Jul 9, 2022 6 min read

A 10 🍊Day: Business Transformation Starts with Your Mind

Do you feel that your business is wearing you down? Running you ragged? Take heart and read this series on how to transform your mind.

Oranges Everywhere!

Grace Based Business

A 10 🍊Day: Business Transformation Starts with Your Mind

Do you believe that your business (yes yours, not the one next door to you) has a purpose?

Do you believe that your business can make an incredibly positive impact on the world?

Every day millions of businesses, all around the world, influence people and make a positive impact. Faithfully, consistently and with confident expectation they are invest into the lives of their owners, employees, customers, communities and partners.

This could be your business.

The Opportunity To Change

In this series, I’m diving into the (positive) transformation of our business through the reforming of our mind. I’m so glad you found yourself here!

For many business owners, living from a place of purpose and influence is an anathema. An oxymoron. Things are going haywire all around them and it seems an impossible task to make they changes they know are needed.

Slowly, with a ‘death by a thousand cuts’, the origin story of their vision fades away. The conviction which was so crystal clear when God first called you bleeds out. Buried under the weight of ‘Getting the message right’ or the latest cashflow emergency.

I believe that together with God, we can change this story. He didn’t bring you this far to leave you here. This series won’t provide you all the answers, but it does give you a place to start.

If you’re truly serious about making the change, I’ve also created this free course through my company Creative Appnologies. Regardless, I’d love it if you took some time to give me a ‘clap’, subscribe or reach out.

Remember: this is just the beginning.

The God Identity Triangle

I’ll start by offering you a simple visual image. I call it the God Identity Triangle. It’s composed of three elements, all underpinned by God.

Me (James)
Identity
Business

Here’s what it looks like:

Now, I’ll get you to draw this out and put your name in the top triangle, and your business name in the bottom right.

Here’s what mine looks like:

What It Means

The God Identity Triangle conveys two simple truths.

Truth #1. My business is driven by my identity which is driven by who I perceive myself to be.

Truth #2. My perception of myself is inextricably linked to my understanding of what God says about me.

Why It Matters

The implications of this triangle are pretty powerful. We’re going to explore this in more detail through the rest of this article, but here’s a thought.

If what God says about you is what informs your identity which drives your business — what do you believe God is saying about you?

Here’s another thought.

Transformation = Knowing what Jesus says about you

Now isn’t that a powerful thought!

Driven By Identity

Your business is driven by your identity.

It’s a fact.

Let me give you a silly example.

A 10 🍊Day

Imagine that one day I decide that my identity is based upon the number of oranges that I eat every day. I determine that if I eat 10 oranges or more a day that I am ‘good’. Any less than 10 means I am ‘bad’ (I did tell you it was a bit silly).

Every day, I’ll be doing everything I can to eat my 10 oranges. In the morning, I’ll get up and maybe eat 3 with breakfast. Then at lunch time, I’ll probably figure out a way to eat another 4. That might be a bit harder to do, so I might find need to figure out a way to sneak one at 2pm, rather than 12:30. At night, I’ll have 3 left. It might be a bit hard, but I’ll look at them, close my eyes and have a munch on the last 3.

Now imagine I’m doing this every day. After a few weeks, things are starting to go a bit haywire.

My stomach is burning. All the extra acid pouring into my stomach means that I’m constantly getting a stomach ache. It hurts! It burns! I’m visiting the bathroom all the time and honestly — things aren’t feeling great physically.

But it’s ok — after all, as long as I eat 10 oranges every day, I am ‘good’.

My wife is thinking: “This guy is crazy!”. She’s on her phone googling ‘Conditions which require a guy to eat 10 oranges every day and how to cure it’. She’s giving me ‘advice’ about where I can store those oranges. I’m having arguments with friends and family about this ‘ridiculous obsession with 10 🍊every day’ and it’s damaging relationships. They’re presenting me with evidence of the impact of my decisions, and the scientific proof of why this is bad. But I’m blind, I’m oblivious and I’m convinced.

10 oranges a day = I am ‘good’.

As an intelligent human being, I’m now seeking to minimise my pain and maximise my gain. I’m trying to figure out ways to game the system. I’m starting to look for the smallest oranges I can find in the shops. I’m putting in orders with weonlymakesmalloranges.com and justifying my decisions with entire novels of self talk justifying my actions.

After all it is 10 oranges of any size which is important. The number 10. I’m thinking to myself “I wonder if 10 oranges a day is a target average, rather than every day. Maybe I could do 50 oranges on Saturdays and then skip Sunday-Thursday”.

Meanwhile, my business is suffering. I’m shaping my entire business philosophy around my 10 🍊per day. If I care about my customers, I’m suddenly talking to them about the 10 🍊challenge. I might sell software (I do), but every conversation returns to 🍊. My lunchrooms are full of — you guessed it — 🍊. My customers think I’m loco. My staff are looking for different employment options. They’re ready to explode — especially if you mention oranges.

Without even realising it, I’ve experienced an identity hijack. My whole world is revolving around my 10 🍊 per day. I’m stuck. My life is stuck. Everyone around me can see it, and many are impacted by it, but here I am. Eating my 10 oranges.

🍊 😃 🍊

It’s ok. Have a laugh 😃. It’s a deliberately silly example 😆

We All Have a 10 Orange Day Inside of Us

The reality is that we all have a 10 🍊Day inside of us. We all have challenges and destructive views of our identity inside of us. We might not know what they are, we might not know how to change them, but each of us has 🍊inside.

The good news is this:

We can change
Jesus is the way to change.

Our Identity is Our Greatest Strength

It turns out that our identity is our greatest strength. Right now you might be looking at your business and wondering if that’s really true — but rest assured. It is.

God designed us this way.

We’re designed this way. Our identity drives everything we do. In every sphere of influence you operate in, no matter where your business operates, your actions are being driven by your identity.

This is exciting news! It means that if we want to transform our businesses, then the solution is to align our identity with what God says about us through Jesus.

Understand this and your life will be completely transformed. And that includes your business. For the rest of this series, this is what we’ll be exploring: