The thoughts and opinions shared in this post are my own and are in no way intended to criticize, belittle, or disparage anyone else.
The beauty world was too shallow for me. Some of it was the industry as a whole and some of it was really just me. The revelation reminds me of a sermon my pastor preached recently when he said, "some things are only a sin to you, because of what God is doing in your life." I'm not calling the beauty world a sin — but my beauty business was.
One of the biggest struggles I had was trying to figure out how to connect the brand with a deeper message that reflected my faith. I knew God had called me to encourage and uplift women, but no matter how hard I tried, I just could not make the leap from cleanser to being the version of you God created you to be. This was part of the pull that ultimately led me to close the brand. I knew I was being called to build something more impactful for the kingdom of God.
The products were good. The customers were happy. By most measures, Elements of Aliel was working. Functional. Successful, even.
Fruitful means producing what God planted you to produce — impact that lasts, kingdom work that carries weight beyond the spreadsheet.
A good business and a God-assigned business are not always the same thing. And the distance between them is not always obvious from the outside. Working and fruitful are two very different things — and God is far less interested in what is working than He is in what is producing the kind of fruit that lasts.
This is where Luke 13:6–9 met me.
A man came looking for fruit on a fig tree he had planted in his vineyard. Three years in, there was nothing. No fruit. Just leaves. He told the gardener to cut it down — why should it continue to exhaust the soil?
But the gardener interceded. Give it one more year, he said. Let me dig around it, fertilize it, tend to it. If it bears fruit after that, good. If not, then cut it down.
Luke 13:6–9What strikes me most about this parable is not the barrenness. It is the gardener's response to it.
The absence of fruit was not the end of the story.The gardener did not defend the tree. He did not pretend the fruit was coming when it clearly was not. He simply asked for more time and committed to doing the deeper work that the tree needed to produce what it was always supposed to produce. He knew something the owner could not yet see: sometimes the absence of fruit is not the end of the story. Sometimes it is just the signal that something needs to change at the root.
For the five years between writing DIVA and closing Elements of Aliel, I tended a brand that looked alive but was not bearing the fruit I was called to produce. I kept showing up, kept pouring in, kept waiting for the harvest. What I didn't understand then was that the soil wasn't the problem. The seed wasn't the problem. The problem was that I had planted the wrong thing in the right season.
God was not asking me to tend harder. He was asking me to be honest about what was and was not growing.
One of the clearest signs that your business may be out of alignment with your assignment is a feeling I can only describe as spiritual drought. You are busy, you may even be successful by certain measures, but something feels hollow.
The work doesn't carry the weight it should. You struggle to connect what you do with what you believe. Your faith feels like a separate compartment rather than the foundation everything else is built on. You know God has called you to something — you just can't quite make it fit inside the container you've built.
That disconnect is not a malfunction. It is information. It is the gardener coming to tend the roots, asking you to look honestly at what is growing and what is not.
"Apart from the vine, you can do nothing."
Not less. Nothing.
John 15:5You can't out-hustle purpose. Either your business is rooted in it — or it's not.
Kingdom fruit comes from staying rooted in the one who called you in the first place. I believe that's why we sometimes see people succeed and it looks so easy for them. When you align with God, your level of success will far exceed your personal effort. On the other hand, when the work starts to feel like something you are sustaining entirely on your own, that is worth paying attention to.
Obedience as an entrepreneur does not always look like launching or scaling or saying yes. Sometimes it looks like pausing. Sometimes it looks like pivoting. And sometimes, as it did for me, it looks like closing a good thing to make room for the thing God actually built you for.
That kind of obedience is harder to explain and harder to perform in public — but it is the kind that produces fruit that remains.
Redefining fruit in your business means expanding your measuring stick beyond revenue and reach.
The integrity you maintain in a difficult client relationship. The humility you bring to a decision that didn't go the way you planned. The honesty you choose when it would be easier to perform.
The woman who finds clarity because of what you built. The community that grows around your work. The doors that open for others because you were willing to walk through yours first.
You can do good for others and still be operating out of alignment. The impact you're making in one area may pale in comparison to the impact you could have if you said yes to the thing that scares you.
God is far more interested in what your work is producing in people than in what it is producing on a spreadsheet. Both matter — but they are not weighted equally.
This week, before you move into strategy or content or any of the practical work of building, sit with these three questions. Write your first thoughts. Don't edit.
"Where is God inviting you to obey in your business right now — launching, expanding, pausing, saying no, or even closing something that has run its course?"
"By God's standards, what kind of fruit is your business producing right now — spiritually, relationally, and in terms of real impact in people's lives?"
"What is one obedient step you could take this week that aligns with what you sense God is asking of you, even if you don't fully understand where it leads?"
Find Your Assignment.
Then Build It Right.
If you've realized you've been focusing on a good thing and not a God thing, the Zone of Genius Discovery Tool will help you get back on track. If you're clear on your purpose but not the execution, the Called to Clarity Offer Mapper is your next step.
Lord, I want to be fruitful — not just busy. Show me honestly what is and is not growing in the work I've been called to do. Give me the courage to be honest about what needs to change at the root, and the obedience to act on what You reveal, even when it costs me something. I don't want to tend a tree that was never meant to bear my fruit. Help me to stay rooted in You, so that what I build produces what lasts. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Lord, show me what is actually growing.
Before you pray, sit quietly and bring your business — or your calling — honestly before God. Not the version you present publicly. The real one. The one you tend at 6am or late at night when no one is watching.
Ask Him to show you the difference between what is working and what is fruitful. Then ask Him what He would have you do with the answer.
"Lord, I confess that I have sometimes measured my faithfulness by my output instead of my alignment. Show me what is truly bearing fruit in my work — and what I have been watering out of habit or fear rather than calling. Give me the honesty to see it and the obedience to respond. Amen."
If you need a place to start"Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much."
Matthew 25:23
Does your business feel more working than fruitful right now? Drop a comment below. Wednesday's entry goes deeper — we're talking about how to build in a way that actually serves others well. Don't miss it.
With Love,
LaKeisha
P.S. — Wednesday's entry picks up exactly where this one ends: once you have clarity on what you're called to build, the next step is learning how to build it in a way that serves others well. Come back for it.