Cameron was running two businesses, and both were on fire.

Not the good kind of fire. The kind where your tree service is covering the gap your gym is creating, and you’re moving so fast between the two that you can’t see where either one is actually headed.

He was a slave to the urgent. Every day was about putting out whatever was burning hottest. One business would break, and while he was fixing it, the other one would suffer. Then he’d sprint back to that one. Back and forth. No margin. No time to think beyond the next couple of days.

In his words: “I was flying too close to the sun.”

He didn’t know exactly what he needed. But he knew he couldn’t keep doing this forever. He was at burnout.

Here’s what I’ve learned coaching Christian entrepreneurs: the business problem is rarely the whole story.

Cameron had no connection between his spiritual life and his vocational life. Not because he didn’t care about his faith. Because he was so consumed with operating that there was no room left for anything else. No rhythm. No space to hear from God. No time to even ask the question, “Is this what I’m supposed to be doing?”

He was operating from an empty well. And when you’re running on empty, you don’t make decisions. You just react.

Jesus said it plainly in John 15:5: “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

Cameron wasn’t abiding. He was so consumed with operating that he’d cut himself off from the vine. And apart from the vine, it doesn’t matter how hard you work. You can’t produce real fruit.

Cam is not alone. He like so many Christian Entrepreneurs unintentionally traded the well that won’t run try for an empty creek bed. They’ve been so busy building that they’ve stopped actively seeking God.

It’s no wonder Cameron was on the edge of burnout.

After working to design margin into his day, we slowed down long enough to look at what was actually happening. We dug into the numbers. And when we did, the story they told was one he couldn’t ignore.

The gap his tree service was covering for the gym was far larger than he realized. His tree service was profitable, but he couldn’t see how much it was being held back because he was pouring time, energy, and money into keeping the gym afloat. The opportunity sitting right in front of him in the tree service was enormous. But he couldn’t reach it with his attention split in half.

Cameron needed to choose. And somewhere in that conversation, looking at the real numbers for the first time, the decision he’d been avoiding became obvious.

He said it himself: “Jacob helped me recognize the decision I was avoiding. I needed to choose one business over the other. Making that choice brought immediate clarity, and with that clarity came focus.”

Once Cameron made the decision to prioritize his tree service, things moved fast.

He hired a strong team lead and removed himself from the day-to-day field work. That freed up time to do the work only an owner can do: sending more quotes, bringing in more business, building better systems, and most importantly, fully understanding the financial realities of both companies.

The results were tangible. He added thousands to his bottom line monthly and has only continued to grow. And the gym? Instead of frantically covering its gap, he found ways to let others run it and started preparing to sell the business on his own terms.

But the results weren’t only financial. When Cameron added rhythms to slow down, space to think, space to pray, space to reconnect with God, something else started to show up.

The fruit of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23).

Cameron moved from the edge of burnout to peace and self-control. And those fruits started showing up in how he represented himself in his business. In how he led his team, dealt with clients, and made decisions.

Cameron summed it up better than I could: “If I had to summarize the biggest benefit of working with Jacob, it would be this: Clarity affords focus. And that clarity changed how I lead, work, and live.”

I share Cameron’s story because I know many of you are carrying something similar.

Maybe it’s not two businesses. Maybe it’s a dozen priorities competing for the same limited hours. Maybe it’s the decision you already know you need to make but haven’t slowed down long enough to face. Maybe it’s the growing distance between your faith and your work that you’ve been too busy to notice.

We’re at the end of Q1. For some of you, the goals you set in January are still on track. But I know many of you have already fallen back into the same rhythms that kept your business stuck last year. The same busyness. The same split attention. The same distance from God.

Two questions to sit with this week:

What decision am I avoiding? And what do I need to do right now, before Q2 starts, to change this?

If you need help answering these questions and doing a deep dive into what’s holding you back, I have a limited number of one-on-one coaching sessions available. You can book a session below or just shoot me an email back.

May you be Anchored in Christ!
Jacob Dyke - Executive Coach @ Anchor Coaching

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