I'm your host, Amy Dardis. And in today's episode, we're actually kicking off a new series, and we're going to be diving into the topic of idols and what idols look like in our life today, especially as leaders, especially as entrepreneurs. As much as I love talking about the practical and operational aspects of business, talking about hiring and recruiting and alignments and frameworks, none of that really gets us anywhere if our own heart isn't right first. Because what we do, how we live, the decisions we make are all based on what we value and what we believe. The same way we talk about how core values guide our decision makings and guide our behaviors. Well, even deeper than that is what we believe as a person, as an individual, about our identity, about our purpose, what we believe about God in our life and his role, whether he's sovereign and in control, or whether he is just something that we believe in, but maybe don't really bring him into the forefront of how we live or how we operate our business. And this series, diving into this, isn't so much about me having it all figured out because I certainly do not. This is me sharing my own journey and my own story of what it has been like, the struggles and the idols that I have wrestled with as an entrepreneur for the last 15 years. And unfortunately, we're a lot like the Israelites. I wish we weren't, but but we are, and I certainly am, where I can have an idol in my life. I can be wrestling with something, I can be putting something before God. I can go through a season of being disciplined and being shaped and being led through that. I can learn the lesson and it can stick for a while, but it can also rear its ugly head up again years later because I kind of forget. I kind of get distracted. I kind of veer off course. And we see this happen over and over in the Bible, and it's because it happens over and over in our own lives as people. It's easy to kind of forget about the hard lessons that we learned. And I think there's definitely lessons that we learn that really stick, but so many of them are not just like a one and done. They're not just like, oh, I learned that lesson and now I will never do it again. I think God can remind us gently and sometimes not so gently, like, hey, we have been here before. You have put this before me before. And here I am once again, and we're gonna we're gonna walk through this and gonna walk you through what it really means to put me first in your life. And I think it's easy to just think about God as just something that we believe in and this power that is kind of disconnected from our everyday life. It's very easy to get caught up in the day-to-day of business and operations and people and marketing and branding and Monday through Friday or even Sunday to Sunday, like we are focusing on what do we need to do for our business? What do we need to do for our people? What do we need to do for our customers? And then, yeah, sure, we go to church on Sunday, or yeah, sure, we're praying at night before bed, or maybe early in the morning with coffee. But how much of that, how much of God's leading and his will and his power is really determining our steps in our day-to-day life and our steps in how we run our business and the decisions that we choose to make. Because if I have learned anything, it is that running my business God's way versus running my business the world's way are two very different paths. And they're always at odds against each other. And so in every season, I think I have been wrestling with something. And so when we talk about idols, you know, in the Bible, the the Israelites had a golden calf, or they would make statues or sheriff poles, or, you know, there was these physical objects that in our head it's easy to be like, well, I don't have that. Like I believe in God and I go to church. But the the definition of an idol is an object or even an abstract concept that is given a higher priority than God. It's something that we rely on for blessing or help or guidance instead of God. It's anything that consumes our heart, our imagination, or our devotion more than God. And it's any good thing that we elevate to a position of being the main thing. It's something that we give more importance, more influence, more prominence over God in our life. And I will tell you right now, I have had a lot of those. There, I I mean, I wish I didn't. I wish I could sit here and say, oh no, God has always been first, but he hasn't. And therein lies this series of breaking down the things that I have struggled with that to the that that aren't even necessarily bad things. And that's the thing, is an is an idol isn't necessarily something that is bad. And the ones I'm gonna talk about that that I have wrestled with certainly don't come across as being evil or bad, but at times in my life, they were things that I gave more importance, more prominence over God. They were things that I relied on, that I invested into more heavily than I was relying on God. And so those are the things I kind of want to break down. And when we talk about some of the things that we're gonna kind of dive into, it can be it's really surrounding this relationship between God's role in our life, our our role as an entrepreneur, and then our very own identity. And I have found that like our a lot of my identity has been wrapped up into my business and into the success and the frustrations and the obstacles and the good and the bad along the way. And over the years, God has been breaking some of those things in my life, breaking some of those holes to say, like, your identity is not based on what you do or how you run your business. Your identity is based in me and in what you believe about me in your business. And this journey, all these ups and downs have brought me face to face with some very dark moments, some very tough decisions, some very like brutally honest truths of saying, What do I really believe about God? What do I really believe about myself? And how is this belief, how is this faith going to dictate the action that I choose to do next? How is it going to dictate how I choose to behave or how I choose to make this decision in my life, even when it seems to go against everything else that the world is telling me to do? And where is my hope? Is my hope in God? Or is my hope in my business? Is my hope in my own strength? Is my hope in my ability to make things happen? Is my hope in my plan and my ability to control and make decisions and call the shots? Is my hope in the approval of others or even the the scorecard, the statistics, the the profit and loss statement, the the wins and the losses and the the sales forecast? Is my hope in the advice and the strategies that I am getting from well-known business experts? Is my hope in trying to be my own hope and in trying to prove, prove that I'm something, prove that I am worthy, prove that I have what it takes to do this? Or is my hope in the comfort and the security that I've built up in benefits and income and comfort and thinking that I have it all figured out and that nothing can touch me? Or is my hope in, or or do I not have hope? Is my hope non-existent because I allow fear and doubt and stress to rule me instead? And that in itself is its own monster that we face, but also very, very real. It's it I think it's very real to not have hope in this world because we see so much darkness, we see so much devastation and brokenness and pain. Or we've been beat down and kicked so many times that it seems impossible to get out of the hole. It seems impossible to ever break free. It seems impossible that we could really overcome and life could be different, or our business could look different because we feel so stuck and we have felt stuck for so long. Been there too. And and in in that season, we we actually we stop having any hope and we definitely stop putting our hope in God. And so that becomes an idol in and of itself. And so over the next 10 episodes, each episode, we're gonna break down specific idols. And these are not, this is not all inclusive at all. Like this, these are just things that I personally have come face to face with and how they have run my life, affected my life, the the consequences that I have paid for them, but also God's grace through it all and his faithfulness, like getting me through and and kind of teaching me his way of doing business and teaching me about like the role that he plays in my life and in coming to just this process of maturing and growing as as a Christian, as an individual, as a leader, to say, wow, like you really are over it all and in it all and through it all. Like it really does all exist for your glory. And outside of you, man, I got nothing. Like this is humbled me and shaped me and wrecked me, you know, beyond anything I could have ever imagined. But at the same time, I look back and I'm like, wow, this is this is what it means to to be a follower of Christ, but this is what it means to live it out. And I love business, I love the ability to develop and use our God-given gifting and that that God has these calls on our life. But I have been so much more interested in what does it practically look like to live out our faith as a ministry in the world of business? Like, how do we build a business that honors God? But not even just building a business, but it's like, how do we lead our lives as entrepreneurs, as people who work in the workplace? And there are so many obstacles that we face, so many things that come into question that really challenge what it is that we believe. And, you know, we talk about idols, and the Bible is very clear, you know, in Exodus 20, God says, You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an image. Like that, like there should be nothing else more important in our life than God. And Corinthians, first Corinthians he says, like, therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry. In first John, he says, Dear children, keep yourselves from idols. And it shocks me, honestly, it it shocks me how easy it is to put an idol up there, how easy it is to drift away from God. And God really does have to be the center of it all. And the enemy's primary tactic of pulling us away from him is by stealing, killing, and destroying, and he does it through distraction, he does it slowly, and so it's easy for us to drift off. And I think about Peter in the boat, and Jesus is coming towards them, and there's this storm raging around them, and you have the wind and you have the waves, and they have been stuck in the boat for hours, not getting anywhere. And here comes Jesus walking out on the water, and Jesus says, or Peter says, like, if that's really you, tell me to come to you. And he gets out of the boat, so he has this incredible faith and he is fixing his gaze, he is fixing his focus on Jesus, and he's keeping his eyes on him, and while he does that, he walks on water, which is just, I mean, amazing. And I think that's the life God is calling us to live, right? When we he says, get out of the boat and focus on me. And all around us, we have this storm raging. All around us, we have demands and we have threats and we have opposition and we have people hiring problems and labor shortages, and we have the economy and the uncertainty of that, and we have tariffs, and we have prices going up, and then having to mitigate price increases to customers, and you have to look at how do we stay in the black and stay away from the red, and how do we make payroll and how do we grow and how do we beat out our competitor? And in the middle of all of running that business, like maybe have a family and you have kids and you have sports, and you're trying to be a good parent, and you're trying to be involved, and this is this is the storm that rages around us, and it doesn't ever go away, it very rarely ever gets calmed. And here, here God is saying, like, keep your eyes on me, like love me with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. Keep your eyes on me. And when we do, we we wage the the against the storm, like we walk on the water, we in the midst of this chaos of life, we're able to to do something incredible beyond what we could ever ask or imagine. But then we get distracted, we get distracted by the wind and the waves and the storm, and we get distracted by our own fear and our own doubt and our own inability in our own weaknesses, in our realization that wow, I cannot do this on my own. And we come face to face with that, and that's when we start to sink. That's when we start to drift. And this is what is happening on a daily basis, on a weekly, monthly, annual basis. Like this is life. Life is the storm. And there are all of these demands for our time and our attention. And a lot of them are not bad. Like this idea of, you know, like your business, that's not bad. Your your desire to be profitable in your business so you can pay your employees and so you can donate to your community and you can be a blessing to others. Like that is that's not bad. Wanting to be successful and wanting to like track your stats and your metrics and see that that it's growing, see that that your your sales are growing and that your the your leads are coming in and being able to track the leads to the sales, and none of none of those things are bad. But it's when we forget who's really in control. We forget whose glory this is all for. We forget that this life here on earth is so short, and there's an eternity that comes afterwards. That's when we get distracted, and that's when we start to focus. We put these other things, we give them more prominence, we give them more influence, we give them more power in our life than they should ever have. So we're gonna be just diving into that over the next few episodes. And like I said, I'm gonna just, I'm just gonna share my own story. Like these, these are just the idols I have struggled with, how they've showed up in my life, the struggle that I have had facing them, like the consequences of of what it did to my life in the meantime, what it how it affected my relationship with God. But ultimately over the last 15, 20 years of how God has like been reminding me and how, you know, when I keep my focus on him and when he becomes the most important thing in my life, what what that looks like. And and again, like I wish I I wish I could be like, yeah, I I have this all figured out, but I I don't. But you know, I don't think any of us are here to one, to be someone that we're not, or two to admit that we don't need Jesus because we absolutely do. But if anything, I don't think I'm the only one, or at least that's what I tell myself. But deep down, I think these are the things, these are the battles we face behind closed doors. These are the things that ultimately destroy us from the inside out. And these stories, these these struggles, these battles, they were so real for me. They were so hard, they were so defining for me. And I think too often in the business world, it's very easy to just slip into this facade of like, yep, we got it all figured out. Yep, like business is good, life is good. Because admitting defeat or admitting weakness is just that's that's not how this world works. That is not something we celebrate in the world's way of doing business. It's like you don't ever, you don't show your weakness, you don't show your flaws. And so if anything, I'm just I'm just gonna do this for you. I'm just going to share mine in in the hope that you can you can just listen to it just privately, just in the in in the comfort of your own car or your own home or on a walk, and and you can hear somebody else tell you that maybe that maybe they've struggled with something that is very much in line with the things you've struggled with. Like that you are not in this alone. And with anything like this podcast, I I do not want to shy away from the the real battles, like the real struggles and just the the way that God has worked and moved in our life and the actual all the business stuff, everything I've learned along the way, it's all stemmed from my like it's all stems from my faith. It all stems from what I believe and how that belief shapes how I show up and how I make decisions and how I've learned to run my business. And so those are that's the root of it, right? Like that is that is where it really all starts. And yeah, there's plenty of I think business experts out there. But this this approach, this podcast is really more about this idea of putting God first, understanding our own purpose and our identity and and what he calls us to do and what it is we believe in, how that relationship is play is lived out within our business and the decisions we make because of that, and the the way we treat our people, the way we treat our customers, the way we hire our people, the way that we build processes, why it matters that we have a healthy organization, those things will only matter to you if if deep down, like you are also led by God in his leading in your life on what you're really here on earth to do, what you're what you're really being called to do as an entrepreneur in this life. So that's we're gonna wrap up today's episode. As always, you can learn more at ClearAuthenticBrands.com. That's all for this episode. I am excited to jump into the next one.