Author: Henry Murphy

He was a creative born and raised in Texas.

He grew up as a knucklehead.

Always getting into trouble.

At one point in his life, he was in a gang.

But by the grace of God, he was able to get out.

He ended up going to prison for a little while.

And while he was there, he started dabbling in something new.

Creating jewelry.

He had this big idea of where he wanted to go.

He had ambition.

He had vision.

But when he got out, life didn’t immediately look like the vision.

He couldn’t find a job.

He didn’t have anywhere to stay.

If you had seen him during that moment of his life, you might have looked at him and thought:

That’s just a gangbanger who went to prison and came out with no future.

But that’s the problem with snapshots.

They only show you one moment.

What you wouldn’t have seen was what was happening in the background.

Every chance he got, he was reading a book.

Watching YouTube videos.

Learning.

Growing.

Understanding finances.

He got one part-time job.

Then he got another one.

And everything he was learning about money, he started applying.

He started stacking his money.

Eventually, he had enough to order everything he needed to start making jewelry.

Then he opened up a Shopify store.

He started talking directly to the people he wanted to serve.

He told his story organically.

He connected his story to his brand.

And eventually…

It went through the roof.

See, when you look at people through a snapshot, you never see what’s happening in the background.

You see where they are.

But you don’t see where they’re going.

You see the chapter.

But you don’t know the whole story.

Life is more like a movie than a single scene.

So the next time you’re tempted to judge somebody based on one moment of their life…

Remember that you might be looking at a snapshot of someone who’s still becoming.

I love a good program just like everybody else.

Give me some fresh popcorn, a Coke Zero, and an ottoman to put my feet up on, and I’m good. 😂

I don’t have a problem with leisure.

I love the freedom that comes with entrepreneurship.

But there’s something else that comes with it too.

Responsibility.

And if I’m spending more time being entertained than I am educating myself, that doesn’t make sense to me.

It’s kind of like eating soft-baked cookies straight out of the oven three times a day, then sitting down to one solid meal.

Where’s the nutritional value?

It’s not there.

And honestly, that’s how I feel about constantly watching TV while neglecting the things that can help you grow.

Your skills.

Your mindset.

Your knowledge.

Your ability.

I’m not saying you can never watch TV.

I’m not canceling your Netflix subscription. 😂

What I am saying is this:

What are you prioritizing?

Because if entertainment is getting more of your time than education, you might be making your journey harder than it needs to be.

And I think this is especially important for entrepreneurs.

Actually, it might be even more important for the person who desires to become one.

Because the journey is already going to require you to learn things you don’t know.

Develop skills you don’t have yet.

Change the way you think.

And become the person capable of building what you say you want to build.

But if you’re constantly feeding your entertainment and starving your education…

You’re putting yourself at a disadvantage.

This isn’t really about Netflix.

It’s about priorities.

Put the first thing first.

Then enjoy the popcorn. 

There was a time when I thought wealth was all about making more money.


More sales.


More customers.


More growth.


And while I still believe there’s nothing wrong with wanting more, I’ve realized that what I want today looks very different from what I wanted when I first started.


Recently, my wife and I were talking about Thailand.


As we talked, I realized something that made me smile.


There is really nothing holding me back from traveling right now.


At one point in my life, I was tied to a building with 8 employees. As much as I loved what I was doing, I couldn’t just get up and leave if I wanted to. My time belonged to someone else. My schedule belonged to someone else.


Today, that’s different.


The more I think about the freedom entrepreneurship has given me, the more I realize there is still so much I want to experience in life.


That doesn’t mean my discipline changes.


I’m still going to get up and do the work.


I’m still going to follow my calendar.


I’m still going to serve the people God called me to serve.


But I also want a calendar that has room for life.


I want to get a back massage a few times a week if I want to.


I want to get a foot massage if I feel like it.


I want to take a walk with my wife every day.


I want to do Tai Chi in the park.


I want to have lunch in the middle of the day without feeling guilty about it.


Because freedom of time was one of the biggest reasons I wanted to become an entrepreneur in the first place.


The problem is that when I first started, I got buried in the hustle.


And if you’ve been an entrepreneur long enough, you know exactly what I’m talking about.


You get focused on growth.


Then more growth.


Then more goals.


Then bigger goals.


And before you know it, you’ve built a business but forgotten why you wanted the business in the first place.


For me, that reason was freedom.


Not freedom from responsibility.


Freedom to live.


Freedom to experience.


Freedom to create.


Freedom to serve.


I don’t just want things anymore.


I want experiences.


If I want to go sit on a beach in Da Nang, Vietnam, I want to be able to hop on a plane.


If I want to visit Africa, I want to be able to hop on a plane.


If I want to spend weeks in Italy soaking up the culture, I want to be able to hop on a plane.


The beautiful thing about what I do today is that I can help entrepreneurs build ecommerce brands from anywhere in the world.


And every time I think about that, it feels freeing.


Maybe that’s what wealth means to me now.


Not having more things.


Having more freedom.


Freedom to choose.


Freedom to experience.


Freedom to spend time with the people I love.


Freedom to build a life that aligns with what matters most.


I still believe in hard work.


I still believe in discipline.


I still believe in showing up every day and doing what God called you to do.


But I no longer believe wealth is measured only by what you own.


I think it’s also measured by how much freedom you have to live the life God placed in your heart.


And honestly, that’s a version of wealth worth building.

It’s been a while since I wrote a blog.

Last week, I decided to finally put it back on my schedule for today, and honestly, I missed it more than I realized.

Phase one of building a brand from the ground up took a lot out of me, especially the back end of it.

Systems.

Infrastructure.

Teaching.

Building.

Rebuilding.

A lot of people only see the front end of entrepreneurship, but the back end is where real pressure lives.

The front end of building was where I wrote the most because I was in a hard season, and this is exactly why your “why” matters so much.

Your why is what pushes you through the difficult seasons.

Your why is what keeps you showing up when things feel uncertain.

When the money is inconsistent.

When the pressure is heavy.

When life changes unexpectedly.

Building a brand from the ground up while teaching other founders how to build their brands from the ground up at the same time has been one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done.

It forced me to become more disciplined.

More focused.

More intentional.

It also forced me into something I now realize I was missing for a long time:

Service.

I have built a lot of brands over the years, and when I really sat with it, I realized serving people deeply was one of the pieces I had not fully embraced the way I should have.

And honestly, I asked myself:

“How did I miss this?”

Jesus was so intentional about serving people.

So intentional about loving people.

So intentional about transformation.

And somehow, I overlooked how important service really is in brand building.

But I won’t forget it again.

If you are building an ecommerce brand, I encourage you to build your brand around:

• service

• transformation

• customer experience

• helping people genuinely

Because if you do that consistently, you are building something that can actually last.

Not just something that sells.

Something that matters.

I wasn’t even sure what I wanted to write about today.

But as I started typing, this is what came out.

So this is what’s getting posted.

I have a lot more I want to share with you.

And if God allows me to see it, I’ll be writing again next week.

There will be days when you just wanna give up, and I’m no stranger to this.

You might find yourself sitting in a Starbucks, working on the thing you know could change your life and serve people at a high level. It could be one of those days where you woke up feeling amazing. The air smells fresh. The sun is shining bright. You’re full of gratitude.

Then — out of nowhere, comes a text about a refund. And maybe that was the very money you were counting on just to live.

Then another message hits your phone , something from a five-month, old project you thought was already behind you.

Then new problems knock on your door like uninvited guests,  more to solve, more to carry.

You might not even know what you’re gonna eat today. Let’s not even talk about tomorrow.

You’re trusting God as usual. Your faith is strong. But the circumstances,  they find a way to get into you.

You’re in the grocery store, working with a limited budget, and even here, difficulty doesn’t escape you.

Issues at the register. You find yourself two dollars short.

It doesn’t seem like much, but in that moment,  it’s everything.

There’s this episode from Frasier I always think about on days like this.

Niles had been going through a hard time, one of those days where everything just stacks. He walks into the coffee shop, clearly overwhelmed, and asks for a straw. The woman behind the counter tells him:

“Sorry, that was the last straw.”

That was it.

He broke.

Right there, in the middle of the shop.

Some days feel exactly like that.

And honestly, I don’t even have to reach too far to find the feeling.

I’ve had those days.

Plenty of them.

As I was writing this today, I was feeling a little hopeless, but as I wrote, joy filled my heart.

The Holy Spirit inside of me comforted me, and I want to leave you with these final thoughts.

Some days, we have to fight to remember our why.

Some days, we feel empty.

Some days, we feel hopeless.

But hope is not lost.

You’d do well to remember this,  disruption follows intention.

Every time you set your mind to do something worthwhile, resistance will show up.

But that resistance doesn’t have the final say.

It’s not a sign to quit — it’s a sign that you’re headed in the right direction.

Don’t let anything get in the way of what you were called to do,  especially when you’ve submitted your life to God.

He sovereignly allows you to rule over the thing He gave you to do.

And that will be fruitful.

And that will multiply.

I stand on God’s faithfulness.

God Bless The Entrepreneur®️

Conviction is what gets your attention.

Correction is what changes your direction.

It’s one thing to feel inspired by someone else’s discipline, 

It’s another thing to let that inspiration expose what needs to change in you.

That’s when proximity becomes more than motivating.

It becomes refining.

I’ve had to check my own pride.

I’ve had to rewrite my own habits.

I’ve had to upgrade my environment on purpose.

Because proximity is powerful, but it only works if you’re humble enough to let it correct you.

My life changed when God found me in that back room one night.

That day, I was drinking and smoking. Separated from my wife. Distant from my kids. Hopeless.

I was sleeping in the part of the house that wasn’t really the house. You know the kind,  where we used to smoke, drink, escape. That little back room only had a box spring, a nightstand, and an old Bible in the drawer.

And somehow, in His grace, God met me there.

That night changed everything.

From there, God in His sovereignty allowed me to be around Eddie Wesby.

I’m not sure if I’d been around someone that consistent since my dad.

Eddie took me under his wing. He brought me to Bible school with him.

And the more I went, the more I learned. The men in that room were real men, grounded, rooted, wise, and nothing like I’d ever experienced before. I felt out of my element… but at the same time, I was growing. I was learning. I was becoming.

Eddie discipled me. He walked with me.

Week after week.

And him and his wife? They took my family to and from church every Sunday until we had our own car. No excuses. No days off. Just love, service, and example.

That’s what proximity does.

It was the beginning of my walk with God.

And even now, you might’ve heard me say this before: I ask God daily to fill me with His Holy Spirit.

From there, I got everything I needed, 

Intimacy.

Wisdom.

Faith.

Perseverance.

Patience.

Everything flows from His Spirit.

Changing my proximity to God changed my proximity in life.

Who you’re around matters more than you’ll ever know.

There will be seasons where God places us in dark rooms so we can shine light, 

But there will also be seasons where we must intentionally place ourselves in rooms where we are being refined, challenged, corrected, and made better.

That’s the power of proximity.

But only if you let it change you.

God Bless The Entrepreneur®

I wanna be around people who convict me, not by talking, but by how they live.

Their DISCIPLINE. Their CONSISTENCY. Their DRIVE. Their FAITH. Their MINDSET.

The kind that makes you CHECK YOURSELF.

I wanna live my life convicted by proximity.

Because I’ve been on the other side before.

I’ve been around people who weren’t going nowhere, no dreams, no ambition, no urgency.

Then you look up years later… and everybody in the same place.

Same routine. Same complaints.

Mindset? Scarcity.

Money? Gone before the check clears.

Assets? None.

Liabilities? Plenty.

And image? Don’t even get me started.

Everybody cared more about how they looked than what they were actually doing.

By the grace of God, one day I woke up and asked myself:

What are you doing?

That moment changed everything for me.

And if you’re reading this thinking, “That might be me..”

Let me remind you:

Proximity matters.

Your life is your own.

You are called to steward it well.

So when is it ever OK to make yourself smaller to fit in?

When is it ever OK to dumb yourself down so others can feel comfortable?

It’s not.

And it’s never OK to abandon the dream God gave you.

The only life worth living is the one that requires faith.

The one that demands risk.

The one where you walk toward purpose, not away from it.

Solomon said it like this in Proverbs:

“Walk with the wise and become wise; but hang with fools and your life will fall apart.”

(Layman’s terms?

If you hang around people going nowhere, don’t be surprised when you end up in the same place.)

Let me keep it practical:

► If you can’t sit across the table with a mentor yet,

► If you don’t have someone in your circle who inspires you right now,

Then open up YouTube.

Log on to Instagram.

Start following people who challenge you.

Not with words, but with how they live.

Their discipline. Their stewardship. Their consistency.

Because when you do that consistently, your mindset levels up.

And without even trying, you start attracting people who align with the person you’re becoming.

You don’t just need hype — you need conviction.

And sometimes, the loudest conviction is silent.

GodBlessTheEntrepreneur®

I don’t know if you’re like me, but sometimes, 

I just wish I didn’t have negative thoughts at all.

It can feel overwhelming.

You’re trying to build something, stay focused, be productive 

And then, out of nowhere, the thought hits.

Something cynical. Something self-defeating.

Something that doesn’t belong.

I hate it.

If negative thought was a person, I’d say I hate you.

Because no matter how much I train my mind, it still shows up.

That old residue.

Let’s define that:

Residue is the small amount of something left behind after the main part has gone.

And that’s exactly how it feels.

The old me is gone,  but sometimes, the leftover thoughts still remain.

And I’ve come to understand this truth:

As long as we’re in this sinful body, we’ll have to contend with that residue.

But here’s the good news, 

We have the power to cast it down.

The other day I was talking to my wife and I said,

“You know what? I just had a really negative thought.”

And I immediately followed it with,

“Why am I thinking this? This is not profitable.”

If I leaned into that thought,

It would’ve pulled me into a place I didn’t want to go.

It was a trap.

And I’ve learned: you can’t entertain what you’re trying to evict.

That residu,  those old patterns, old fears, old narratives, 

They try to sneak back in, but they don’t belong here anymore.

We have the mind of Christ.

That means we’re equipped.

We’ve been given authority.

In fact, God’s first instructions to mankind were:

Be fruitful. Have dominion.

So when those limiting beliefs show up,

You have every right,  and responsibilit,  to trample them down.

I was working on some content the other day and ran into this same thing again.

It was something as simple as lighting equipment.

For some reason, I assigned a high level of difficulty to setting it up, before I even opened the box.

And I realized.

I’ve done this same thing in business before.

I’ve created mental blocks where there didn’t need to be any.

But where did that belief come from?

That voice that says this is too hard,  before we even start?

Because here’s the truth:

I figured out the lights.

I figured out the business.

And I’ll figure out the next thing, too.

So now I’m paying attention to my thoughts more than ever.

I’ve learned to recognize what belongs,  and what’s foreign.

You have to be so intentional about cultivating a great mindset

That when something toxic enters, you know it instantly.

You spot the residue, and you say: You don’t belong here.

You evict it.

You cast it down.

You guard your peace.

Because that old mindset?

It doesn’t live here anymore.

God Bless The Entrepreneur®

I find myself back in Atlanta, sipping my coffee like I usually do, sitting out on the patio. Today is one of those days where I’ve been longing for that cool breeze in Los Angeles, California. Sometimes it’s hard to believe I grew up here in Georgia, this humidity doesn’t make any sense. OK, I’m drifting a little bit, but I’ve got my Audible going, and I hear a phrase that catches me by surprise: optimistic ignorance.

So I do what I usually do , I grab my phone, hit the rewind button, back it up 30 seconds, and there it was again. Optimistic ignorance. I’d never heard it said quite like that before, but I knew exactly what it meant. Based on the context, it sounded a whole lot like faith to me.

That phrase had me doing a deep dive, and what I found made me smile, optimistic ignorance is when you step into something big, even though you don’t have all the information, but you believe anyway. You trust the process. You move forward with hope and confidence, even in the unknown.

And that’s exactly what I was doing all along.

When I got into e-commerce, I didn’t know what I was doing. I never would’ve imagined that a couple dozen T-shirts folded neatly in the front closet would be the beginning of something amazing. Life was moving fast. I didn’t have time to fully process every moment. But I kept my eyes on the vision.

I remember a few years passed, and I was finally ready to invest in my first office. Maybe a year after that, the first truck. Then the first tour. And so on. None of those decisions were back-to-back, they were stretched out over time. But each one was a step of faith. A risk. A move in the right direction even when I didn’t fully know what I was doing.

See, I’m not against the term optimistic ignorance, actually, I kind of like it. But for me, my optimism comes from faith in God. And my “ignorance”? That’s my hope. Hope that sees something that isn’t there yet — but believes it’s already done. That kind of hope isn’t a wish. It’s expectation. It’s conviction. It’s walking toward the thing you saw and refusing to let anything stop you.

So keep dreaming. Keep building. Envision that business as big as you possibly can. Keep your hands to the plow and your eyes on the vision. Don’t let anyone talk you out of what God gave you to do. You don’t need to know it all to begin, just trust the One who does.

I pray this blog encourages you.

God Bless The Entrepreneur®️

There are times when I’m grinding hard on a project, late nights, head down, putting in the work. And when I finally finish, I’ll look at it and think, Man, I’m proud of this. Other times I’m soaking up knowledge , reading books, listening to podcasts, watching mentors and coaches I respect. And if I’m being honest, sometimes it starts to feel like I know everything.

But then I open the Word of God.

And that’s where it either encourages me or convicts me,   sometimes both. That’s just who I am. That’s Henry the person, and Henry the entrepreneur.

I’ve always been drawn to the story of Job. God called him righteous. But then He let him go through suffering that honestly makes you stop and ask:

Dang, God, I thought you said he was righteous?

Why would you let him go through all that? I don’t understand.

And that’s when I realize,  we obviously don’t know what we think we do.

Jesus said following Him wouldn’t be easy. That suffering would come. That serving others is the higher calling. But if I’m being real, a lot of us weren’t taught that version of the story. We thought faith meant ease, not hardship. But that’s not the truth.

It reminds me of something I used to do when I’d visit Siesta Key Beach in Sarasota, Florida. I’d walk right up to where the waves hit my feet and stop,  where the ocean meets its boundary. I’d think about the scripture that says God assigned the sea its limit, and man, that would wreck me.

He spoke to the sea and said, “This far and no farther.”

That’s the same God who answered Job out of the whirlwind, with questions that shut everything down and brought clarity through humility. And as an entrepreneur, these questions hit differently, because they remind me that all control is His. That even my business journey is spiritual.

Here are just six of those questions, and how they hit me today:

• “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?”

→ You didn’t start this. God is the ultimate builder. That reminds me that I’m a steward, not the source.

• “Who marked off its dimensions, surely you know?”

→ Strategy and structure belong to Him. The blueprint you’re working on? He’s the Master Architect.

• “Have you ever commanded the morning or shown the dawn its place?”

→ God controls timing. You can’t force your season, stay faithful in the wait.

• “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades or loosen Orion’s belt?”

→ You don’t hold influence together. The platforms, the audience, the reach — that’s His doing, not yours.

• “Do you know the laws of the heavens?”

→ You may know business principles, but the real laws of increase, favor, and overflow? God governs those.

• “Can you bring forth the constellations in their season?”

→ You can’t manufacture divine alignment. That open door? That opportunity? He releases it at the right time.

When you look at it through that lens, these aren’t just rhetorical questions. They’re gentle, and sometimes not-so-gentle,  reminders that God is God, and you are not.

And honestly, thank God for that.

Because if everything rested on your understanding, your plan, your power, you would’ve burned out by now. But it doesn’t. He provides. He leads. He knows.

So yeah, be humble. You don’t know a thing.

But that’s not a bad thing.

It’s a freeing thing.

Because the One who does know? He’s with you. And He’s for you.

God Bless The Entrepreneur®️