. I want to. Bring you back to the real estate part. Yes. So you're clearly driven by your faith. What is what is real estate investing look like from your faith perspective in your daily meetings with God? How does your faith manifests itself out through that investment? Yeah.
Shae Bynes: Well, for one, we're not active real estate investors right now, but I know that we were going to be engaging in real estate investing again in the future. And one of the things that Laura really put on our heart as it relates to real estate is how we do it, which would be different than the way we did it before I ever did business with him. Right? So in the past, I would look at a deal and just based off of whatever information I can gather and the wisdom I have about a good deal. It's like, Go do the deal going back into it now, I'm not basing it just off of that information. I want to actually see God about investments as well, because quite honestly, just because something is good on paper doesn't mean it's good for right now or good for us because he sees a larger picture. So now when we go back into real estate investing, which will probably be on the commercial side when we come back, we were all residential before. But we're going to be operating in a new area. And so I will be leaning into, yes, my peers who are really great with commercial investing and yes, the books and yes, the experience that I have from investing. But I will also be leaning into the voice of the Lord as it relates to making decisions about some of these investments, right? So I really want to align myself with him and make sure that we're building, you know, according to God's best for what we're focused in on right now.
Henry Kaestner: So when you do real estate investing, whether you're doing it with apartments in residential or whether you're doing with commercial, you're dealing with a lot of people. Do you get a sense about how what's the opportunity for spiritual integration or gospel proclamation through the actual the interaction? And don't let me be prescriptive or presumptuous, although it sounds that quite like the question is a bit. But what does that look like now as you're coming out of this period where you've been completely focused on kingdom driven entrepreneur getting back into that when the rubber meets the road? Are there opportunities for that?
Shae Bynes: Well, I think that God often presents opportunities. My mindset is that I don't go in with an agenda of my own. So in all my engagements with people, I want the Kings agenda first. And so that means I want to be sensitive to the the Holy Spirit when I'm having conversations with people. So if there is a door open that allows me to be an encouragement to them or share something that I really sense my spirit concerning them or whatever. I'm going to go for it because God presented that opportunity. But the key is that I don't have an agenda. I'm agenda less. It's really just whatever the king's agenda is here. That's what I want. So I'll pray before the meeting. We go in there and that's just how I operate. I mean, and kingdom driven entrepreneur, everyone's a believer, but I still operate that way. Then, you know, and whether I'm in the marketplace, encountering people who are believers aren't believers, whatever. Same thing, honestly.
Rusty Rueff: That's that's if I could personally get to that, that would be such a wonderful place to be right to be a genderless, you know, and just to let God take over the agenda. That's an encouraging word you say,
Henry Kaestner: because otherwise it, you know, sometimes I've got a good friend of mine and talks about, I'll ask him, How are you doing? He's like, Well, you know, I'm selling something to somebody, and he's a great loving man. So he's not always selling something to somebody. But nonetheless, most of my meetings, I'm selling that idea. I'm trying to recruit them into something. I'm trying to encourage them to maybe lead a Faith Driven Entrepreneur ERG group, you know, fill in the blanks of the different things that I have. I have agendas in many, if not most, if not all, of my meetings. And that's a radical thought process.
Shae Bynes: Yes, so agenda. So some people also, OK, I'll talk words right if I have a meeting and I know there's certain things that are to be accomplished in that meeting, one could say that's an agenda. I'll have that agenda. So I have there's a reason why we're meeting and there's something to accomplish during that meeting. But when I say that I don't have an agenda, it means that I am allowing God to be the god of outcomes of that meeting period, whatever that looks like. So yes, I'm showing up with the intention of having a conversation about whatever the thing is at hand or whatever. But as it relates to the outcomes of that meeting, I really do allow God to be the guy to the outcome of that meeting and a yielded agenda looks like I thought we were going to talk about one, two and three. But in the midst of conversation about two, it looks like we need to have a conversation. We need to veer over here and we're never going to get to three. And I'm OK with that because why God is provision? We're just having a conversation here, right? And so that's how I just got a really practical way. Show up in my conversations with people is even with this interview, when I had a conversation prior to this, I was like, Listen, whatever God wants to do in the interview, I don't need a list of questions. I don't need any of that. I'm just going to show up whatever God wants to do in that conversation. That's what we're doing. I have no agenda. You don't have to share about a particular book. You know, if it comes up, it comes up. It's like, I just want to do whatever is on God's heart concerning a situation. And so that's just the way I roll, and I have been very, very pleased with the adventure. I call it the wild and crazy and amazing adventure with God that I've been experiencing as I yield myself in that way. We love,
Rusty Rueff: we love the way you roll. I got to tell you, I've gotten more out of today's podcast now that I have, you know, from so many others. And look, this idea of daily business meeting with God is such a powerful concept because I'm sitting here thinking to myself, how could I claim to be in partnership with someone who I don't meet with daily? How can I ever do that, right? I mean, that's because, you know what? In the real world, you know, not in the spiritual world. What would happen is your partner would go, you're not a partner of mine because you don't meet with me and I don't want to be your partner. But you know, because of God's grace. Yeah, let's just skip those right there to skip those, but come back to him and ultimately come back in partnership with him. But that this could be a life changing thing for me, and I hope for our listeners, to my daily business meeting with God.
Shae Bynes: Thank you. That's right. And Rusty, if you don't mind me sharing this, it's like in the beginning, that's your step one is just really getting in this rhythm of being diligent about having business meetings with God. But what happens is as you grow in intimacy with God, what ends up happening is now you'll move from having a intentional daily business meeting with God to I just flow with God throughout my day and all the things that I do. It becomes just this kind of flowing engagement with the Lord throughout the day, right? But it does begin with yielding yourself and your business to him in a really intentional way. And the other tip I'll give for some people who are concerned about like, do what am I hearing his voice or whatever is, try reading the scripture and asking Holy Spirit before you read to bring this word to life for me, talk to me about me in the midst of these words that I'm reading. I mean, an intentional way. Just let to be the intention of your heart. And when you do that, as opposed to reading, because it's the good Christian thing to do to read that Bible, when you do that, you will encounter God in that way and begin to realize, Oh wow, I do hear him. Oh, wow. Like, he is speaking to me and began to walk that out. So just little, little things that were so instrumental for me, not even growing up in a church where we even talked about. Absolutely. So really, that intimacy with God was I was the process for me.
Rusty Rueff: I started doing that with God's word a number of years ago, a pastor said, Don't be afraid to go to God's word and say, This is what I need, Lord. And he used the example of, you know, he said, Maybe I just need a hug today, God, I just need a hug and then go to his word. And I have more than once asked, You know, boy, I just need a hug today. And every time he shows up, it's the intentionality of it. Yes, right? It's is. It is this partnership idea. It's this partnership idea of sharing back and forth what I need. What can I do for you? How can I help you walk back and forth? That's what partners do.
Shae Bynes: That's it. So, so good.
Henry Kaestner: Well, as we come to a close, I'm going to fill in for William on this. I'm going to ask you that question I alluded to before. Is there anything that you're hearing specifically in God's word, from scripture that he's speaking to you about and that you might offer up as an encouragement to others as well?
Shae Bynes: Yeah, I will want to remind everyone around Ephesians three and 20 which God's talks to me a whole lot about around just this whole thing about now is to him who is able to do exceeding abundantly. Above all, you could ask or imagine, according to the power that works within you. So that helps us remember the yield ourselves to God and also reminds us of the power we have in Christ operating and partnership with the Holy Spirit in our lives. And we yield ourselves in that way. We can experience way more than we ever could have even thought or imagined. And so I just want to encourage people with that today.
Henry Kaestner: That's a great encouragement. Shay, thank you very, very much. Kingdom driven entrepreneur. Great podcast you go check out the book Grace Over Grind is a great concept to take away and seek to apply. And I think that it goes really hand-in-hand with the mark of a Faith Driven Entrepreneur that that our audience will be really familiar with about willfulness versus faithfulness, but also identity crisis. There's a lot of things that are wrapped up in that, and but it's just a great thing. Am I being powered today by grace or am I in the grind? So check out the book and the ministry in the podcast. Thank you very much.
Shae Bynes: Thank you so much. I enjoyed our chat.