Advertise on podcast: The Christian Entrepreneur

Nazareth had the money, the rooms and a network sitcom on the table. None of it touched the thing that was actually wrong. Most entrepreneurs are told the emptiness means they haven't built enough yet — he found out it meant the opposite. The bait shop he ran knowing nothing about bait. A marathon he never trained for. Nine drunks at midnight. A ten-thousand-dollar stadium booked with no money in the bank. And thirty years on, the question he still asks about the deal he walked away from.   CHAPTERS 0:00  🎬 The emptiness nobody warns you about 2:39  🌍 Two businesses before he graduated 6:10  🏃 A marathon he never trained for 8:37  🎤 Nine drunks at midnight 9:41  ✝️ Saved Sunday. The Monday phone call. 11:19  ⛓️ The rooms nobody else will play 13:36  🕳️ Everything arrived. Nothing landed. 14:49  🎩 Show business is two jobs 17:47  🧱 What he'd tell you if you started tomorrow 20:07  📱 Eight million views, and he let it go 25:16  🙅 What people get wrong about Christian comedy 31:46  🏟️ The stadium he couldn't pay for 37:01  🤐 Don't mention Jesus until they ask 41:56  🏠 My house is not a house of stress 47:43  🔥 Flesh, or assignment 53:49  🐴 Thirty years on, still not sure 55:40  ⚡ Revival starts with you Send us Fan Mail Support the show Get your ticket to our upcoming Revival In The Marketplace Conference ✝️ Sign up here for our FREE weekly Bible study every Wednesday  🔥 Are you looking for a community of Christian business owners you can learn and grow with? We want to invite you to learn more about our Christian Entrepreneur Club with over 600+ business owners and growing.  👉 Click Here To Join Our Intro Call 📲 Follow The Club on: Instagram  📲 Follow Cody on: Instagram 📲 Follow Esther on: Instagram Watch the video version on YouTube (Click Here) If this episode blessed you, please leave us a review and share it with 3 people who need to hear this message!

Joy Dow did $73,000 in her first year. This year she'll do over $700,000. The part nobody posts is how long the middle took. Joy is a certified financial planner and the founder of Wise Fit Wealth Management. She takes apart what entrepreneurs get wrong with the money the business makes — why passive income isn't the reality, why 90% rejection is the design of the job, and why the successful owners she meets all have savings sitting outside the business. Then it turns, and Joy talks about what the machine that built it quietly cost her.   CHAPTERS 0:00 - The middle nobody posts 0:45 - Meet Joy Dow 2:42 - She wanted to be a teacher 5:58 - $73k to $700k — and how long it took 8:31 - 200 calls a day, 90% rejection 11:04 - Passive income is not the reality 13:30 - The five mistakes she sees most 17:17 - Pay yourself first 19:31 - Where the money actually goes 23:19 - The insurance nobody buys in time 27:18 - When you should actually call a planner 31:07 - What building it cost her 35:06 - Every input except one 38:01 - Positioning yourself, not forcing it 41:09 - Busy as a badge of honour 44:07 - The friend who became a priest 48:29 - Worry in work clothes 50:06 - Where to find Joy Send us Fan Mail Support the show Get your ticket to our upcoming Revival In The Marketplace Conference ✝️ Sign up here for our FREE weekly Bible study every Wednesday  🔥 Are you looking for a community of Christian business owners you can learn and grow with? We want to invite you to learn more about our Christian Entrepreneur Club with over 600+ business owners and growing.  👉 Click Here To Join Our Intro Call 📲 Follow The Club on: Instagram  📲 Follow Cody on: Instagram 📲 Follow Esther on: Instagram Watch the video version on YouTube (Click Here) If this episode blessed you, please leave us a review and share it with 3 people who need to hear this message!

Most Christian businesses won’t exist in ten years. Not because the market is hard, and not because God isn’t in it — because nobody knows they exist. Cody and Esther Cottle break down the five marketing fails they see Christian entrepreneurs make again and again, plus the bonus one they think does the most damage: using Jesus as a marketing strategy. They built a marketing agency, shut it down at the peak of it, and grew the Christian Entrepreneur Club to nearly 700 members. This is what they got wrong first — the $7,000 website that did nothing, the years of posting with no strategy, the message so broad nobody could tell what they actually did — and what changed when they stopped chasing the next wave. Chapters 0:00  Cold open 0:41  Welcome — the five marketing fails 1:40  Bonus fail: using Jesus as a marketing strategy 6:07  Fail 1: thinking a website will magically bring customers 17:39  Fail 2: posting randomly, without a strategy 27:15  Fail 3: marketing to everyone 36:22  Fails 4 & 5: confusing messaging, and doing it all yourself 41:07  Cody’s own biggest marketing fail 45:13  Take ownership of the message 49:37  Where to find us Send us Fan Mail Support the show Get your ticket to our upcoming Revival In The Marketplace Conference ✝️ Sign up here for our FREE weekly Bible study every Wednesday  🔥 Are you looking for a community of Christian business owners you can learn and grow with? We want to invite you to learn more about our Christian Entrepreneur Club with over 600+ business owners and growing.  👉 Click Here To Join Our Intro Call 📲 Follow The Club on: Instagram  📲 Follow Cody on: Instagram 📲 Follow Esther on: Instagram Watch the video version on YouTube (Click Here) If this episode blessed you, please leave us a review and share it with 3 people who need to hear this message!

Everyone has a microphone in their pocket, and culture is clear about what to do with it: build a following, build your brand, go viral, make it all about you. The trouble is that you can do all of that, watch the numbers move, and never once have God's hand on any of it. Esther's first solo teaching makes the case that the follower count was never the measure — that real influence is what happens where nobody can double-tap it, and that “good” and “God” are two different explanations for the same result. If your numbers aren't moving, this will read as permission. If they are, it will read as a question. Chapters 0:00  📱 Should Christians Be Influencers? 2:13  🪞 A Subculture That Sounds Like the World 4:16  🔍 Influence Isn't Your Follower Count 5:57  ⚠️ Growing an Audience Without Growing Character 7:44  👑 Nobody Is Built to Hold Glory 9:01  🚨 Influencing Thousands, Discipled by No One 11:28  ✝️ What Jesus Did Instead 12:46  🙏 Building With a Pure Heart 14:28  🎭 You're Living Two Separate Lives 15:47  🏷️ The Brand Built “For Jesus” 18:19  📈 There Is a Science to Going Viral 19:48  📉 Doing It Right When People Unfollow 21:27  🌱 Let God Bring the Increase 23:33  📬 Maybe It's the UPS Driver 25:47  🕊️ Just Be Faithful 27:27  🤝 The Christian Entrepreneur Club Send us Fan Mail Support the show Get your ticket to our upcoming Revival In The Marketplace Conference ✝️ Sign up here for our FREE weekly Bible study every Wednesday  🔥 Are you looking for a community of Christian business owners you can learn and grow with? We want to invite you to learn more about our Christian Entrepreneur Club with over 600+ business owners and growing.  👉 Click Here To Join Our Intro Call 📲 Follow The Club on: Instagram  📲 Follow Cody on: Instagram 📲 Follow Esther on: Instagram Watch the video version on YouTube (Click Here) If this episode blessed you, please leave us a review and share it with 3 people who need to hear this message!

Every entrepreneur has a Goliath. The competitor with 10x your ad budget. The debt that grows every time you check it. The launch you keep pushing back because deep down you don't believe it'll work. In this episode, Cody breaks down 1 Samuel 17, the story you've heard a hundred times in Sunday school, and pulls out two decisions David made before he ever threw a stone. First, he refused to fight in Saul's armor, the best equipment in Israel, because it wasn't tested in his hands. Second, he refused to let Goliath dictate the terms of the fight, because the battle was never his to win alone. If you've been trying to build your business by copying someone else's funnel, someone else's pricing, someone else's playbook, this episode will show you why that armor is slowing you down instead of protecting you. And it'll help you find the sling God already trained into your hand in the years nobody was applauding. Your giant isn't actually your problem. Fighting him someone else's way is. In this episode: Why "proven" strategies can still be the wrong armor for youWhat your unseen years were actually training you forHow to stop measuring your giant by the world's scoreboardThe declaration David made before he ever picked up a stoneSend us Fan Mail Support the show Get your ticket to our upcoming Revival In The Marketplace Conference ✝️ Sign up here for our FREE weekly Bible study every Wednesday  🔥 Are you looking for a community of Christian business owners you can learn and grow with? We want to invite you to learn more about our Christian Entrepreneur Club with over 600+ business owners and growing.  👉 Click Here To Join Our Intro Call 📲 Follow The Club on: Instagram  📲 Follow Cody on: Instagram 📲 Follow Esther on: Instagram Watch the video version on YouTube (Click Here) If this episode blessed you, please leave us a review and share it with 3 people who need to hear this message!

Everyone talks about building the business. Almost nobody talks about what it costs to carry a vision the people closest to you cannot see — at the dinner table, in your marriage, and in the pew on Sunday morning. Cody and Esther on why the people who love you most still won't understand what God called you to, why that was never the betrayal it felt like, and what Scripture says isolation quietly does to your judgement. Plus the honest part: how you actually go and build the room you need.   Chapters 0:00 🎙️ Nobody Warns You About This Part 0:47 💬 The Conversation Nobody Has 2:28 📊 What the Numbers Say 3:18 🚗 Living Ahead of Everyone Around You 6:57 💍 The One Who Can't See the Weight 9:08 🎭 What Men Don't Say Out Loud 10:10 🦃 The Thanksgiving Table 13:50 🪞 Whose Approval Are You Building For? 15:21 🤝 The Room You Actually Need 19:51 ⚠️ Scripture Calls It a Wisdom Problem 22:28 📖 Moses, Elijah and Paul Were Alone Too 26:10 🧭 When You're the Only One Carrying It 29:38 💒 Build It Together 31:51 ✝️ Your Room Is Ready Send us Fan Mail Support the show Get your ticket to our upcoming Revival In The Marketplace Conference ✝️ Sign up here for our FREE weekly Bible study every Wednesday  🔥 Are you looking for a community of Christian business owners you can learn and grow with? We want to invite you to learn more about our Christian Entrepreneur Club with over 600+ business owners and growing.  👉 Click Here To Join Our Intro Call 📲 Follow The Club on: Instagram  📲 Follow Cody on: Instagram 📲 Follow Esther on: Instagram Watch the video version on YouTube (Click Here) If this episode blessed you, please leave us a review and share it with 3 people who need to hear this message!

James & Becky Zheng had the Bentley, the Audi, the million-dollar home — then lost 80% of it in a single year and filed for bankruptcy. The problem was never their work ethic. It was what they'd quietly started worshipping. They walk through how ambition and accolades became the idol — and what broke open when they stopped measuring their worth by the fruit. The month James stopped working entirely became the highest-earning month of an eight-year career, and they went on to #1 in the world out of 400,000. Chapters 0:00  🎙️ Meet James & Becky 5:14  💔 From abandonment to a Father 6:37  🎓 “I thought I was too smart for God” 10:00  🍇 Chasing the fruit, not Jesus 12:17  ❓ The question that changed his career 18:13  🌱 Why growth is the design 25:30  💌 The least romantic recruitment ever 28:31  📋 Rick Warren & the 11-point list 30:51  🙏 True faith feels like nothing 33:56  😭 Six months of crying — the vision board 41:49  🏎️ Bentley to bankruptcy 47:05  ⚒️ Work ethic isn't enough — the soil, not the seed 53:10  🛑 “Take a Sabbath” — a month, not a day 58:39  📈 The turnaround year 1:03:23  🔥 Revival won't start in the church 1:07:00  🙌 The prayer & sign-off Send us Fan Mail Support the show Get your ticket to our upcoming Revival In The Marketplace Conference ✝️ Sign up here for our FREE weekly Bible study every Wednesday  🔥 Are you looking for a community of Christian business owners you can learn and grow with? We want to invite you to learn more about our Christian Entrepreneur Club with over 600+ business owners and growing.  👉 Click Here To Join Our Intro Call 📲 Follow The Club on: Instagram  📲 Follow Cody on: Instagram 📲 Follow Esther on: Instagram Watch the video version on YouTube (Click Here) If this episode blessed you, please leave us a review and share it with 3 people who need to hear this message!

Half the church calls AI the mark of the beast. The other half runs their whole business on it. Cody and Esther think both camps are dodging the question that actually matters — and the answer cuts closer to home than either side expects. This is the line between good stewardship and spiritual laziness: why refusing to use AI might be the real failure, the danger nobody names (it's built to agree with you), the one thing that decides whether it's pulling you toward God or away from Him — and what a Christian must never, ever hand to a machine. Faith and strategy in the same room, as always. ⏱️ Chapters 0:00  🤖 Mark of the Beast, or Better Tool? 1:06  ⚙️ Tool or Threat? 5:18  🎯 The One Line AI Can't Cross 6:45  📖 A Better Tool for the Word 8:26  🪞 AI Is Built to Agree With You 11:49  😴 Stewardship or Spiritual Laziness? 15:36  🚜 Multiply It, or Dodge the Work? 19:03  🙅 What You Must Never Outsource 20:55  🔥 Build Better Than the World 22:12  🙏 Submit It to God Send us Fan Mail Support the show Get your ticket to our upcoming Revival In The Marketplace Conference ✝️ Sign up here for our FREE weekly Bible study every Wednesday  🔥 Are you looking for a community of Christian business owners you can learn and grow with? We want to invite you to learn more about our Christian Entrepreneur Club with over 600+ business owners and growing.  👉 Click Here To Join Our Intro Call 📲 Follow The Club on: Instagram  📲 Follow Cody on: Instagram 📲 Follow Esther on: Instagram Watch the video version on YouTube (Click Here) If this episode blessed you, please leave us a review and share it with 3 people who need to hear this message!

"I'll never do business with a Christian again." If you've ever heard those words, or worse, been the reason someone said them, this episode is for you. Cody unpacks a hard truth every Christian entrepreneur needs to sit with: the way we operate in the marketplace is either pushing people toward Jesus or away from Him. There's no neutral. When you put the fish on your business card and then cut corners, lowball, or burn a client, you're not just losing a deal. You're shaping how the world sees your Father's brand. Working through Matthew 5:38-42, Cody breaks down three lessons that separate Kingdom business from business as usual: Always do what's right, even when it costs you. Cody shares the story of a man who took his system, his slides, and his training, then sent his team to poach his clients, and what his mentor taught him about taking the high road instead of settling the score. Go the extra mile. The one mile the law required built no reputation. The second mile, the one nobody could demand, is the only one that ever did. Give freely. Revival is breaking out in the marketplace, and wealth is moving into righteous hands. But it gets entrusted to the generous, not the cutthroat. The vision is bigger than avoiding a bad reputation. Imagine a world where even non-believers say, "I'll only do business with a Christian," because they know we hold ourselves to a higher standard. We play for an audience of One. And God cares how you build your business. Send us Fan Mail Support the show Get your ticket to our upcoming Revival In The Marketplace Conference ✝️ Sign up here for our FREE weekly Bible study every Wednesday  🔥 Are you looking for a community of Christian business owners you can learn and grow with? We want to invite you to learn more about our Christian Entrepreneur Club with over 600+ business owners and growing.  👉 Click Here To Join Our Intro Call 📲 Follow The Club on: Instagram  📲 Follow Cody on: Instagram 📲 Follow Esther on: Instagram Watch the video version on YouTube (Click Here) If this episode blessed you, please leave us a review and share it with 3 people who need to hear this message!

In 1956, The Strangest Secret put a number on it: of 100 people who start at 25 with the same dreams, only five build the life they imagined. The success principle Napoleon Hill and a century of teachers chased? It was God's all along. This is the framework Cody's lived by for years: why sincere Christians drift into the 95%, the one tool most believers walk past, and the four things that separate the five — awareness, desire, accurate thinking, discipline. Get honest, and go be one of the five. Chapters 0:00 🎯 The 5% Question 0:52 📉 100 Dreams, Only 5 Winners 2:36 🧠 Not Luck — Not Even Psychology 3:47 📚 The Godfathers of Success 6:00 ✝️ Borrowed From Scripture 9:42 🪞 The Part Most Christians Walk Past 11:16 🚗 Why You Suddenly See That Car 13:04 ⚓ Four Ways to Take the Wheel 15:08 🔍 An Honest Look in the Mirror 18:25 💭 Don't Believe Every Thought 20:01 🌒 What You Do When No One's Watching 21:40 🏁 Be One of the Five Send us Fan Mail Support the show Get your ticket to our upcoming Revival In The Marketplace Conference ✝️ Sign up here for our FREE weekly Bible study every Wednesday  🔥 Are you looking for a community of Christian business owners you can learn and grow with? We want to invite you to learn more about our Christian Entrepreneur Club with over 600+ business owners and growing.  👉 Click Here To Join Our Intro Call 📲 Follow The Club on: Instagram  📲 Follow Cody on: Instagram 📲 Follow Esther on: Instagram Watch the video version on YouTube (Click Here) If this episode blessed you, please leave us a review and share it with 3 people who need to hear this message!

Everyone’s chasing the business plan — the step-by-step someone else “made it” with. But what if what your business actually needs isn’t a better plan, but a God plan? Adam and Cassie walked away from a guaranteed six-figure career with nothing but a word from God and a pile of credit-card debt — and watched Him provide at every turn. This is the honest conversation about what it really costs to build your business God’s way. Chapters 0:00 🎬 Business Plan or God Plan? (cold open)  0:35 🏷️ Meet The Collective — Building With Zero Inventory  6:12 ✨ Excellent, Not Perfect  7:27 🎖️ From Drone Operator To Apparel  20:26 ⏱️ Six Days In — Walking Away From The “Safe” Career  26:11 🙏 The Order Nobody Else Could Fill  30:24 🚪 A Favour Isn’t For You — It’s For Others  33:10 🔥 Excellence Is The Ministry  37:53 ⚙️ When You Scale Fast, Things Break  40:58 💍 Building As A Married Couple  49:42 💭 “Will You Dream With Me?”  53:22 🧭 Breaking Conformity — The Ceiling Nobody Sees  59:52 🚑 The Truck In Kuwait — A Word 7 Years Early  1:10:53 📜 The Blueprint For Blessing Send us Fan Mail Support the show Get your ticket to our upcoming Revival In The Marketplace Conference ✝️ Sign up here for our FREE weekly Bible study every Wednesday  🔥 Are you looking for a community of Christian business owners you can learn and grow with? We want to invite you to learn more about our Christian Entrepreneur Club with over 600+ business owners and growing.  👉 Click Here To Join Our Intro Call 📲 Follow The Club on: Instagram  📲 Follow Cody on: Instagram 📲 Follow Esther on: Instagram Watch the video version on YouTube (Click Here) If this episode blessed you, please leave us a review and share it with 3 people who need to hear this message!

You can be building a real business, on fire for God, plugged into a solid church — and still feel completely alone. Every Christian entrepreneur knows the two rooms: the church that doesn't quite understand your ambition, and the business world that leaves Jesus at the door. Cody and Esther Cottle tell the story behind the Christian Entrepreneur Club — the gap that started it, the word from God that led them to walk away from their business, and the conference it became. It's what happens when you stop trying to build alone. Chapters  0:00 🔥 The Room That Changes Everything  1:46 🏙️ From 50 People To A Movement  2:54 🕳️ Successful, Faithful — And Totally Alone  4:18 ✝️ Nobody In That Room Talks About Jesus  5:07 🌱 When Your Ambition Makes People Uncomfortable  7:08 🙏 Am I Holy Enough To Want To Build?  8:24 💍 Dream With Your Spouse — Or Crush Her Dreams  11:20 🏖️ Playing With God On The Playground  14:01 🔑 We Shut The Business Down First  17:11 🫀 A Vision For The Weary Builder  21:13 💸 "It'll Cost $100K. Be Obedient."  22:40 ⛪ An Altar, Not A Stage  24:30 💥 The Testimonies We Didn't Expect  26:55 🎟️ Come To The Mountaintop (Oct 14–16) — 👉 Revival in the Marketplace 2026 — October 14–16, San Diego, at the brand-new Gaylord Pacific Resort. Tickets are more affordable than ever, and for the first time the doors are open to leaders and pastors too. Grab yours: christianentrepreneurclub.com/conference Doing business God's way, every week. Subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Send us Fan Mail Support the show Get your ticket to our upcoming Revival In The Marketplace Conference ✝️ Sign up here for our FREE weekly Bible study every Wednesday  🔥 Are you looking for a community of Christian business owners you can learn and grow with? We want to invite you to learn more about our Christian Entrepreneur Club with over 600+ business owners and growing.  👉 Click Here To Join Our Intro Call 📲 Follow The Club on: Instagram  📲 Follow Cody on: Instagram 📲 Follow Esther on: Instagram Watch the video version on YouTube (Click Here) If this episode blessed you, please leave us a review and share it with 3 people who need to hear this message!

This episode is going to light a fire under you 🔥  Send us Fan Mail Support the show Get your ticket to our upcoming Revival In The Marketplace Conference ✝️ Sign up here for our FREE weekly Bible study every Wednesday  🔥 Are you looking for a community of Christian business owners you can learn and grow with? We want to invite you to learn more about our Christian Entrepreneur Club with over 600+ business owners and growing.  👉 Click Here To Join Our Intro Call 📲 Follow The Club on: Instagram  📲 Follow Cody on: Instagram 📲 Follow Esther on: Instagram Watch the video version on YouTube (Click Here) If this episode blessed you, please leave us a review and share it with 3 people who need to hear this message!

Every Christian entrepreneur says they want God to guide their business. Most are waiting for a feeling. Lisa and Ricky McCabe turned it into a set of decisions — and built a company the numbers said shouldn't exist. An engineer who never planned to teach dance. A diagnosis that stole her voice in the same season the business was breaking out. A check written in pure obedience, for the exact amount a crisis would later take. On paper, none of it made sense. In practice, it was God running a business that was never really theirs. They walk through the five steps that moved them from striving to surrender — the concrete, repeatable moves that put God in the CEO seat. Not a vibe. A practice you can start this week. Chapters 0:00 🎬 None of It Added Up 0:40 🩰 An Engineer Walks Into a Dance Studio 8:11 🧭 Find the One Who's Ahead of You 12:25 🌱 The Unglamorous Early Days 17:44 🪂 Quitting the Safe Job 21:26 💵 The Check That Made No Sense 27:48 📉 Scaling on Faith, Not Figures 29:38 🗣️ The Diagnosis That Stole Her Voice 31:28 🤝 How Losing It Built the Team 33:56 🙏 Healing on God's Timeline 36:09 🪂 Ricky's Turn to Go All In 39:23 💍 When Marriage Meets Business 46:31 ❤️ The Questions They Didn't Expect 54:08 🪜 The 5 Steps to a God-Led Business 56:26 📲 Connect With Lisa & Ricky Send us Fan Mail Support the show Get your ticket to our upcoming Revival In The Marketplace Conference ✝️ Sign up here for our FREE weekly Bible study every Wednesday  🔥 Are you looking for a community of Christian business owners you can learn and grow with? We want to invite you to learn more about our Christian Entrepreneur Club with over 600+ business owners and growing.  👉 Click Here To Join Our Intro Call 📲 Follow The Club on: Instagram  📲 Follow Cody on: Instagram 📲 Follow Esther on: Instagram Watch the video version on YouTube (Click Here) If this episode blessed you, please leave us a review and share it with 3 people who need to hear this message!

Are you believing too small to not get your hopes up? Are you limiting what God can and will do through your life? Listen to find out. We brought in the host of the Faith Hustle Podcast, Mukwenda Kandole, to share a powerful message, "GET YOUR HOPES UP". And it does not disappoint. Enjoy. Send us Fan Mail Support the show Get your ticket to our upcoming Revival In The Marketplace Conference ✝️ Sign up here for our FREE weekly Bible study every Wednesday  🔥 Are you looking for a community of Christian business owners you can learn and grow with? We want to invite you to learn more about our Christian Entrepreneur Club with over 600+ business owners and growing.  👉 Click Here To Join Our Intro Call 📲 Follow The Club on: Instagram  📲 Follow Cody on: Instagram 📲 Follow Esther on: Instagram Watch the video version on YouTube (Click Here) If this episode blessed you, please leave us a review and share it with 3 people who need to hear this message!