Category: Faith

It's Time To Rethink American Advertising

3/6/2022

“Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket.”
---George Orwell (British author - 1936)

Martin Luther King’s vision for America was fulfilled in 2008 when Barrack Obama won the Presidential election. That is, until American advertisers and marketing professionals mucked it up. Like sycophants, they embraced the tower of babel and jumped on a buzzword bandwagon filled with meaningless political jargon.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion became religious cults thanks largely to amoral advertisers seeking to connect people to their products through demagoguery, deception, and outright lies.

Art in advertising has largely vanished. In the digital age, marketers have become purveyors of pornography. Instead of appealing to the needs of their customers, they prey upon their wants. In a society that has largely abandoned Biblical teachings for hedonistic pursuits, stray sheep are being enslaved by nihilists.

Rather than find common ground with the whole of their audience, advertisers are utilizing the basest form of illusion to generate sales: they lure minority audiences toward their products and services with lookalike images. Alcohol and tobacco companies had done this in impoverished urban areas for years; and the trend went gangbusters across the corporate spectrum after the Obama administration took office.

Television advertisers began to aggressively pander to the black, Latino and Asian communities shortly after 2008. At first, in wholesome, family friendly ways. Shortly afterward, the diversity, equity, and inclusion cults infiltrated corporate boardrooms and polluted the messaging.

Their first attack was upon the family. They emasculated the American male in family and couple-oriented commercials; making him appear oafish before his wife and his children and portraying him as a fool to their audiences.

Next, advertisers inserted multi-ethnic families and bi-racial couples into the bulk of their family and couple-oriented ads. The over-portrayals buck conventional wisdom and run counter to demographic realities.

Soon after, advertisers began normalizing and encouraging homosexuality in commercials. A blatant disregard for the Ten Commandments and Christ's teachings.

And lastly, advertisers have effeminized American men in the bulk of their commercials. A direct attack upon God the Father and Christ Jesus.

Advertisers have employed these same tactics within the digital arena as well. Design teams slap images and videos with a plethora of diverse people of all throughout their websites. Mostly to satisfy diversity and inclusion cultists, and also to keep the equity cults at bay.

Instead of focusing on their products and services, a wide body of digital advertisers tout diversity and inclusiveness as their key selling points. So much so in fact, that they have begun to give way to demons including transsexuals, pansexuals, pedophiliacs, and dysphoric hedonists.

It should come as no shock to anyone that our nation is deeply polarized. Given the narcissistic lens corporate advertisers have placed on our society for years, this was a natural progression.

We’ve effectively trained our youth to strut around like peacocks on parade and tout their immutable qualities instead of refining their character and challenging them to reach a higher calling.

Corporate advertisers who have succumbed to the diversity, equity, and inclusion cults are doing the devil’s bidding. We’ve effectively trained our youth to strut around like peacocks on parade and tout their immutable qualities instead of refining their character and challenging them to reach a higher calling.

The Obama administration is largely accountable for the declining state of our nation at present. They ushered in a rendition of George Orwell’s Animal Farm with illusionary promises like Universal Healthcare and no-cost cellular phone services paid for by the government. They lowered standards for citizenship by bypassing education requirements for political refugees and advocating amnesty for illegals. And, they declared a war on women and children with their advocacy of transgenderism.

That said, the erosion of our morality started well before his Presidency. Since the end of the Cold War, America has been starving for a common purpose. Consequently, consumerism went rampant during the Clinton Administration. They gave us the Internet and quickly abandoned its promise to pirates. The rampant commercialization of the web has only deepened the hole.

George W. Bush’s administration only made matters worse. Under the guise of National Security, they deregulated information technology and opened the door for the Big Tech oligarchy following 9/11.

The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon galvanized the nation for a short period, but the sense of unity was short lived. Profiteers extended the war in Afghanistan into perpetuity and stratified the nation along political lines.

The fortunes amassed out of both the Afghan war and the digital tech revolution sent consumer spending into hyperdrive, distorted our thinking, and skewed our foreign and domestic strategic priorities.

Embracing false idols and choosing to ignore the divine nature of our existence has cost our nation plenty since the turn of the millennium. In aggregate, we have enabled unscrupulous heretics to blind us toward true evils and divide us against ourselves.

Sinful pursuits have nearly become all consuming. We arrogantly equate happiness with the accumulation of material goods, career achievements, fleeting fun, the avoidance of pain, our outward appearance, sexual conquests, celebrity, and the like. By overindulging in these pursuits, we are assuredly evoking God’s wrath upon our nation.

As the book of Revelation tells us, those who are willing to sell out their brethren for a handful of silver, a pile of rocks, or a patch of sand will have nowhere to hide come judgment day.

May corporate leaders, advertising professionals, government bureaucrats, and our elected officials willfully atone for their sins of avarice before that day arrives. Lest they suffer eternal damnation.

And He told them many things in parables, saying, “A farmer went out to sow his seed. And as he was sowing, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it.
Some fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly because the soil was shallow. But when the sun rose, the seedlings were scorched, and they withered because they had no root.
Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the seedlings.
Still other seed fell on good soil and produced a crop—a hundredfold, sixtyfold, or thirtyfold.
He who has ears, let him hear.”
---Mark 4:3-9

Author: Erik Gagnon - Managing Partner, Chi Rho Consulting

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The N-Word and the C-WORD

2/14/2022

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You were in Eden, the garden of God. Every kind of precious stone covered you: carnelian, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, lapis lazuli, turquoise and emerald. Your mountings and settings were crafted in gold; they were prepared on the day you were created.
---Ezeikiel 28:13

In Ancient Rome, the word Christian was a derogatory term used by pagans to imply racial inferiority in much the same way the terms nigger, spic, chink, pollack, and arab have been used in modern times.

After Jesus Christ’s crucifixion, his apostates, the disciples, and their followers scattered from the Holy Land into the Greek nation, up through Constantinople and then into Eastern Europe. Almost everywhere they went, they met with persecution and resistance. Especially near Athens: there they were hunted like animals and sold into captivity by Greek officials.

An underground railroad of sorts was established all through the Greek corridor. Friendly taverns and inns marked their establishments with the Chi Rho Symbol: the first initials of Christ the King from the Greek alphabet interwoven with one another.

In the areas in which they settled, followers of Christ treated their neighbors with kindness and welcomed outsiders to join their flock. This gave birth to orchards and vineyards up and down the Aegean coastline.

Taking the Lord’s name in Vain
Rome’s decadence and bloodlust spun out of control after Christ rose from the grave. In the years that followed, Roman legionnaires expanded the Empire’s boundaries northward into Germania and eastward across the Aegean Sea. They subjugated the people in the lands they conquered; enslaving their defeated warriors and claiming their women.

Followers of Christ Jesus were typically executed by the Praetorian Guard for remaining true to their faith. Some able-bodied men were however picked at random and sold into slavery. Many of these men were carted off to Rome where they were paraded before the Emperor in triumph.

Within the capital, they were mixed in with slaves from all corners of the Empire: North Africa and the Saharan Desert, Espania, Gaul, Samaria and Carthage just to name a few.

Christian slaves shared the gospel of Jesus Christ with their fellow captives and echoed Christ’s teachings. This converted Gentiles to the faith and expanded the flock.

Followers of Christ were routinely persecuted for their beliefs by Roman citizens. Unwavering in their devotion to the Christ Jesus who had freed them of their sin, they stood resolute in their faith. Some even earned the status of freedmen by exploiting loopholes in Roman law to relinquish their shackles.

Roman Citizens and friends of Rome took notice of their strength; as did the Roman nobility.

The Roman Senate expressed concerns about the growing faith movement with Julius Caesar and he uttered the word Christian in profanity: out of avarice and prideful anger.

Caesar despised the Jewish tribes and chose to make a mockery of their faithful: the ones who recognized Christ Jesus as God incarnate and accepted His divine providence over the heavens and the earth. He fed those he labeled Christians to hungry lions in the Roman Colosseum as sport: to demonstrate his authority over and his apathy toward the Jews.

A Warning to the Western World
Jesus Christ welcomed all nations of the earth into His dominion before he was betrayed; and few people have heeded the calling. Like the Israelites Moses led out Egypt and into the promised land, our elders have largely ignored the Ten Commandments and chosen their own decadence and sin over honor and virtue.

Today, authoritarians and bigots in positions of power exploit immutable characteristics such as our age, our skin color, our sex and our genealogy for their own gain. They seek to divide and distract us from true threats they themselves have largely enabled. They employ useful idiots to trumpet their unholy rhetoric in our schools, on the airwaves and over the internet to embitter us toward one another.

What seems like a majority of the privileged class within Australia, Great Britain, the European Union and the Americas have forgotten their Biblical upbringings. Tax paying citizens have effectively become the new niggers within the corridors of power: treated with contempt and apathy.

May God bless and keep the shadow players who prey upon tax paying citizens around the world and lead us again into war.

Author: Erik Gagnon - Managing Partner, Chi Rho Consulting

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The Great Divide

1/10/2022

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If I shut the sky so there is no rain, or if I command the grasshopper to consume the land, or if I send pestilence on my people, and my people, who bear my name, humble themselves, pray and seek my face, and turn from their evil ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land.
---2 Chronicles 7:13-14

Ever ask yourself why our public schools are in the toilet? It all began at home.

For the most part, Baby Boomers and Gen Xers forsook their parental responsibilities after the Berlin Wall fell and the U.S.S.R. crumbled. We focused on selfish pursuits and allowed gambling, inebriation, filth, pornography, fornication, and debt to rot away the soul of our nation. We've failed to pass along the oral tradition of our nation's history to our children; and they wallow away in ignorance as a consequence.

The threats of fascism and communism are alive and well; and most Americans under the age of 50 have little or no idea the evil nature of these two beasts. Unless we open our eyes to the cancers we have wrought upon Western civilization, we will lose the blessing of liberty and the freedoms afforded us by the Magna Carta, our Bill of Rights, and the United States Constitution to these scourges.

This article traces how we've enabled Marxist ideologues to resurface and gain momentum. As you read through it, ask yourself: Am I willing to do whatever it takes to stop these authoritarian cancers for the good of the nation?

For the Brave Soldiers Who Fell at Dunkirk
The Battle of Dunkirk marked a turning point for Western Civilization and all of humanity. Before the battle, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had the rug sold out from underneath him by American career politicians and crony capitalists. The Catholic Church played a part in it as well. Western civilization has been in decline ever since.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt deserves much of the blame for this. The fat cat progressive President feasted on American tax dollars while Great Britain’s brave soldiers fought gallantly to preserve freedom and democracy, preventing Nazi Germany’s unholy Third Reich from advancing over the English Channel.

In desperate need of resources and capital to mobilize Great Britain for the war effort, Churchill pleaded with FDR to join the fight against the Nazis for the sake of Western civilization. Roosevelt humiliated the British Prime Minster and denied his request. Thousands of British and French soldiers lost their lives as a result.

FDR was beholden to the elite. The upper crust of American society pandered to Roosevelt so they could bleed the middle class dry during the Great Depression. He and his administration were aligned with a legion of vultures: nihilists backed by big tobacco and gambling syndicates, as well as a consortium of Wall Street robber barons.

Together, FDR and his cronies altered the landscape of the American experience. They birthed the welfare state and gave rise to corporatocracy. They forsook many of our God-given rights to line their own pockets and solidify their oligarchy.

It was a short-sighted scheme. The house of cards they established has been in state of collapse since the end of the Cold War. In the time since, remnants of their oligarchy have covertly sold our nation out to the People's Republic of China as well as interests controlled by the Bilderberg syndicate.

Have I Not Told You
Our public education systems would have you believe that Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party were the root of all the evil that gave rise to the Second World War. The wool has been pulled over your eyes if you truly believe this.

World War II was in fact a Holy Crusade of sorts. A battle against an unholy two-headed hydra manipulated by God's true enemy. That hydra is commonly known as Marxism.

Germany's fascist Third Reich was one head of the serpent. Joseph Stalin's communist Soviet Union was the other. Both regimes aimed to destroy Christendom to further their own despotic ambitions.

The seeds of the Second World War were planted at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 when the Treaty of Versailles was ratified. Our Allied representatives allowed their own wrath to get the better of them. They closed the table to their defeated foes. Germany was locked out of the negotiations and forced to accept the terms of the treaty unconditionally.

Additionally, the unholy Communist threat manifesting within the Soviet Union was largely ignored at the Paris Conference as were the growing nationalist movements in the Far East. Both omissions proved fatal after the terms of the treaty were set into stone.

Throughout the Roaring Twenties, the Western Allied powers celebrated excessively as Germany and much of Europe destabilized, Japan militarized, and China engaged in a civil war. The general malaise of that period laid the groundwork for the Second World War and set the stage for the political upheavals we are presently witnessing across Western civilization today.

Sewing the Seeds of Wrath
Allied representatives burdened Germany with costly reparations at the Paris Peace Conference. The newly formed Weimar Republic was required to repay the debt the Allied powers had incurred to defeat the Axis. The treaty also limited Germany's future military production. And with the specter of communism rapidly advancing out of the Soviet Union, this posed a serious threat to the safety and security of the German people.

Before World War I, Germany’s industrial system was a bedrock of the global economy. After the war, it simply could not function. Factories were shuttered, banks foreclosed on loans, and transportation stalled. As a result, Germany's unemployment skyrocketed. This had a ripple effect on economies all throughout Europe.

Men across the continent were stripped of their dignity and their hope. They took to the streets largely because they could not afford to feed their families. Poverty and hunger sparked political uprisings throughout most of Europe; and Satanic political ideologies began to take root outside Soviet Russia. Born from the infantile minds of privileged children who’d gathered in Vienna in the 1880's, Marxism bore fruit all over the continent and quickly spread across the globe.

Sensing that a second global conflict was inevitable, moneylenders drew wise to the volatile situation and hedged their lending. In parallel, unscrupulous speculators stockpiled precious materials and tilted the markets in their favor. This triggered what is known today as the Great Depression.

Burgeoning Marxist movements metastasized throughout Europe during this period: most notably in Russia, Germany, Italy, and Spain. Adolph Hitler’s National Socialist Democratic Party was among them.

The Austrian-born Hitler was of Jewish heritage. He resented his father and found Marxist economic theories appealing. That said, he despised Communist leadership principles and abhorred religion. In league with the devil, he set about to transform Germany and all of Europe under an authoritarian dictatorship guided by Marxist economic principles.

The battle between the Bolshevik and Menshevik factions within the Russian Empire during the First World War gave birth to another insidious Marxist movement. That maniacal struggle unseated Tzar Nicholas II; and the Bolshevik's victory produced the Soviet Communist Party under Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky's leadership

After Lenin passed away in 1924, the U.S.S.R. endured a bloody reign of terror under Joseph Stalin that cost an estimated 20MM Eastern Europeans their lives. The genocide Stalin, his lieutenants, and their reign of successors committed nearly destroyed the soul of the Russian people and much of Eastern Europe's as well.

Pope On The Ropes
After the Nazi regime successfully toppled the Weimar puppet state in 1933, shylocks within the German Gestapo began to undermine banking efforts around the globe in order to generate wealth and resources for the Third Reich's ascension.

From 1937 to 1940, the Nazis expanded their territory in all four directions. Hitler and his underlings set the stage for this by neutralizing the Catholic church within Germany and most of Europe through the Reich Concordat of 1933. In effect, the European Catholic church became subservient to the Third Reich through most of the Second World War.

In August of 1939, Hitler signed a non-aggression pact with Joseph Stalin. This enabled Germany to concentrate their blitzkrieg efforts in France, Belgium, Holland, and the Scandinavian countries the remainder of that year and the next. The Catholic church offered no quarter to resistance fighters in the occupied territories during the war for the most part. They also frequently collaborated with German officials to facilitate the Holocaust all throughout Europe.

By May of 1940, the German army had boxed Allied forces in near the French town of Dunkirk. Churchill groveled for assistance from FDR and was given the cold shoulder by the American President.

Our British allies were all but abandoned by FDR and his crony capitalists prior Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. Had it not been for the valiant effort of every able-bodied British sea captain, the bulk of the British army would have perished on the beaches at Dunkirk and the war would have had a much different outcome.

The mass evacuation of British troops from Dunkirk effectively galvanized the British Empire. Nearly every man, woman, and child on the isle of Great Britain dug in and prepared for the battle ahead. Similarly, the British Colonies fortified themselves for the war effort.

A bitter Churchill eloquently surmised Britain's resolve in the "We Will Fight On the Beaches" speech he delivered at the House of Commons that June. That moment would turn out to be a fait acompli for the Third Reich.

The Nazi's knew that taking Great Britain would be arduous, so Hitler broke his non-aggression pact with Stalin largely to feed the Third Reich's war machine. Their invasion of the Soviet Union began in June of 1941 and met with great success early on. That said, divine providence derailed the Nazi invaders that winter and Operation Barbarossa ground to a standstill.

The Soviets launched an aggressive series of counter-attacks starting on December 6th that carried on into the following year. Their steadfast efforts during the winter of 1941-42 effectively crippled and the Nazi war machine and turned the tide of the war against the Germans.

Washing Away Our Moral Values
The Vatican made a deal with the devil when they signed the Reich Concordat of 1933, and they have not repented. In fact, many Catholic Bishops continue to commit apostasy to this day.

We can largely thank Pope Francis and his predecessors for the decline in morality and decency throughout most of Western Civilization over the last four generations. With few exceptions, the Vatican and their Archbishops have routinely embraced sins worthy of a Spanish Inquisition since the end of the Second World War.

When Pope Pius XI decided to hand the fate of the Catholic Church over to the Enemy, he effectively sold Catholics over to the devil for what amounted to a coffer full of silver. The Vatican assumed that the German Chancellor and the Reichstag would deliver "Caesar's tribe" to their promised land. They elected to rob Peter to pay Paul.

The Vatican repeated a similar pattern in their dealings with the Soviet Union near the end of the Second World War. They largely deceived Catholics throughout the West when they released Pope Pius XII's  Christmas statement on the “Subject of Democracy and a Lasting Peace” in December of 1944.

Believing the Soviets would ultimately be victorious in their struggle with the West, the Vatican had quietly aligned itself with the Communists as the Second World War was drawing to an end. They forsook Our lord and savior Jesus Christ in the process. They largely ignored the plight of the Jewish people within the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War, and all but abandoned their sacrosanct obligations in the West.

The plague of sex scandals that have infested Catholic archdiocese around the globe since the 1950’s should come as little surprise given these facts. The Catholic church was once a foundation for benevolence and acts of charity in our most impoverished neighborhoods. This no longer happens to be the case in America; nor in most of the rest of the free world for that matter. Instead, many Catholic diocese have become breeding grounds for sodomites and pedophiles.

The dismantling of our classical education system by the Vatican in recent decades truly began in earnest following Nikita Krushchev's infamous 1956 “We will bury you” speech.

Once Krushchev laid down the gauntlet with the West, the Vatican reaffirmed their commitment with the Communists and set their sights on China. They began divesting their North American and European interests; and ramped up investment in Asia and the Pacific Isles.

I Tell You the Truth
Unless we swiftly return to our Biblical foundations, the bedrock of Eden will soon go dark for non-believers and false Christians alike. Satan has planted roots within the People's Republic of China, and that regime is preparing for war with the West.

They have already begun a campaign to compromise corporate executives, media icons, civil servants, and elected public officials with loose moral values through bribery, extortion and corruption. Additionally, they spend billions of dollars every year on political propaganda and misinformation campaigns to sow dissension and discord amongst our citizenries.

Their efforts are paying off. Marxist movements of the fascist variety are budding throughout Western Europe, the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand. And in the Americas, there is a growing Communist insurgency as well.

Like 1920s Europe, the two-headed hydra of communism and fascism is resurfacing. And with no end in sight to the growing inflationary pressures throughout the world, a second Great Depression is certain. Armageddon will follow when this happens.

Given our rising geopolitical tensions with China and the Bilderberg syndicate's deliberate attempts to dismantle our Constitutional Republic, the time has come to rid ourselves of fear and cast light on the people and institutions that threaten the very fabric of our civilization.

Like Daniel, it’s time for the faithful to enter the Lion’s den. We must confront the purveyors of evil within our civilization and hold them to the fire. We need also hold our corrupt corporate executives, media icons, public servants, and elected officials to account for their moral turpitude. Otherwise, we will be doomed to a dystopian future similar to the one George Orwell described in his novel 1984.

The political divide within our nation and much of the Western world is symptomatic of our moral decay. Marxist ideologues leverage our weakness to lull us to sleep; and prey upon our ignorance to stoke irrational fears.

Since time immemorial, despotic rulers have understood the power of fear. Fear breeds dependency and distracts us from fulfilling our role in God's plan. A fearful population is easily manipulated, quickly divided and painless to conquer. As Benjamin Franklin once remarked: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Like sheep among the wolves, they are led to the slaughter.

A Clarion Call
May Our lord and savior Jesus Christ bless you and keep you as you decide your place in history: eternal life for those who welcome Him; or eternal damnation for those who refuse to bow down before Him upon Judgment Day. His will shall prevail during the trying times ahead.

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”
---Revelation 7:9-12

Author: Erik Gagnon - Managing Partner, Chi Rho Consulting

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Wrangling Fear

12/5/2021

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Wrangling Fear Outlaw with a gun venture capitalist shooting entrepreneur

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
---Franklin D. Roosevelt (March 4, 1933)

I grew up in a blue-collar town and my dad was a vile and abusive man. He abused both my mother and me, and she turned to alcohol as a coping mechanism. Fear and uncertainty were staples during my formative years because life at home was a nightmare.

One of my greatest fears happened to be financial insecurity. I never knew where my next meal was coming from; and I imagined I might end up homeless. I’ll share about that in this article.

WRANGLING MY OWN FEARS
My dad’s job required him to travel three weeks out of every month for eight months of the year. Every time he took to the road my mom would pick up a liquor bottle as soon as he was out the door. Many a day, she would pass out drunk sometime during the afternoon, which left me to fend for myself. Consequently, I spent a lot of time on the streets as a youngster; and I devised schemes to keep my pockets full so I wouldn’t go hungry.

I was blessed with an above average intellect, and I viewed my education as a way out of my awful situation. As a result, I buckled down in school. I also competed athletically to improve my chances at earning a scholarship. Through the grace of God, scouts took notice and I made my way into Princeton. Once there, I thought I’d never look back.

After graduation, I made a decent living. I built a nest egg and planned for my retirement. That said, the feelings of fear and uncertainty relating to money followed me for years. They clouded my vision and impaired my judgment. So much so, that I was oblivious to very real dangers my business interests had surfaced.

I ran afoul of some very wealthy and powerful men, and they contracted killers to terminate my existence. In June of 2013, I was attacked by two men on an elevated bus platform at Denver International Airport while traveling on an assignment. They threw me off the four-story platform, and it nearly cost me my life.

The attack put me into a coma, and I spent over five months in the hospital. My insurance eventually ran out and the bills started to come due. Before the accident, I had begun a new business venture and my savings were already stretched. I was unable to work, and I had little money coming in.

After I was discharged from the hospital, I had a year and a half of physical rehabilitation ahead of me. At one point during that period, I thought my situation was hopeless. Things became so bad that I imagined I’d never be able to work again and might even wind up living on the streets. Many a night, I cried myself to sleep and called out to God in despair.

In that period of darkness, Jesus took the reins. My expenses were miraculously covered; and shortly afterward he opened the door to a couple of new consulting engagements.

Our firm was reborn, and my career headed in a completely new direction. In addition to branding, business analytics and strategic planning engagements, we started assisting entrepreneurs in their efforts to secure venture capital. This has become our core practice area in recent years, and we find these assignments to be our most fulfilling engagements.

As odd as this may seem, the attempt on my life happens to be the greatest blessing of my life. My reliance on Our lord and savior has grown by leaps and bounds since that day. I’ve been set free of the fears of becoming homeless and going hungry; and I have a much truer sense of purpose.

The adversity I’ve faced has now become somewhat of an asset much like Proverbs 17:17 describes. I now realize that all I am afforded has been conferred upon me through God’s grace, and I’ve earned a degree of humility. For Christ alone grants us pardon so we may carry out His will.

Meditation and prayer have become staples in my life in the years since the attack. I turn my care and will over to Our lord and savior Jesus Christ every morning and ask for his guidance and direction as I plan out the day ahead.

During these quiet times together, the Holy Spirit has revealed much to me about myself. I’ve channeled back to lessons in life that I had shelved in the back of my mind; and I have recalled the tutelage of mentors and instructors who honed my skills and helped forge my character.

One of the greatest lessons I have recalled is that you can train yourself to recognize fear. Both within yourself and within others. When you're under fear, your survival instincts begin to kick in, and your body gives off telltale signs when they do.

That said, there are two distinctly different types of fear. Some fears are sheep, and others happen to be wolves. The keys are first knowing which you’re dealing with, and then roping those fears into submission.

When I start to feel fear, my mind begins to race; and my pulse begins to quicken if I don’t nip the racing thoughts in the bud. Before I know it, I’m fidgeting in my seat and the world around me becomes cloudy. At that point, fear has the advantage. And like wagon train settlers on the American frontier, I become easy prey for outlaws, marauders and desperados whenever that happens.

When fear takes hold of me, I must remind myself that I've been afforded a sheriff's badge, and that’s it’s my duty to confront the perpetrator. That means tapping into the fear and shining light upon the source with the truth.

Wrangling fear entrepreneur sheriff sheep roping in venture capital

This isn’t as easy as it sounds because fear happens to be a shape shifter. It takes many forms, and most of them are slippery suckers.

Sometimes my fears appear as a strongman outlaw with the gift of gab. If I happen to be hungry, angry, lonely or tired when the strongman disturbs my peace, I’m in for a fight. If I manage to wrestle it down, it starts to plea bargain with me. It reminds me that it’s a long ride back to the jail and offers me a bribe to dismiss the criminal offense.

If I take that bribe, I’m in for a world of hurt. Because that strongman outlaw usually doesn’t travel alone. It’s generally tied in with a gang of marauding fears hiding all along the trail. The strongman has a horse that’s lot faster than mine, and it knows where its compadres are positioned. Before I know it, they’ve got me encircled; and they begin to pick me apart in short order.

They go after my scars. Wounds from the past that haven’t quite healed. They’re armed with sharp tongues and they’re deadly accurate with their aim. If my anger flairs, they smack me upside my head with resentments and leave me to rot on the trail. A tasty morsel for roving desperados that often follow in their wake.

When that strongman starts to offer the bribe, I’m learning to simply go about my business. I do my best to keep my mouth shut and not say a word. Instead, I hog-tie the strongman with my rope, blindfold it, stuff a bandana in its mouth, and drag it straight back to the jail behind my horse.

It isn’t my job to dispense justice. Rather, it’s my duty to keep the peace. I say a prayer for the outlaw and hand him over to Christ for redemption. I try not to look back once I have. Instead, I return the trail and go about my business. I know the verdict will be swift and that’s sufficient. The truth always prevails. Light always vanquishes the darkness.

CONFRONT YOUR FEARS EARLY ON
Confronting fear is an imperative, especially for entrepreneurs. Business is oftentimes warfare, and it’s necessary to keep a clear head in order to remain true to your mission. If you avoid your persistent fears, they tend to surface at the least opportune times. Our unholy enemy senses fear and uses it to his advantage.

You jeopardize everything you’ve worked for unless you rope your own fears and hand them over to God. For example, employees can sense doubt and uncertainty. It often breeds worry and concern. When patterns of the two begin to emerge, your top performers are likely to jump ship. Oftentimes, to your competitors.

Similarly, investors can sense desperation. Most won’t touch you when you smell of it. You’re simply a bad gamble and the risks to their portfolio are too great. And those who will entertain your ideas when you smell of desperation are oftentimes wolves. Some will listen to your pitch just to pick your brain. They’ll steal your ideas in order to sell them off, or even start a business of their own that mirrors yours.

Other wolves will intentionally wrangle you into a deal that becomes a no-win situation for you. They’ll deliberately structure the terms of the contract so that it’s nearly impossible to diversify or retool. Perhaps worse, they may plot to dilute your holdings over time; to a point where you have no say in the company.

Last but certainly not least: you’re likely to make unwise decisions if you’re not cognizant of your own fears. The Enemy is cunning, baffling and powerful. Before you know it, you’re responding to his minions rather than the voice of reason. If that happens, there's a good chance you'll wind up getting cocky, going bent, turning flaccid or becoming greedy. You may even compromise your company’s mission without even realizing it.

ENTREPRENEURS: FOR YOUR JOURNEY AHEAD

I waited patiently for the LORD;
he inclined to me and heard my cry.
He drew me up from the pit of destruction,
out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock,
making my steps secure.
He put a new song in my mouth,
a song of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear,
and put their trust in the LORD.
---Psalms 40:1-3

Wrangling fear entrepreneur kneeling at a cross on the American frontier

May God grant you clarity of vision and purity of thought as you move toward your purpose. Confront your fears, rope them down, and turn them over to Our lord and savior Jesus Christ. Like the mustard seed, your vision will take root.

Author: Erik Gagnon - Managing Partner, Chi Rho Consulting

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