Praying through Transitions

Seasons change like chapters in a book. As a builder of high-potential startups, each of my startup journeys has lasted somewhere between a couple of years and eight years, which means I have regularly transitioned between startups – and my faith has been a major factor in how I personally navigate those seasons.

I am a serial entrepreneur. I came to faith at age 34, just before I started my serial entrepreneurial journey. In the past 20+ years, as I have founded and led four startups – and may well be on the road to a fifth — I bathed each transition in prayers, committing each venture to the Lord’s purposes and trusting that He would use these projects to bless the people involved and served in each case. My faith is foundational to who I am and how I approach my world, both professionally and personally,

For me, leaning into my faith in God and His purposes in my life is key to navigating these in-between times. I do not want to imply that I don’t lean into God while building my startups. I do. I do a lot. However, for this post, I am focusing on how I embrace the uncertainty and ambiguity in between.

Since my coming to faith as a Christian coincided closely with the start of the entrepreneurial phase of my career, for me, learning to walk with the Lord has been tightly entwined with my career as a startup leader. In addition to learning to lean into my faith while building my startups, I think some of the most challenging times are when I find myself in transition between them.

What is a transition between startups for serial entrepreneurs?

Startups have a life cycle. They begin. They grow. They are acquired or IPO. They die. At various points, one leaves behind a startup in which one invested much time, energy, passion, and money. It is the closing of one chapter in the book of my life and the opening of another. The space between these chapters is a chapter in itself. As each season comes to a close, there is a pause between. In the pause between, there are opportunities to celebrate, grieve, heal, reflect, forgive, rest, explore, reconnect, and deepen my relationships with others as well as with God. It is vital to allow time and create space for this processing because ahead of me is opening a new season full of new potential and risks.

What is challenging about transitions?

Transitions are filled with uncertainty and unknowns. Deciding what to pursue next feels like a profound challenge on many levels. A startup CEO feels a profound responsibility for translating a business idea into a thriving business – and the weight of that responsibility in the face of challenges, unknowns, and critical decisions can sometimes feel overwhelming. There are so many challenging questions. What’s next? How can I make a difference? What do I have the passion and energy for? How might all the pieces come together?

How do I lean into my faith when I am in transition?

While tactically, there are many ways to navigate a transition to discover my next big thing to found or lead as a startup CEO, for me, it is essential to lean into my faith, which informs all parts of my life, including my work and career path. The foundation of my faith is believing that God is real, that I have a relationship with Him, and that He actively engages in my life and the world around me. Since I believe I have a personal relationship with an infinite God (that means He has the capacity to have personal relationships with each and every one of us!). So when I talk about praying, I mean having a conversation with God. It can include sharing my thoughts with Him either silently or out loud, as well as listening and looking for responses. Here are some ideas about prayer and examples of ways I pray through startup transitions:

• When I pray, I am leaning into my belief that God is real, willing, and able to take an interest in His relationships with me and others and what is happening in our lives. While I never see the whole picture that God can see, I believe He has bigger, broader purposes at play than I can see. So praying is a way of engaging with and actively choosing to trust God’s perspective and intentions in my life.
  
  
• I try hard not to lay out a plan I have come up with as a “command” prayer, as over the years, I have noticed that God tends to like His plans better than mine. In prayer, I will often affirm my trust in God’s good plans, plans to bless me and the world through my work. Rather than praying for a particular outcome, I tend to focus my prayers on things that I know are consistent with God’s heart for the world. Blessing people. Making a positive difference. Finding the right next thing to work on to accomplish His purposes. Also, I will pray for a path of integrity to walk, clarity and healing in specific relationships, and that He will guide our team’s problem-solving.
  
  
• My prayers often affirm my trust in God’s plans and hand on my life to find the right next step, season, and connections. Since my work is my calling I am always asking, “Lord, what is on your heart today?”

• I ask God to lead me to the right next opportunity, to enable me to bless others through my leadership, and to provide a path of integrity to walk along the way. I ask Him to link me to the right people, to guide my conversations, and to shape my understanding. I do not ask or assume that worldly success is an automatic outcome of a God-blessed startup, only that He will accomplish His purposes through our work together – and there will be good that ultimately comes out of it.
  
  
• Often, when I am feeling worried or overwhelmed, I will use thankful prayers to remind myself of how great and powerful God is. It can be deeply reassuring when I am facing scary circumstances to remember that God is bigger than anything I am facing – and that there is nothing I must face alone.

• Over the years, I have come to believe that God answers every one of my prayers, which means that when I pray about something, I have faith that God is answering – and He is answering me from a perfectly loving place. Sometimes His answer is yes. Sometimes it is no. And sometimes it is wait. Most importantly, once I have lifted my prayers to God, then I look attentively for his answer(s). It can be deeply reassuring when something that feels bad happens to be able to trust that somewhere hidden in that circumstance or outcome is God’s good will directed towards me.

At my core, after 21+ years walking with the Lord, I believe God created good work for us to do and that our work serves His larger purposes, with a multiplying positive impact on the world. Like all things, even failures can be redeemed by God for good. It is not always easy in the moment to see the purpose and patterns unfolding, but hindsight often reveals that what appeared on the surface was not the whole story. Often the most essential work and answers to prayer are internal, as I continually grow and strengthen my relationship, trust, and faith in God. Nothing about prayer is passive, and I know that aligning myself with God’s purposes is my best way forward in the world.