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Lessons from Coaching Thousands of Businesses with Gary Harper
November 1, 2025 · 1 hr 17 min
Ep 0005 - Learn how aligning life's purpose with business can promote not only financial success but spiritual growth as a Christian capitalist.
Series The Christian Capitalist Show with Russell Gray Support this leader Liking this video? Support this ministry.
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The Christian Capitalist Show inspires and equips individuals to express their God-given purpose through enterprise and stewardship powered by faith, fellowship, and balance.
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The Foundation of Purpose and Faith in Business 0:00 If you're looking for financial success you can really live with, you're gonna love this episode. Listen in as I visit with a Christian business coach who's helped many hundreds of Main Street capitalists go from0:09 stressed out solopreneur to profitable business owner. Stay tuned. Russell Gray here. Before we get into0:21 this powerful conversation with Gary Harper, I've got a few comments I think are important to you getting the most out of this episode. You know, the Bible has a lot to say about wise counsel and diligence when it comes0:32 to profit and prosperity. When I was young, all I wanted to do was make money. I thought if I just had more money, everything would be great. Well, of course, I was wrong. It's not that simple. Proverbs 24 3 and0:44 4 says, through wisdom, a house is built, and by understanding, it is established. By knowledge, the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches. So, obviously, wisdom is0:55 important to getting pleasant riches, what I call prosperity, the kind of riches you'll enjoy. Proverbs 10 22 says the blessing of the Lord makes 1 rich, and he adds no sorrow with it.1:07 Psalm 1 11 says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. So wise counsel comes from godly men. I didn't always consider that when I was younger, but that's only the beginning of wisdom.1:19 Job 12 12 says wisdom is with aged men and with lengths of days understanding. So experience matters too a lot, and that's why you're gonna love this in-depth conversation1:31 with Gary Harper. Gary's a Christian coach who's worked with thousands of Main Street capitalists, helping them organize, build, operate, and scale successful businesses. So grab a notepad and1:43 a snack. It's a long 1, and get ready to be edified as I glean powerful lessons from coach Gary Harper. Welcome to the Christian Capitalist Show. I'm your host, Russell Gray, and I'm super excited about today's show1:55 because we have a great guest, a guy who I'm personally working with right now doing a couple of startups. And he's a man of faith, but he's also a man of a lot of experience, a lot of accomplishment, and his business2:07 is taking guys like me with big, hairy, audacious goals and big visions about changing the world and turning those ideas and visions and plans into strategies, tactics that actually move the2:19 needle. So please welcome Gary Harper.2:21 Hey, Russ. Thanks for having me on.2:22 Yeah. I'm excited, Gary. So I'm I'm really looking we're here in Gary's studio. So I'm I'm actually here doing some, he's doing some work with me because I need a lot of work. And and he said, hey, I got a studio. So2:34 great. Let's record a show. So we're doing that. And so Gary, just so people who don't know who you are, I'm sure many people don't. It's not like your household name, but you you have an amazing business. So just2:46 tell people a little bit just about what you do, what you do for people, what you're doing for me.2:50 Yeah. So Sharper Business Solutions is our company. It's our parent company. It's an ecosystem of multiple companies. But what we do is we provide a 1 stop solution for entrepreneurs and small business owners today. And3:01 so, really, what that encompasses is coming in with a framework that helps build out the vision to create systems and structure and and hiring the right people, putting them in the right seat. And, ultimately, at the end3:12 of the day, there's 2 sides of it. We're strategy coaches along within the business organizational coaches to help drive the results and ultimately achieve the purpose of the organization.3:22 So now let's kinda bring that down to what do you do for people. Right? I'm I'm I'm a a capitalist. I'm a Main Street entrepreneur, a Main Street investor. And what I there's3:34 there's 4 themes we talk about here. 1 1 is, the role of faith.3:38 Yep.3:39 Actually, the first 1 is role of purpose. Okay. So we talk about the role of purpose. We talk about the role of faith. We talk about the role of fellowship, and then we talk about the role of balance. Yeah. And so I3:50 wanna make sure we hit on all those things because I know in my journey as a Christian capitalist, I have experienced crises of faith. I've wandered aimlessly without purpose.4:01 Mhmm. I have gone in and out of fellowship Mhmm. And I have really lost my balance. Mhmm. And it's easy to say, oh, you need to be balanced or you need to believe, but that's a4:13 vision. That's an idea. And and what you really do is help people get down to brass tacks and and how do you do that. So let's start with the concept of purpose. Yeah. Talk about the purpose of your business. Talk about4:24 the role of purpose in business.4:26 Yeah. So purpose is the ultimate end goal of the of the company. And and really we need to know 2 purposes when we're starting a business and why we're building it. 1, so what's the purpose of the organization? 2,4:38 what's your purpose in life? And those should marry up together. The company's purpose should help you succeed at your own life's purpose. And when we get people that are workforce, we need it they need to know the4:49 company's purpose and they yoke with us based on that purpose because they can see how the company's purpose helps them achieve their purpose. And that's really where tethering happens within our organization. It's when4:59 everybody in the organization is aligned with the purpose because they see the company's purpose helping them achieve their purpose. And so when we come in, that's the first thing we have to understand. What's a5:08 company's purpose? It's our North Star. It's where we're going. It's how we're and what we wanna do to get there then starts to build boat down from that. So purpose and having a purpose is 1 thing. Having what I call a5:19 key purpose indicator and measurement for that purpose is also very very important. And so that's where we start. We start with that purpose and then we build down. And building down from that looks like this. Okay. If5:29 we're gonna achieve this purpose in 5, 10, 15 years from now, depending on what your vision looks like, now we have to break that down into what we call profits. How do we gain enough profits to fulfill the purpose?5:40 Right? I I have, entrepreneurs coming all the time.5:43 They're like, man, I5:43 just feel burned out. And I don't think burnout's really a thing. I think at the end of the day, someone's just not enjoying what they're doing anymore. Right? I've never really gotten to a point where I play golf or5:55 football or any other sport where I, like, I'm just kinda burned out on playing it. Right? Like, if I am enjoying what I'm doing, then it's something that I enjoy doing. I could put a lot of time. And sometimes I become6:05 obsessed about fulfilling the purpose because I enjoy it so much. Right? It's just about the things I do because I enjoy it so much. And so that's the opposite of burnout. Obsession is the opposite of it. And so that's6:15 where we start. We start with that purpose. We build down from it. We gain profits. And profits then allow us to understand what we have to do to perform. And performance then tells us what we need to do every day in the6:25 process in order to achieve purpose. And so that's what we do. We come in, we build purpose. We understand what it's gonna take to fulfill the purpose, the profits, the gains. Then we look down to it and say, alright.6:35 What do we have to do every week performance wise in order to get the profits to fulfill our purpose? And then we come and act down to in a daily, what do we do every day to make sure that we get the compound effect of6:45 the week, to get the compound effect of the month, the profits, to get the compound effect of the purpose?6:49 So I told you tactics. So let's let's talk about the difference between purpose and mission because you always hear in corporate planning mission, vision, values. Mission,7:01 vision, values, strategy, strategic plan, tactics, but you go you're going all the way in front of that with purpose. And so when I think a lot of people conflate mission and purpose. In your mind, what7:13 are the differences between the 2?7:15 Well, I mean, mission is more about the how and the vehicle and really the the guardrails to the purpose. Right? So I always say the purpose is is the the what we do, what we're trying to7:26 accomplish. The mission is the how we're gonna get it there. Right? And purpose has gotta be something that's very, very simplistic. It's gotta be something that's really, really easy to say. And more importantly, the7:38 purpose should ask the question, how are you gonna do that? And then that leads us into the mission. Well, here's how we're gonna do that. We're gonna fulfill this mission by going after this purpose.7:50 And and that usually includes, like, your niche. The mission usually includes your focus. It usually includes so many other things. I'll give you some purpose statements. Our Sharper's purpose is to do a good8:01 work that supports God's work. Now that doesn't tell you anything about who Sharper is. It doesn't tell you that we're a business consulting company. It doesn't tell you that we're a hiring company. It doesn't tell you8:12 we're a process company. It doesn't tell you that we're studios and publishing and all these other ecosystem businesses. Why? Because it's just the purpose. Now the mission will encompass how we're gonna get there.8:23 Right? And that's really where it becomes the difference between the 2. Disney, make people happy. How you gonna make people happy? Well, we're going to create films. We're gonna do these things. We're gonna lead the8:34 charge. That's a mission. And so that's the biggest difference between a purpose and a mission.8:39 Gotcha. Yeah. We're talking a little bit about Charlie Kirk still kind of fresh in the news as we're recording. And as you were guiding me through this process, I have a process that I go through for deciding8:51 my personal purpose. And then the way I look at it is then my personal purpose becomes the driving force for the expression of my purpose through Main Street capitalism.9:03 Charlie had a purpose. Yep. And I believe the purpose was to save the country. Yeah. That was his purpose. And maybe there was even a higher purpose. When we did just save the country, a lot of people think, oh, that we9:14 the country needs to be more conservative. But really, it was the country needs Jesus. That was that was the9:21 purpose. Revolution.9:21 But it didn't tell you anything about what Turning Point did.9:24 Oh, it didn't.9:25 Yeah. Gotcha. Okay. So now let's talk about, as a business person, the idea of understanding how you take your personal purpose and then9:36 inject that into a business purpose because your business if you're gonna build a real business, not be a solopreneur Yeah. But build a real business. And maybe we should define what a real business is versus being a9:48 solopreneur. You can own a job or you can own a business. Like, why don't you talk about the difference between those 2 things?9:52 A hundred percent. So, I mean, there are people that go out and create their own jobs. You know? And I just I was on a podcast earlier today and the guy's like, hey. I own my own job. When do I make the jump to owning my10:02 own business? I'm like, well, you can own your own business and still have a job. I said, you don't have to quit your job to own a business. He's like, well, how does that work? I said, well, because an owning of the10:12 business is sitting in the owner's box. So many people confuse that when you own a business that you're the 1 running the business. And really, when you're running the business, you own the job of the business.10:25 Anytime you sit in a seat, you have a title in a company, you own a job. If you truly wanna be a business owner, complete business owner, then you set the owner's box. Right? That's the ultimate ownership of a10:36 company. Now it doesn't mean that you can't have shares or own majority rights to the company and still have the job. But now you're sitting in 2 seats. You're sitting in the owner's box and you're sitting in the CEO or10:47 COO or CFO or c level suite or just business unit or entrepreneur. And so really what at the end of the day, when someone we tell somebody you own the business and you're building a business, there's a10:59 big difference between building a business and building entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is about exchanging your time for money still. Owning a business is about exchanging other people's time for money.11:10 Right.11:10 That's ultimately what it is at the end of the day. And and and I tell people all the time, you gotta be when you're building a business, you gotta be really careful of not exchanging your time to make the company money11:21 and you not taking that money to pay you for a job. Because then you're creating false profits in the business. And once you do step in fully in the owner's box, your profits are gonna drop. Right?11:33 Right.11:33 So you have to budget for your paycheck while you're sitting in seats.11:38 Even if you don't take it.11:40 Even if you don't take it.11:40 Even if you don't take it.11:41 You gotta have a real idea of what the profits are even if you're not taking it.11:44 Yeah. So let's come back to this purpose. So I I have a personal purpose. I have this thing. It's like and so I have a process I go through to ask, lord, Lord, why did you create me? So I I I believe in a concept called11:54 the master's plan. Master's plan is to love God with all your heart, to love your neighbor as yourself, and to make disciples. That's a master's plan for every human he creates as far as I can tell. Yeah. So that's a12:05 great commission or the great commandment. The second is like the first and the great commission. Underneath that, there's a lot of room for diversity. Right? Paul talks about not everybody gets to be the head or the12:15 foot or the nose or whatever. We all have a different role, different gifting for different purposes in God's master plan. It's true in the church, but it's true in the world. Right? Sometimes I think we we treat the12:24 world like the world is there and the church is here. And and the whole concept of Main Street capitalism, purpose driven Main Street capitalism is to integrate the 2. I think we need more Christianity and12:36 capitalism. We need more capitalism and Christianity. All of humanity is organized around economic activity. And because we've withdrawn a lot of the Christianity from economic activity, especially at the highest12:48 levels. We have a lot of corruption at the highest levels.12:50 There's a lot.12:51 It's like we wake up like, how can we have all this corruption? How come the banking system's corrupt? How come the stock market's corrupt? How come the government's corrupt? Because all the good people, like, conceded12:59 the territory. Like, we're gonna go over and mind our own business. You guys can have that. And that's we're supposed to engage. And I think economic activity is part of that engagement. And so when you step out to13:10 become a a Main Street capitalist, a Main Street entrepreneur, you're going to interject your purpose Mhmm. Into the organization and into the marketplace. It's kind of how you13:21 be the salt. So how do you actually, from a tactical perspective, like, okay. I've got this vision. I know who I am. I know what I'm here to do. I believe that I'm on the right path, now I have to13:33 express myself through this organization of people. Mhmm. And and the very first thing I I saw in your book Rise, we're gonna talk about that in a minute, but the idea of the role of purpose, very first thing you asked13:45 me when we started this coaching session yesterday, I mean, the 2 days of doing this with him, is is, Russ, what's your purpose?13:51 Right.13:51 And so then, how do we take that purpose and and convert it into something that it becomes part of the culture of the organization?13:59 Well, first of all, purpose when coming up with it, I love your analogy of how you come up with your life's purpose because it's very similar to how I write about it, RISE. I say purpose comes from 3 areas of life.14:10 Right? Purpose driven life, Start with Why by Simon Sinek, Intentional Living by John Maxwell, Heroes on a Mission, Donald Miller. All those books, I've read them all. And I found, like, every 1 of them brought a certain14:20 component of purpose to the table, but I felt like I was still lost without it. And, let me give you a little bit of my story going back to 2011. I was facing Lyme disease in 2011. Almost passed away. I got very sick. I14:31 dropped a hundred and 50 pounds. Doctor told me. He said, if we don't get this out of your system, don't know if you'll be here in 6 months. Very, very, rare situation where it bit me in my neck and went into my spine14:41 and all that. It left me very ill very quickly. And, 26 panic attacks a day, 13 days of no sleep, inflammation throughout my system, and I was in a really bad place. And I remember sitting there across from the14:53 doctor after he explains to me where we're at and what the risk were. I remember putting in my head in my hands, the tears flowing down my forearms, and thinking, oh, dear god, what did I do with my life? I was 35 years15:05 old. I was executive fortune 500 company. Had tons of employees working for me. Executive of the year, 9 out of 10 years. All these trips, all these awards, all these things, nothing meant anything at that moment.15:16 Because really at that moment, I had not and could not answer did I fulfill my purpose in life. Didn't even know what fulfill my purpose in life. Didn't even know what my purpose was. And I think a lot of our listeners15:25 and people listening have this very similar problem where they're like, we're here, we're trying to accomplish, and we think purpose is our goals and goals aren't purpose. Although they are meant to help us achieve our15:35 purpose, if you set the right goals, they're not your purpose in life. And our purpose in life is not just to be a dad or to be a husband or be a business owner. It's so much more than that. God has a master plan for15:45 what our purpose is, and we have to come to him with what it is. And then also accept it. There's many examples in the Bible, people running from their purpose. Right? And trying to get away from what and they end up in15:56 a really bad way, to be honest with you. There's also examples in the Bible of God changing people's purposes at different parts of16:02 their life.16:03 Moses, purpose shifted at some point. Right? So I studied it and I thought, okay. Lord, if I'm going to fulfill my purpose and I'm gonna infuse my purpose in my company and I'm gonna get everybody in my culture wrapped16:13 around this purpose, gotta be really bought in on it. Right? And so I sit down and I figured out where purpose come from. I feel like it comes you said you gotta know what you're here for. I call that the future. Purpose16:24 comes from 3 years of life, your past, your present, and your future. The future is what do you wanna remember for? What does god want you to be remembered for? Right? The present is what gift you have that you16:36 think the world could benefit from. Main Street capitalism is a gift you have. It's ability to give that gift back to the world, and God's laid on your heart to provide that gift to the world. Charlie Kirk16:48 had a gift that he wanted to stow on the world in order to save the world in his perspective. That's how his purpose came alive. He says, listen. When I die, remember what he said. When I die, I wanna remember for making16:59 an impact, making a difference. Right? And then he said17:02 Purge for his faith.17:03 Yeah. And and for his faith. And and then he said, I wanna also be I want the gift to give the gift to our young people of salvation, the gift of knowledge, the gift of understanding,17:15 the gift of debate, then all these gifts that he had to give back to the world. But then there's a last 1 which is the past. What do you love to do? And when you take what you love to do, because the past tells us17:25 experiences we've had, God allows those experiences to give us a love for it. The present gives us the gift. The information knowledge we have is a gift that the world needs. And then the future, what do you wanna be17:36 remembered for? What do you want? Thank god wants you to be remembered for. When those 3 answers come together, and that's what I do with teams, I do with companies. I have them sit down and I have them write out what do17:45 they wanna be remembered for. What what do you want this company remembered for? What gift does the world what what need does the world have that this gift that the company can give to it? And then what do we love to do?17:56 And when we have those 3 answers, then we have some formulation of purpose. And so I like here's how I infuse it. Once I come up with that purpose for a company, now I wanna make sure everybody in the organization, weShow more In this video 0:00 The Foundation of Purpose and Faith in Business18:06 Building a Purpose-Driven Business36:24 The Role of Fellowship, Faith, and Balance54:27 The RISE Framework and the Power of Systems1:08:16 Faith, the Holy Spirit, and Closing Reflections
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