Episode 48 | Host: Trev Warnke | Guest: Nathan Johnson

🔥 Why This Episode Matters

Most entrepreneurs are taught to lead with strategy, numbers, and control. This episode makes the case for something different leading with faith first, and letting everything else follow from that.

Trev Warnke and Nathan Johnson get honest about the tension every business owner feels: the pressure to carry every burden alone, the instinct to grip tighter when things get uncertain, and the fear of what might happen if you let go of the wheel. They talk through what changed when they stopped compartmentalizing their faith and started building their businesses around it.

This conversation isn't about religion as a marketing angle. It's about what happens internally less stress, more clarity, more courage when you stop trying to carry the business on your own strength.

If you've ever felt like your business owns you instead of the other way around, this episode is for you.

🎧 Listen to the Episode

👤 Meet the Hosts & Guest

• Trev Warnke - Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn | Profile| Personal Website

  Trev is the founder of Brotherhood Beyond Business, a mastermind community built for male entrepreneurs who want accountability without the fluff. He's built and run multiple businesses, including GCP and Level Up, before landing on Brotherhood as the mission he believes God has been pulling him toward all along.

• Nathan Johnson - Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn | Profile

  Nathan is a business partner and co-host who works directly with clients day to day, coaching them through both fitness and life. He's open about how prayer and scripture show up in his client conversations — not as a script, but as something that consistently meets people exactly where they are.

📌 What You'll Learn in This Episode

• Why carrying business stress alone leads to burnout and what it looks like to hand it off instead

• How letting go of control can open doors that gripping tighter never will

• Why praying for courage matters more than praying for outcomes

• The difference between building a "money vehicle" and building a mission

• How quiet time and scripture can show up in real client conversations, not just Sunday mornings

• Why discomfort and resistance are often signs you're moving in the right direction, not the wrong one

• How to invest in people because of their inherent worth, not just their potential to convert

• Why living in alignment with your faith matters more than talking about it

🧩 Episode Summary

Trev and Nathan open up about where they started building businesses driven mostly by financial pressure and how that shifted once they began actually praying over their decisions instead of just making them. Trev is candid about his own instinct to control everything, and how learning to hand that control over changed the direction of his business more than any strategy session ever did.

The conversation moves into practical territory fast. Nathan talks about praying with clients mid-session when conversations turn emotional, and how quiet time in the morning has a strange way of directly speaking to what comes up with clients later that same day. Trev shares his own struggle with social anxiety around networking, and how praying for courage not for the anxiety to disappear, but for the strength to move through it became a turning point.

What ties it together is their read on resistance. Instead of treating hurdles as a sign to stop, they've come to see discomfort as evidence they're headed somewhere that matters. That reframe hurdles as confirmation, not rejection runs through the whole episode and lands as the core takeaway.

It's a grounded, unpolished look at what it actually looks like to build a business without pretending faith and work are separate things.

🕒 Episode Timestamps

[00:00] Intro & why leading with faith matters

[01:28] Laying burdens down and finding peace as a business owner

[02:46] Letting go of control and trusting God's path

[04:47] Praying for courage through social anxiety

[07:00] From money-driven business to mission-driven purpose

[10:12] The cost (or lack of one) of leading with faith openly

[13:27] How quiet time and scripture speak into client conversations

[17:27] The devil's distraction and pushing through discomfort

[19:14] Closing thoughts: finishing well

💡 Quote Highlight

"It's not God pulling us from our paths. It's the devil trying to distract us from what we're supposed to be doing."

🚀 Next Steps

👉 Get our weekly Build the Business, Build the Man., Build the Edge, playbook to get one actionable task to implement into your business and life each week --> Sign Up

👉 Download our Your Circle is Your Ceiling eBook

👉 Learn more about Our Method

📚 Resources & Links

• Follow BBB on: Website | Instagram | YouTube | X | Facebook | Buzzsprout

• Watch the full episode on YouTube

• Listen to the full episode: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Buzzsprout

🚀Full Transcript

Trev Warnke (00:43)

Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Brotherhood Beyond Business Podcast. Today, me and Nate are going to discuss how faith should be a big part of your business. You should lead with it first. And how we're going to talk about how we lead with it in our lives, why it's important to us, how maybe we didn't originally start with like leading with our faith. And as we got more bold in our faith and really understood where we stood we where we stood in our business and our lives, that we started leading with it more. And now we build business through our faith. So we just want to make sure as Christian entrepreneurs

It's not something you need to ignore. You don't have to be a hidden Christian in your business. You can lead forward with it and you'll attract people that really appreciate it. And if even if people aren't Christians, they still will appreciate that you lead with who you are. And that doesn't, you know, automatically disqualify them being being part of your business. So, Nate, go ahead and kick off why, I mean, first of all, why it's important for you to lead with your faith and just kind of how we've done it in our businesses.

Nathan Johnson (01:28)

Yeah, so first off, the number one reason I think it's important to lead off with faith when it comes to your business is because of the stresses and the life that a business owner has. And God calls us to lay down all of our burdens at his feet. And a business owner has a lot of burdens. And if he's not leading with his faith, then he's gonna carry those burdens instead of placing them at the feet of Jesus the way that we are commanded to do as Christians.

And so that's a huge reason why. And I think that before we started doing that, it created a lot more stress in your life, right? In terms of you know what it is that you're doing, you know, for the business and creating that balance in your life that you're looking for between work and your home life. And when you learn to give that to God, then it's not you're basically saying, God, I'm putting it in your hands, removing it from my hands, and then we get that peace.

That only we can have from giving up that area of our lives to God, knowing that He's in control and now give Him the steering wheel, which is honestly the hardest thing to do, especially as business owners, is to give up control, right? with anything in our lives. But once you do that, it's huge transformation in your life, not only as a business owner, but for me as a father and then as a husband.

Trev Warnke (02:46)

Yeah, I think anybody that knows me and you you definitely have known me more than most people my life is I I like to have a stranglehold on where the business is going, right? I like to be completely in control and and directionally focusing it. and our whole life I'd always been doing that. And I think until I really opened up to letting God lead that path, did we get to the the where we are right now? if it wasn't for that, we probably would have built mobile gyms just because that was what we were doing. we would have tried to like put out a lot of debt.

Because that was like the the vehicle we were going down. And once we started to like in especially you you pushing me a little bit more to pray more in our in our at at work and have that more in our conversations and talk through that path more. That's allowed me to dive deeper into my my Christianity, to dive deeper in that. And then, you know, the brotherhood is built around like the faith focus. We folk we start there and we build out from there. but it definitely for me, like you said, it was it's a hard thing for me to let go. I think I like go way more now than I used to.

but I also pray more and I talk to God a lot more about the path. But originally the path was really hard for me to follow because it was just truly my path that I want to do and I wasn't listening to outside sources at all.

Nathan Johnson (03:49)

Yeah, and it helps us because we want to learn to work for God as opposed to like work for ourselves. Right? We think of ourselves as the providers for our families. And even in that kind of mindset, we need to take a step back and I need to remember I'm not the one providing. God's the one providing for me through my business. And so we we pr you know, praying every day and putting the signs up, you know, in the office is just reminders. Pray every day for your business. Not for the sake of I want to make more money for my business, but for maybe yes, for blessing the business, but

Taking care of the clients, taking care of the employees, right? Guiding us down the path we want. Convict us when we're prote potentially going down a path that we're not supposed to go. And then asking God to open the doors down the path that He definitely wants us to go. Right. And then having obviously the strength to go that route. Sometimes it's scary. And so we pray for courage, obviously, every single day. Hey, Lord, lead me down that path. I don't like it. So I'm uncomfortable down it. But that's the path you want me to go. I need your help to get there. So

Trev Warnke (04:47)

Yeah, I mean, for me, just a simple thing happened the other day. I'm not I don't love networking. it in certain ways it kind of gives me extreme anxiety. but just from doing a B and I the other day and after talking to you and Joe and Danny a little bit about it, and then I prayed pretty deeply about it to tell the Lord to give me the courage to do this thing, even though for the average person it doesn't sound that big a deal, but for me, it's like social anxiety that I get. And so I had to pray pretty deeply and like I feel I felt like okay, woke up the next day, got the email from the B and I is this a good experience like okay.

gonna I'm gonna go forward with it. We're gonna move forward with it because God's gonna give me the courage to show up every single week and do the thing that I don't want to do. And I think without that, I probably would have came back the next day with excuses to you guys. But well, you know guys, like we have these other things I could do instead, right? We could do I could just do this these comfort zones. but I do think God gives me a lot of courage, honestly. And that's something I need more in it's in certain ways I need it more than the average person. I think there's certain anxieties that I struggle with and I need courage to just do the uncomfortable thing.

because I built a life that's pretty comfortable in in many ways and the uncomfortable thing is what moves us forward. And I I I have to prey on that a lot. So I do think I I lean a lot on the courage side.

Nathan Johnson (05:54)

Yeah, it's a it's a definitely something that is needed because as business owners, if we get too comfortable, like you know, like we start doing things we start focusing on things that aren't gonna actually grow the business. Right? Where it's like I'm comfortable doing this every single day, but the business isn't growing because I'm not pushing the limits down what I should be doing. Right. And that's where the strength from from the God comes in, is because I'm not gonna do the things I know I need to be doing because it makes me uncomfortable unless someone's there to hold me accountable. A lot of times that can be

You know, even even the Holy Spirit can help you be like, Okay, you need to be doing this, Nathan. Need to make those phone calls. Because if you could change one life, not just in health ways, but imagine if we touch someone's life and we help point them to Jesus just in the like Trevor, like, why are you so full of joy every day? Why are you so at peace? Why is it why what what is it? Why are you so different? You can be like, Well, I wake up every single day knowing that, you know, I have Jesus loves me and I'm I have that relationship to wake up to every single day and it's there, no matter what happens in my life.

I get to lean on him. Like having that little chance to change someone's life. I mean, there you go. That's the beautiful thing about business owning.

Trev Warnke (07:00)

Yeah. And I think for me owning the the gyms originally, like there's those transformations we get it to affect. but like I think a lot of times when we were trying to build GCP because we're just so like needing money, it was so money driven, right? We're just like we did things for money. and there's different certain certain times your life where that kind of has to be the case a little bit. but then we built level up, which is like our our marketing agency, and like you and me found no real joy in it, right? It was just again, it was a money vehicle at a point when the money vehicle probably wasn't that important.

and then we eventually landed on the brotherhood, our our mastermind thing. And that's truly mission driven. And the more I talk about it, the more I think about it, and I really pray about it and I work on like the strategy and stuff every single time. That's a true mission, right? Like that's something I can tell God's like pulling from my heart. Like Trevor, every time you get distracted on all this other stuff that's like just sitting behind your computer doing things that don't move this mission forward. I'm gonna keep pulling you towards that. I'm gonna make it uncomfortable. I'm gonna give make you anxious about things because you're not doing the things you need to do towards a brotherhood and you're working on

Things for other businesses that isn't moving this forward. And I think that's that's that's showing me that God's continued He's been great at pulling my heart in the right direction. And I I think about the Brotherhood as our one great commission, because you know, you know, Jesus

Nathan Johnson (08:07)

Mm-hmm.

Trev Warnke (08:08)

said we have our great commission, like bring you bring that one more. And so that's our thing. Our thing is like I don't think the gym could be that for us, at least not in how we were doing it. and marketing agency definitely wasn't gonna be that by any means. But the brotherhood's our great, our ability to have the great commission to bring one more person closer to Jesus.

And I think that's our way to do it because you don't have to be a Christian to be part of our group, but we're not going to ignore those conversations. We're not going to like go against our our the Holy Spirit coming out of us. I'm going to pour into you. And maybe, maybe along the way, you will find you you you will be somebody that that's committed to Jesus along that path. Maybe not, but at we're gonna pour Jesus into your heart so much like, hey, these are good people because they they they they go through the faith, they go through God's path. And that when our our conversations happen, it's truly from their heart, it's not from alterative motives.

Nathan Johnson (08:52)

Yeah, and when you think about the fact that we you go through every single day, like today I'm just gonna witness to one more person, right? I'm just gonna try to be a light in the darkness for one more person today. It's a lot more motivating than I'm gonna go try to get another hundred dollars today. Right? Because that's hundred dollars where you're like, that's not, but if I could change someone's life forever by pointing them the right direction towards Jesus, just through whether it's just my life examples or just coming in contact with them or like we do with the Brotherhood.

Like we actually reach out to individuals, right? And we're com we're contacting them, we're investing in them, and they're gonna be like, Why is this person investing in me? It's like, Well, because you were created in the image of God and you have infinite value in that, right? And we want to invest in you because of that. So

Trev Warnke (09:36)

Yeah. And I invest in people just not just because you I I'm trying to just get you to become Christian. That is the long term like goal, obviously. But the idea is like, I'm investing in you because you're you're made in the image of God. And my job is to to help everybody that's made in the image of God, not just because I want to choose, choose like okay, you're already Christian. I'm only going to surround myself with you. That's actually kind of wrong. We're supposed to be f going after the one more. And that's the idea is we should be surrounding ourselves by the people that aren't maybe not surrounding ourselves. I think that's wrong. You're your inner circle is different than you should be chasing after.

those people that maybe aren't on that path to keep bringing them towards that path. And the brotherhood gives us that path to be able to do that. With from your

Nathan Johnson (10:11)

Yeah, yeah.

Trev Warnke (10:12)

perspective, what is a negative of leading through your faith? Like is there is there anything that we've ran across that's like, man, this has caused some obstacles for us. Not that we haven't overcome them because we all but is there anything that you think, man, like by here could be the negative if you, you know, lead through your faith in your business.

Nathan Johnson (10:30)

I mean, you're potentially gonna turn some people off, but that's that courage side of things. It's just like not caring. If people are so adamant they're like, I can't stand people who love God or think that there's a God that created the world or you know, like you guys are if they tell that I can I ignore science or things like that, but like well, it just gives you like if you're not gonna be my client or my customer, you know, just kinda brush that off anyways, but

We're probably not gonna know that within like our first meeting unless they're like come in and read the poster, it says like pray every day. And then I ask them, like, if they're really struggling, like today I had a meeting with an individual, she like broke down in tears with her nutrition console. We were going down a path that had nothing to do with food. I'm just like, Let me pray for you because the things that are bothering you are not nutrition related, right? And it just allows those moments to step in. And most people are honestly very appreciative, even if they don't have a faith to know that we care enough that

We're gonna pray for them, you know, in that regard. So I don't really see ever ever come into a negative where someone is ever like where it's ever even what it doesn't impact the dollar amount, you know. No one's ever canceled membership because like, Nathan's a Christian. I think living boldly helps you. Because like if I said I was a Christian, but then like I would swear at the clients or my behavior was different, right? As a f they saw me as a maybe I'd

a bad father or like a the type of husband that didn't respect his wife or love his wife and they'd be man, like this dude says he's Christian, but the music he listens to, the way he talks and the way he acts doesn't line up. But when you send your life into a perfect alignment trying to chase after, trying to be more like Jesus every single day, I think people respect that more than just saying one thing and doing the opposite.

Trev Warnke (12:18)

I think as business owners, we're always in pursuit of excellence, right? And Jesus created what excellence really is. Like this is the perfect human. Like, so you should we should always be chasing after what that looks like. So when we do live by his values every single day, it is chasing after excellence, which I think every business owner wants to do. And I agree, I don't think me personally, you you you interact with the clients at GCP more than I do. But me personally in all the businesses, I've never once had an interaction where somebody like was like, my gosh, you talk about being

being a Christian, so I can't have a conversation with you. It's like we never lead that way. We always I might have say something like, you know, you know, based on like a a Bible reading I was having, I might share with somebody, but that's all. It's not like I'm like, hey, you've got to respond to this. So I've never had a bad interaction with anybody, even like during COVID times, right? Where where I think people are a lot more like on edge about different things. I don't think I've ever had an interaction with somebody where I was afraid of that interaction. I just led with my heart. And I think most Christians come from a very like heart pat you know heart posture. Like I'm really I just care about you.

Like I just want to like pour into you. And I think the average person sees that regardless of what their their faith is or if they don't have faith. They see that this person's pouring into me. So like hit them talking about Jesus doesn't bother me because they're they're really pouring into me in this moment.

Nathan Johnson (13:27)

And there have been times that I've noticed, like even like off quiet times in the morning, sometimes you're like, Man, why did I read this passage? Or why was this something that was supposed to read? And then literally that day, a client will talk to me about something, and I'll be huh, that's literally the quiet time I had today. This is what and I'll tell them, hey, during my quiet time today, this is what God was talking to me about. This is what he kind of mentioned to me. And I think the reason why is because of what you're going through today. Like, for example, in James, when it says

you know, take joy in facing many trials. Right. If you got clients that got trials like, hey, like God tells us to take joy in those trials because we know that we're going to be built up stronger by not leaning on our strength, but by learning to lead on his strength. And so it's just so cool how like even in those moments, right? You're like, why'd I have this quiet time today? Because I needed that training for the interaction I was going to be having later that day with another person.

Right. And I'm abruptly serious and I'm so forward with them about it, like, hey, so in my reading of the Bible today, like your exact situation was what I was what I was reading about. And like this is what the Bible has to say about it. And they're like, that's so cool. Right? Like they they they actually appreciate that. And they never had a negative experience from that when I tell them that it's directly related to what my quiet time was today.

Trev Warnke (14:47)

Yeah, and I I don't interact with clients as like I said as much as you do. but even with you guys as business partners, I I every single I mean, the the more I dive into biblical stuff, like listen to podcasts by Josh Howerton or Joby Martin or reading the Bible or just the different things that I'm doing trying to learn, it's amazing how every single day God pulls certain things in my life, like, my gosh, like this is literally the thing I needed to either pull me back on track.

Or to show you guys like guys, this is the why we're on this mission. This is God consistently saying, This mission is real. I keep showing you all the reasons why this mission is real. You've got to you it I think for me, because mm I'm so like connected with the brotherhood right now, because that's my main path in business. And you guys, you, Danny and Joe, all are doing other businesses in the brotherhood's kind of like right now a side business. And so it helps God continue to give me these, these things to keep giving to you guys. This is why we're doing this.

Even though I know you guys can't be completely focused on this right now, this is why this mission is so important. And God's continuing to give me the tools to share with you guys, being like, this is really important. This is worth finding time in our lives to make sure that that we don't let this thing go because it's on our hearts and God keeps giving us these tools. And I do think when people talk about God speaking to you, like for me, it's those I it it obviously it's not him actually physically speaking to me, but like I just continue to get these messages that that align with everything that I need to hear at the time.

And it's usually biblical based and it's from somebody teaching that that continues to help me keep alignment. And I think that's helped our business from my perspective so much, especially on the brotherhood side of things. It's helped continue to align what we're going down the vision vision that we have versus like if I didn't have my our Christian faith, like I don't think the brotherhood would be what it is or where it's going. So

Nathan Johnson (16:26)

Yeah, that's so important to remember because there's so many times we can hit a hurdle and we think, man, a door is shutting. Right? But then we just you're you're very good, like you like you mentioned, that just be quiet and listen and like God will keep pointing you down the direction like, no, I want you to keep building this. That hurdle's not from me. That hurdle is from you know, that hurdle is from the devil. I d he wants you to stop doing what you're doing because your mission is on point with the Great Commission.

Right. I love that part because I I was just gonna say the same thing. It's like we are, in a sense, witnessing via the Great Commission because of what we're doing. And being reminded constantly by just getting those little bits from God every single day, like remind us what we're on is the path that He wants us to be on. And then leaning into the strength of one another is gonna help out tremendously, just reminding ourselves that, like, hey, this is the path that we're supposed to be on. Don't get deterred from it by the other things that

might be put in our way by somebody who definitely does not want us going down this path.

Trev Warnke (17:27)

Yeah. And we'll we'll go ahead and wrap up on up on that on this conversation. But the thing I think that you went on that's best is it's not God pulling us from our paths. It's the devil trying to distract us from what we're supposed to be doing. And I think as Christian business owners, one of the best devil's best tools is to keep us distracted on things that are like just money or just like growing our business. And well I once once I get my business to a certain part, I'll be a better Christian. I'll I'll show it more. I'll talk to people more. I'll be more involved in my in my Bible studies, that kind of stuff.

But really, you're you have a great tool right now. Entrepreneurs, we have this amazing tool. We have this vehicle that leads other people. And it doesn't mean that you have to go out there and just like t force everybody to follow Jesus. That's not gonna happen. But lead with those values, talk about those values, lead through that path because the devil is trying to distract us at all times. and it's so easy. Like just my anxieties that I struggle with. It's like man, I was doing really good in February, March, and then all of a sudden those anxieties kicked in. And that's the devil being like, Hey, you're doing this thing's moving. It's moving.

I'm gonna interrupt you enough to make you uncomfortable in the one thing I know you're really, really uncomfortable with. And now it's like I gotta get force and God's like, Hey, Trevor, you gotta you gotta get out of this. You've gotta get out of this. Like, come on, we gotta do this. And those are things I think we've got to keep looking at. It's like every single time something gets uncomfortable, it's usually not God saying no. It's actually God saying yes is probably and it's the devil being like, Here's the obstacle and put it in your way.

Nathan Johnson (18:40)

Yeah. Though I heard something one time that was really good about that is like when you're not moving your life forward, right, in terms of chasing how to become either you're you're witnessing or you're not achieving the purpose that God has for you and all those things, the devil's content with you. But the moment you start witnessing, moving towards you know like achieving that great commission, achieving your life's purpose, now the devil's playing games with you. Cause like so if life is smooth, something's wrong with your life.

If you've got hurdles in your life, they said you're doing something good. That's kinda how I look at it.

Trev Warnke (19:14)

Exactly. All

right, guys, we're gonna wrap up with just remember that we want to go to heaven and meet our father with the idea of him saying, Well well done, my good and faithful servant. Right. And part of that is the mission he put us on as entrepreneurs. He gave us a skill, he gave us a tool set for us to lead through. Keep leading through that tool set. Don't be afraid, don't be nervous of your faith. Guys, have a great day. Thanks for joining us for another episode of Brotherhood Beyond Business Podcast.