The Brutal Truth About Building A Personal Brand in 2025 | Full Episode

Every time we spend $92, we make $3,600 off of this organic content because we're not spending money on ads.

Stand with your partner through the highs and the lows. And it's really easy to say, but when the business is going really good, be there, encourage, pour into them. When the business is going bad, pour into them more.

Like, if you are called to do this, the Lord will equip you with what you need to do the job.

Yeah, he's gonna lay the people in your path, he's gonna help you with those skills.

We made -$6,000 our first year.

Woo-hoo!

And so if you're a first-year business owner, don't be discouraged. To wrap this up, I'm going to leave you with 3 practical tips to overcome some of these hurdles as a business owner. Number 1, welcome to today's episode of the Brand Builders Podcast. Today we're going to be talking about some of the biggest hurdles that we faced and the experiences that we went through within building a business and a brand.

We hope you leave today equipped and encouraged in your journey and in your business as you learn from our highs and lows that we've experienced as a couple, but also just young entrepreneurs. Let's dive in.

You ready for this?

Sure.

Okay. Today we're going to be talking about Brand Builders, the podcast, and what it is, who we are, why are we starting this podcast, and what to expect. And so just to give a quick intro, we're going to be also covering some hurdles that we've gone through as business owners, as a couple owning a business. And so, yeah, who are we? I would say—

who are we, Darren?

I would say we're faith-based entrepreneurs. I started Howdy Media back when I was in college. It wasn't called Howdy Media at the time. It's called Flights and Sights Media. RIP. Um, but we focus on media for real estate specifically. And so we're big into the church. We, we've led worship together for how many years?

As soon as we met.

How many? This is a good quiz. How many years?

6 years, is it?

Oh yeah, yeah, 6 years. So yeah, that's how we met.

We both moved to Abilene, met in college. Darren did not get a media degree or any kind of degree that points towards— well, yeah, you did finance, business.

I got a finance degree and decided I didn't want to do the traditional route of finance, and so I started a business. But yeah, that's who I am. I'm business owner, worship leader, entrepreneur, all the things. And I'm married to my beautiful wife Katie.

Yeah. And I am not— I mean, I guess, quote unquote, I'm kind of like in this with you, but I got my degree in education. I taught. I've been working in a school with nonprofits. So I'm not necessarily in Howdy every day now. I'm staying home with our brand new baby girl, um, but I'm very much still a part of Howdy.

And absolutely, you're part of Howdy.

All the background—

you, you—

I get to hear about Howdy more than any of y'all hear about Howdy.

Yeah, it's you and ChatGPT. Oh gosh, my business consultant.

I'm glad she's carrying some of the weight.

No, it's a guy.

It's a guy. It's a dude. Okay.

No, thank you for listening to all those conversations, cuz If you're a business owner, you know this. You have all these ideas flowing out of your head at all times.

At midnight when your wife's trying to sleep.

Especially when you're trying to go to sleep. It'll be like 11 PM. I'm like, hey, I have this idea.

Save it for the morning.

Actually, I have 3 ideas that I want to run by you right now before you go to sleep.

Must have espresso before we talk about it.

Yeah, she's like, can we just go to sleep? I'm like, fine, I guess. So I just type it in chat. I'm like, hey, remind me about this later.

Yep.

But yeah, so who would, who, who would you say you are?

Who am I? Who are you to you and to this business?

Yes.

Well, you've already said I'm your wife. I would see my role in Howdy as more of a supporter and encourager. And like you said, we collaborate on a lot of the ideas for the business and, um, just kind of how we can grow and take it from where we are to where we need to go. And I feel like I just kind of am that encourager and I don't know, person to talk to through that.

You're also a bomb graphic designer.

Oh, I'm definitely Canva.

If you could get a master's degree in Canva, she would have one.

Now you give me Adobe and I look like I've seen a ghost. I don't know how to work any of that professionally, but I can whip you up something.

Hey, so if you want Canva advice, go DM her.

I can help you with your brand through Canva.

Yes. So I wanted to touch on why we're starting this podcast. And this podcast again is called Brand Builders. Whenever I started, I didn't have the funds to pay for marketing. And so I was, I was in a lot of debt. I went into debt. I spent like $4,000 on a credit line that I should not have done. In college?

In college?

I didn't have an income. Yeah. So I did that. And so I had no other choice but to just start creating content and putting out things that would convert into clients organically. And I spent the last 4 years trying to figure this out. I've been making content for 11 years, but specifically and intentionally to get clients for the last 4 years. And so we've seen, I would consider a success, and I have some numbers that I ran by my handy-dandy ChatGPT business advisor.

I honestly feel like we really pushed promoting Howdy and all that the last 2 years. I feel like when we first started, when you were in your apartment in college and you bought your equipment and you started in real estate, you weren't really promoting it even. So I feel like these numbers truly come from the last 2 years where we were like, okay, we need to kick it into gear and here's how we're going to do it.

Yeah. And at the beginning I was also a full-time college student and didn't have time to necessarily do what I'm doing now. Yeah. And so we looked back at our tax returns and this is just— we're transparent here. We're vulnerable. We made negative $6,000 our first year.

Woo-hoo!

And so if you're a first-year business owner, don't be discouraged because we made negative $6,000 and that was a good 8 months of me working and trying to get clients.

And us getting married and moving in and all the things. I was like wanting to support Darren in his dream, but I was also like, man, this is tough. Yeah, it was hard.

And You just got to persevere and keep going. And we're going to talk about that more.

You're a testimony to that.

But I wanted to share some numbers with you. These are personal numbers from the year of 2025. And there's something in business, if you've never heard of it, it's called a CAC, a C-A-C, which is the cost to acquire a customer. And so how many dollars do you spend in order to get one customer? And so you basically take your revenue divided by the amount of new clients that you got.

This is where I come in on this podcast because this is all Boom!

Katie's going to be the audience advocate for some of this stuff. So do you understand that? Does that make sense?

Yeah.

So client acquisition cost. ChatGPT says we spend $92 to get every new client. That's like ridiculous. Their average spend per that.

So for every $92 that we spend, to invest in a client to get the—

to get them to like do the marketing, do all the— on everything. Yeah, it's $92. The average spend per client is $3,641. And so basically every time we spend $92, we make $3,600 off of this organic content because we're not spending money on ads. I produce majority of it right now. Yeah, we're not paying somebody to film and edit and post.

Mhm.

And so that is extremely low. And so this really opened my eyes to the success of like what organic content can actually do.

Yeah. And so when you say organic content, what exactly are you including in that?

Organic content is anything that you post online that you didn't have to pay for, or it's not a paid advertisement. So like you can go onto Facebook yeah, or YouTube or Google, and you can pay for views. Okay, we're doing the opposite. We're putting out normal posts and they're reaching people all across the world. Yeah, and it's because the strategy and the intention behind what we're posting.

Yeah, and we're not paying for ads.

We don't pay for ads. I think this year alone we've only paid $2,300 total in marketing for the company. And that's like business cards, like, it's like ads, like anything, everything marketing. We've only spent $2,300 and it's been 7 months.

No billboards, no billboards, no commercials in a movie theater, no newspapers, nothing. Yeah.

So, and I wrote an article about that on LinkedIn if you want to go check it out. The old— that old marketing is dead.

Oh, you're going to ruffle some feathers with that one.

So, so that's where I'm coming at this whole idea of organic content. That's why I wanted to start teaching people and That's why we're opening up our new community.

Yeah, which is so exciting about it. It's going to be so cool.

And so we'll talk about that more later. But this podcast, you can expect practical tips, advice, experiences from industry leaders, influencers, content creators.

We are just normal people, y'all. This is— we're 24 years old. We are starting it out. We're going to share the bumps with you. We're going to share the rawness and the honesty, the hard times. And we have so many different seasons that we've gone through as a business. That we feel like all of us can learn from. You've probably been there if you haven't already. And so we just want to share that with y'all.

Yeah. So if you're watching, I hope you're ideally a business owner and we want to take you on a journey talking to these previous brands and people who have built successful businesses and brands. And it's not just going to be talking about content like we're going to talk about other things like profit and loss and like revenue and hiring and firing, all these different things that go into starting a business and running it. We've been running this one for 4 years now, and I feel like we have a decent grasp. There's a lot of room for growth, and hopefully some of the guests that we have on can bring lots of knowledge.

Wisdom. Yeah.

Not to just us, but to you watching at home.

I feel like the 2 main points that we want to communicate through this podcast is to encourage and to equip people.

Absolutely. There's a saying that I love to talk about. It's teaching people how to fish. Instead of just handing them a fish.

Talk to them about that. I like it. Why?

And so if you teach somebody to fish, they can go off. Once they know how to fish, they can go and catch their own food for the rest of their life. And so we are doing the same thing. We're teaching you how to do the thing and we're equipping you with the knowledge and skills to do said thing in order to go and make more money and not be dependent on somebody like us as an agency.

Yeah, 'cause once you equip them with the skill, they're not going to have to keep paying you.

Yeah. And I think that's the most valuable thing for people. And obviously there are people who want that long term, like, hey, we want to partner with you long term, one on one.

For sure.

And we want you to consult us on our strategy and content for the next 5 years. Yeah. And that's great. And some people don't have teams or resources for that, and we'll step in if we need to. Yeah. But ideally, like, we're teaching you how to fish. And so I hope you get some valuable stuff out of this podcast. So next thing we're talking about, we're going to go into some hurdles that we're talking about. Let's see how many. 1, 2, 3, 4 hurdles that we have experienced here starting a business that I've went through, that Katie has went through. And so the first hurdle we're going to talk about is insecurity and imposter syndrome. Yeah. Do you know what imposter syndrome is, Katie?

No, and I got mama brain too, so you can't put me on the spot like that.

So imposter syndrome is basically where you feel like you are not equipped enough to do the thing or start the thing or serve in a certain capacity. You don't feel like you're ready.

We know straight where that comes from.

Yes. Yeah, that comes straight from the enemy. And that's what we say a lot of times with like worship leading even at the church. It's like You are— what is it? You're qualified. What is the qualified thing that we talked about with Craver?

God doesn't— oh goodness. God doesn't call the qualified, he qualifies the called.

Exactly. Yes. And so that's something that's huge. Like, if you are called to do this, the Lord will equip you with what you need to get it done.

He's going to lay the people in your path. He's going to help you with those skills.

Yes, so that and insecurities. Like, insecurities are huge because there's comparison and all these things, which we'll talk about that here in a second too. But whenever you begin something like a business, there's the whole confidence thing. And even like, for me, I was extremely insecure on camera. Like, it took me— I've made probably 500 YouTube videos so far, and I'm just now getting used to being in front of a camera.

Well, let's talk about the insecurity too. When people like fresh out of college, you go get your bachelor's in finance and people are like, Darren, what do you do for a living? And you're building a business out of our guest bedroom. Like, how is that?

Yeah. So like there would be times where we're like, oh yeah, I'm building or I'm the CEO of a company or whatever. Little do they know that company was run out of a bedroom at our house.

Yeah.

And I was the only employee. And so, I mean, you don't have to tell them that. No, but like, that's just those feelings.

Did you ever feel like people were like, oh, we'll see how this goes, or we'll see how long it lasts? Like, do you feel like people took you seriously?

I feel like they were— there was a lot of doubt.

Yeah.

It's like, are you sure you want to do that? Are you sure you want to pursue this? Like, you could just go get a 9-to-5 job and make a lot more money at the beginning. Yeah, and be sad.

But you knew God planted that desire in your heart, and you're like— Darren worked hours upon hours upon hours in that guest bedroom researching, learning, um, how to use this equipment, how to do all of these things. And to me, how to send an invoice, to me as his wife, I was like, oh my gosh, what is he doing in there? Like, it was so hard in the beginning, but you were just you were really pushing in because you knew something greater was ahead, but you had to do the back work. Yeah, but I can only imagine that you're talking about like insecurity and all that, just like the doubting and the questioning from people.

And it's hard because sometimes you'll have a good month. Yeah, it's still like this, but sometimes you have a good month, you're like, man, I can do this. And then the next month you make nothing and it's like, am I doing the right thing? And so it's just like constantly battling your thoughts in your own mind. Yeah. Just realizing, like, if you think big picture, where are you going and what are your goals?

That's good.

So the last thing on that specific point is I undervalued my work and my time tremendously at the beginning, and I feel like I have grown a lot in this area. My work and my time are extremely valuable to me, especially my time. Yeah, especially having a 1-month-old baby. Like, I want to spend as much time as possible with her.

Yeah.

And if I'm stuck working all the time, then it's like pointless. I don't— I get— I miss her whole childhood. Yeah. And so how can I figure out a way to spend as much time as I can with them but also pay the bills?

Yeah.

And that's been my journey the last 9 months, 10 months. And, and so as soon as I kind of changed the perspective of like valuing my work and saying no to certain clients that aren't necessarily ready or have the budgets for it.

Which is a spouse, I always, I had a difficult time understanding that sometimes. Like I was like, man, we need that extra cash, you know, but it would have taken Darren hours and we couldn't have made the memories we did or the— and so the saying no, that's been huge growth for both of us because sometimes you'll be like, oh yeah, I can't add that on. I'm like, oh, that would have been so helpful.

Yeah, I mean, and it'll be like, even if it's— there, there'll be like a $700 job or like a $1,000 job, but you know it's gonna take you so long. But it's gonna take me 2 days.

Yeah.

To film, edit, of like— is it basically like 24 hours of work?

Yeah.

Is it worth it to do this and miss all this time? And so it's like, are those 2 days worth more than $1,000 to me? Yeah, absolutely. And so that's where I, I kind of made that switch And I want to also say you have to get the experience first before you can start charging more. I think, yeah, if you're a very brand new beginner, that should not be your focus. The first 2 years need to be all about just getting good at what you're doing, like perfecting your craft, getting the hours and the experience in. Have you ever heard of the 10,000-hour rule?

Negative, Ghostwriter.

And so The 10,000-hour rule is this rule that basically says once you spend 10,000 hours doing something, doing the same thing, you become a professional or a master at that thing. And so I think of like John Mayer, if you know who John Mayer is, he's a guitar player and he's an artist and he's probably one of the greatest guitar players to ever walk the planet.

Yeah.

And the difference between him and me isn't the fact that he's just gifted and born with this talent. He spent over 10,000 hours playing the guitar before he even graduated high school. I spent maybe 500.

Yeah.

And so that's the difference. And so he immediately took off and he was a master quicker than I ever was at the guitar.

Yeah.

And I'm still not even close because he's played so much more than me. And it's the same thing that goes with whatever it is that you're doing, whatever service that you're providing. Like get good at it before you start charging the premium prices.

Man, I feel like that could be a whole book or a series on itself, the 10,000 hours, because you know the hardships that happen in that 10,000 hours.

I think it is a book.

Really?

Yeah.

Okay, I need to read it.

I haven't read it. I just always heard about the rule, but okay, it's a great, great word.

But you're not always getting those big jobs. You're not always making You know, it's tough, it's hard, and there's a lot of doubt in that season. Like we were just talking about when you're perfecting the craft, that it just shows when you persevere. Like, it's really cool.

Yeah. And I want to bring up a spot in our business that was fairly recent. Yeah. We had just bought a house and it was December of 2024. Hey guys, I hope you were enjoying today's episode. Today's episode is actually sponsored by Brand Builders, the community. This is a community for builders who are business owners and creatives who are wanting to maximize their content to create as many clients as possible and build the biggest brands that they possibly can. In this community, you're going to get access to weekly live Zoom calls. You're going to be able to access our Howdy team as well as multiple different influencers who have gone through the thing. And so if this interests you at all, there's going to be a link in the description to check out more. Hope to see you in there. Let's get back to the episode. And January 2024. And so never in the history of my business have we had what's called a negative cash flow month where you spend more than you make for that month. And so what ended up happening was I didn't pay myself for 2 months. We still made payroll. We still paid the bills. We found out even in our lowest months, we can still keep the business going. And that was a huge thing for me because it made me realize we can actually do this.

Yeah. And we had just found out we were pregnant.

We were about to have a baby.

There's a lot of house. The Lord started putting it on my heart about staying home from work, and then all of this happened. And we were like, honestly, we had a lot of questions going on in our faith. But also it was just, it was hard. It was like, God, if you've handed us this and this is your plan, then why is this not working?

Yeah.

And he just kept telling us to push in. Our friends and community just kept telling us to push in. And I'm so grateful we did.

Yeah. And so, and then 2 months later down the road, we have the biggest month of our entire history of the business. And so like things like that happen.

Yeah.

And it blows my mind.

Nobody wants to talk about those times.

No, it's— I mean, business to business on social media, you see like Highlights. Yeah. And so with that, we can talk about that. We can talk about comparison real quick. And so did you have something you wanted to say on that?

On comparison? I mean, just from a business standpoint, shoot, even in a personal standpoint, like all of us post the best of the best or the top tier product or the video we're most proud of. Like we promote the heck out of it, but we don't really, you know, talk about the hard things. Like we see in Abilene, man, all these businesses are doing great. And then all of a sudden one falls off the street and you're like, man, I thought they were booming. Nobody wants to talk about the tough stuff.

Yeah. You never see a post. It's like we went negative $300 on our cash flow this month.

Yeah. Come, come.

You don't see that. And so like, but those experiences are honestly the biggest learning moments.

Well, and we just think it's so important to pouring back into Brand Builders of that community and creating that raw honesty to be able to just talk about that and encourage each other through those seasons. And kind of like, I don't know, I feel like when people are real and honest, it helps you feel not so alone in the comparison realm.

Yeah, absolutely. So don't compare yourself. If you see other people that are more quote unquote successful than you in the same industry, just know that there's a lot of behind the scenes that you don't see.

Oh man. And what we're doing with like Howdy and the podcast and the studio and everything, it is so easy to compare aesthetics. You see somebody in their studio is like all maxed out and has the best lighting and it's so like vibey and they have all the best furniture and you're— it's hard to not sit there and be like, dang, I wish we were there. But the truth is like we're just not there yet.

Like, even though we have, I feel like, a decent setup, I'll see another studio and I'll be like, why are we not there?

Yeah.

And it's always going to happen. And you just kind of, kind of brush it off and just realize, like, we're in this position for a reason.

Yeah.

And we're exactly where we're supposed to be at this time.

Yeah.

Because this is what we're ready to take on.

Yeah.

And so, like, I'm not ready yet to take on a multi-million dollar company. Yeah, I maybe one day, but not right now. 2 years ago, I wasn't ready to take care of what I'm taking care of now because I was learning and prepping and getting the skill set and experience.

Yeah, and how we, how we steward what we're given now really will shape us into what's down the road. Yeah, and how you handle your I mean, what, our studio right now is like 600 square feet?

Oh no, I actually found out the other day it's 272 square feet.

Whoa, okay, so if you walk upstairs and you've never been to the podcast studio, you may be thinking like, dang, because all you see is what the camera shoots, right? This like setup little— but it's like, no, like we have all of these cables and all of our equipment and offices like in this 200 square foot It looks great on camera, but behind the camera it's sometimes an absolute mess. Hey, y'all made a lot of progress with that cord control.

Yes.

Oh, and I just spilled coffee all over me.

Uh oh.

Bleep.

Okay, so yeah, the next thing I want to talk about is a hurdle that we run into is working together and supporting each other as a spouse that is a business owner who is working in a business day to day. Um, what are some things that you have seen, like, as your perspective of this, like a business owner's wife? What are some things that you have seen that needed growth, that I needed to work on?

Okay, one that we talked about a lot, um, was work-life balance. Because, um, I mean, I say we've talked about it a lot, we have, like, as a couple because there would be seasons and times and there will be where business is like a lot and you're busy and you're going and you're doing night shoots and you're doing events. And it can be hard sometimes because you just like when you create your own schedule and when you own your own business like this, it's not that 9 to 5, which I was working in a school. So every day I clocked in at 7:30 and I got to be home by like 4. And so I was like, man, like we just talked about work. Work-home balance, and that can be tough. And we had some hard conversations about that and really has changed, and we found what works best for our family and taking advantage of trips when we can and going to see family and doing all the things. But that's been something that, um, since owning the business has been kind of tough, but also it's been cool in my role as a wife is like you were talking about earlier with insecurity, there's times where you straight up like you're just defeated and you feel like not encouraged and you're like, man, am I supposed to be doing this? And I feel like it's such a cool role that I get to be in to just push you and say, hey, like you're not just doing this for you. Like this is your family. This is what God has placed in your heart. It was the coolest thing watching Darren. He literally woke up one night or in the morning. And, you know, he's got these business ideas all night, but he woke up and he just looked at me and he said, Katie, I feel like I'm supposed to go find a podcast studio. And I was like, he's never even talked about having a podcast. And I didn't know if it was, you know, for you or what at the time, but he woke up, he said, I feel like I'm supposed to do this. Time is now. God's put this on my heart. And literally, like, what, the next day we had a 2-year lease. We had a 2-year lease. And so talk about just having to have faith instead stand next to your spouse. Like, for me, I didn't have that desire in my heart because that— God didn't plant that in my heart. And so having to stand in faith and say, okay, if you feel like that was from the Lord and this is what we're supposed to do, then I'm going to support you and I'm going to walk with you through that. And I think just any encouragement to any spouse or business, whatever, is stand with your partner through the highs and the lows. And it's really easy to say But when the business is going really good, be there, encourage, pour into them. When the business is going bad, pour into them more, speak life, because it's so hard. Your job is hard, your role is hard. You have a lot of pressure on you with your clients, with your family. And so I don't know, that's a jumble of words.

No, yeah, that's great. And the whole studio thing, I worked from home for 2 and a half years.

Yeah.

And, um, the work and home separation was like very hard.

Yeah, because you were living in it.

I was living in it, and I didn't have anywhere to leave to or go home to.

And I had, I had jealousy in that season because I was leaving to go to work, which is a whole different thing, but I was leaving every day to go to work, and you were working at home, and it seemed like he was like getting to chill and do all this stuff, but in reality he was like working so hard and building this huge thing that I had no idea, you know?

Yeah.

And so that was a whole, whole thing in itself.

Yeah. And so once I had the studio, I think it was not only something that was going to benefit the business and our clients tremendously, but it also benefited me because it gave me a place to separate myself from home and work.

Yeah.

And so like I would go to work, even if I work long, like Whenever I leave the studio, I do my absolute best to go home and be a husband and be—

yeah, you're very present.

And so I do that on purpose. And I think having a spot is great, at least at some point. At the beginning, it's not possible.

Yeah, it wasn't for us.

Like, you just— it's not an option. And so you just got to do what you got to do and try to do your best to separate that. But having a space has completely changed the game. And so Having faith and confidence in each other, like you mentioned, I think that's huge because once, especially for a man in a relationship, if your wife supports you 100% no matter the outcome, that is a complete, like, game changer in itself. Yeah, because you then feel like, hey, she trusts me, and so I can focus on doing what it is I'm called to do.

I'll never forget that conversation. We're sitting at Panera. In a booth, and you told me that. You were like, you don't know how much confidence it gave me as your spouse when you trusted to step away from your job. And I never thought of it like that. Yeah, but think of that. I mean, it really is like 100%.

Like, well, the opposite of that is your spouse not believing in you.

Yeah.

And having doubt and asking you questions like, is this a good idea?

Yeah. Which I definitely did. Like, I'll own up to that. It was really hard.

But I mean, I don't blame you. I was doing some very crazy things.

And sometimes as a spouse and as somebody that's doing the business with you, it's okay to speak up on some of those crazy things. Like, yes, but it's also like, we're here to level each other out. Like, there's some things— like, Darren is a big visionary dreamer, and I love that. And I'm very like, I like to see the path, like stop by stop, and you're like, here's Disneyland.

I'm like, this is where we're going. I don't know how we're gonna get there, but we will.

And he just literally— like, a testament to you and your personality, you completely surrender that and walk in faith. And I'm like, okay. So I'm learning. That's like something I'm walking through now. But it's cool to see that.

Yeah, absolutely. So the next one, uh, and this will be the last one before we kind of wrap things up, but it's your mindset. Ooh, just the mindset of doing the thing, like stepping out in faith. And so a couple of things I want to touch on is focus on purpose over popularity. And so you see a lot of influencers and you see a lot of people who have a lot of following and a big audience, and that's what you strive to do. And you see it because it looks fancy. It looks like they're living their best life. But like we talked about earlier behind the scenes, More than likely it's not. They're just humans like you and I. And so if you focus on the purpose of whatever it is that you're doing, it's going to go a lot further than just striving for popularity and people know it.

Yeah, because you're not working— you're not working for the outcome as far as like likes and all of that. You're working to help serve someone or their business to help get them to the next spot.

You're improving other people's lives. Yeah, with purpose.

And those stories, when we are doing the hard work and we're pouring into these businesses and we're creating the content and we're posting the content, it's so rewarding to see some of those outcomes. Yeah, it's so cool.

So the purpose, like, think about your purpose before you continue making content, continue in your business. Are you doing it for yourself? Are you doing it for clients?

For sure.

You can do both, but it doesn't need to be self-centered about you. You don't need to be doing the thing so that you can get famous.

Yeah.

And you will have a much more sustainable business model. Yeah. Um, keep yourself grounded in your faith. If you're passionate, it will work. God has given you this passion for a reason.

I feel like we talk a lot about faith, but here's the thing, guys. For Darren and I, we wouldn't have Howdy without the Lord planting that seed in your heart. And so we're talking about it, we're talking about walking in faith and what that looks like and taking leaps and all that. We're going to talk about that a lot with Brand Builders. Yeah, because for us, we, we wouldn't be here without it.

Yep. And we, we are still learning, like we don't know everything at all.

Yeah.

And so that's our whole mission for the next 4 years is like continue to learn and continue to be better and help people at a higher level. Um, There's a scripture that I like to bring up whenever we talk about this. Colossians 3:23: Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters. And so this just goes back— if you're passionate about it, it's for a reason. And so just continue to push into that passion, and you'll see a good outcome, because the Lord has a greater plan than you and I have.

Yeah.

Um, I have Romans 12:4-8. Do you have that one?

Yeah, I was thinking about that and kind of— and we started talking about it in a different area, which is great. Like, that's— but it was talking about the roles. Earlier we were talking about the roles in our business and Howdy and like this podcast and what, you know, and I am not like Darren in this company. I'm not necessarily the one on the ground making the content, filming or the one even in the background and the admin and any of that. But I've literally— your role, or my role, is more of the supportive, sometimes creative, um, just kind of person. And I love in Romans 12:4-8, it's talking about, um, as we're one, we have many parts, and all these parts don't have the same function or special uses. So who we are um, works together and we're dependent on each other. It talks about us having different gifts. Your giftings are what help this business be so successful, but without these giftings, you know, you think about that, we all collaborate, we all bring something to the table. Um, so that was kind of the heart behind that scripture that I was thinking about earlier.

And everybody behind the scenes here at Howdy. Yeah, to make like this stuff happen. And so we're all gifted in different areas. And if you think you have all the gifts, then you are confused. Like, that's not a thing. You can't be—

it's gonna be tough. It's gonna be tough. You can't be great at everything, and you don't want to wear all those hats. Yeah, it would be exhausting to wear all those hats.

You can't— like, I think of Chick-fil-A in this example.

Share it.

They're great at one thing: making a chicken sandwich.

I like it.

They started serving like steak and like like chicken finger— the chicken fingers would probably be good, honestly.

But they have to—

if they try to serve sandwiches, like, they, they wouldn't be able to be as great at that one product because they're mediocre at a bunch of different products. And so that's what I kind of compare that self to. Like, if you're in a business owner role or like a managerial position, delegate the stuff and find people and find what their gifts are and use them to your advantage.

Did you already share the scripture on whatever you're doing it, doing it wholeheartedly? Yeah, no matter what your position is, no matter what your role is, if you think you're invaluable in the company, or you think you're just like a little— you're like, why am I— what am I doing here? Why am I really— you make such a difference in the way it all comes together.

Yep. So to wrap this up, I'm going to leave you with 3 practical tips to overcome some of these hurdles as a business owner. Number one, stay close to God. Make sure to pray and study every single day, or as much as possible. I want you to look at people like Paul and Solomon, um, who are both business owners in their own ways and entrepreneurs. Paul built tents, and that's one thing that I want to talk about a lot more on this podcast. Paul built tents to fund his mission, and so he wasn't doing it to get rich. He wasn't doing it for his own wants and desires. He was doing it to further the mission and its purpose on this planet. Solomon, he asked— he was put in a position of power.

This is my favorite.

And one day he was praying and he asked for wisdom and knowledge instead of more wealth and power. And so the Lord blessed him in that and ended up making him like the richest man or richest king in the history of the planet. Yeah, still to this day, like, he was one of the richest kings ever. And so, and it all—

and all he sought after was wisdom. And was it knowledge or understanding? I can't remember.

Wisdom and knowledge.

Yeah.

And I mean, understanding is not a bad one to pray about too.

Yeah.

But just think about that. Number 2, uh, think long-term, not short-term. So, uh, there's lots of things day to day or week to week that happen in a business. Like if you lose a big client, like, what are you gonna do? That sucks. But if you zoom out and it's like, okay, we can always find another client.

Yeah.

And who knows, maybe the next one's gonna be bigger. Like, think long term, think the next year or two as opposed to this week and what happened this week.

True.

Um, because if you never— I like this saying— if you never quit, you can never fail. Nice. Let that sink in.

I'm gonna make it— I'm gonna make you a t-shirt with that on.

If you never quit, you can never fail, because you don't ever have an opportunity to stop, and it won't be considered a failure unless you stop.

Yeah.

Um, number 3, surround yourself with people who will push you and hold you accountable.

A to the men, men, men.

And so this is in real life.

Yeah.

This is in your online communities. That's one reason we're starting the Brand Builder Community.

Yep. We want people to feel encouraged and uplifted because doing this isn't easy.

Yeah.

And so, and there was so many people during, in our lives that poured into us and pushed us and just told us, keep going, keep going, keep your faith up, seek the Lord, seek wisdom, you know, keep going. And yeah, and it matters.

Surround yourself with people who will push you. Um, find a church home. Yep, that's a good one to start with. Um, but yeah, those are the 3 main things that I wanted to talk about today and kind of give you some encouragement and advice on. I'm looking forward to all the future episodes. We're going to have a lot of people who are like business owners who are creative, not from here, local, out of town. Like, we're going to have influencers on, we're going to have all the things, and we're going to be trying to teach you and give you as much advice as we possibly can, as well as learn as much as we can.

Yeah, we're going to be asking them, you know, what did you do?

Hopefully you can learn through all of these experiences and mistakes. And so yeah, that's pretty much it. Um, hope you enjoyed today's episode. We'll see you guys in the next one.