Ryan Englin on FCCI Pathway to Purpose: From Setbacks to Stewardship

I sat down with Ken Powell on the FCCI Pathway to Purpose webinar to talk about setbacks, stewardship, and what it actually looks like to build a business that serves people instead of consuming the owner.

Ken and I have been doing life together in an FCCI business leadership group for a few years now. He knows my story. And he wanted me to share some of it publicly because he believed it would help someone else who's walking through something similar.

So I got personal.

The health scare that changed everything

In 2016, right after my son was born, I started dealing with crippling fatigue. Brain fog. The kind of exhaustion where I had to lay down in the middle of the day just to function. This went on for almost ten years. Doctor after doctor. Hypothesis after hypothesis. Nothing fixed it.

Then in mid-2025, I got really sick. Sinus infection turned into something worse. Anxiety hit me unlike anything I had ever experienced. Doctors started talking about heart failure. Tumors. I was writing legacy letters to my kids. I genuinely believed it was over.

Turns out, certain supplements I had been taking for years were literally poisoning me. Toxic levels of vitamin B12 in my blood. I stopped taking them, and within one week the anxiety was gone, the energy came back, the fog lifted. One week.

I don't share that story for sympathy. I share it because I know someone reading this is in a similar place right now, chasing answers that aren't coming. And sometimes the thing that's supposed to help you is the thing that's hurting you.

That season drove me to my knees in a way nothing else has. And what came out of it was a clarity I can't fully explain. The Lord brought peace. He brought focus. And when the fog cleared, I realized how much time I had wasted white-knuckling things He never asked me to carry.

The business setback that taught me to let go

I also talked about the season right after we moved to Tennessee, when we lost two large clients back to back. Roughly 35 to 40 percent of our revenue. Gone.

I did what most owners do. I grabbed the wheel. I checked the bank account four times a day. I told myself I was going to fix it.

It kept getting worse.

And then I heard the Lord say something simple. "I got this."

I let go. Not perfectly. But enough. And every single month since then, there has been enough to meet payroll, pay the bills, and cover next month. Every single time.

That experience reshaped how I define success. It's not my business plan. It's God's business plan. And winning is following His path, not mine.

The owner is always the bottleneck

My team told me two things I didn't want to hear. Ryan, you're the keeper of all the information. And Ryan, you're the bottleneck in delivery.

They were right. And that's the same thing I tell clients in phase one of our process. Stop the bleeding. Create margin. The three things I look for immediately are toxic people on the team, zero documented systems or processes, and unfilled positions keeping everyone short-staffed. Fix those three and the owner finally has space to look down on the business instead of being trapped inside it.

The number one complaint I hear from owners is "my people don't care about the business like I do." Of course they don't. They're stuck in the middle of it with you. You haven't given them the space to care because you haven't stepped back far enough to lead.

Becoming the employer of choice

Ken asked me what it takes to attract and keep great people. The answer is straightforward. Care about the things that are important to them more than you care about the things that are important to you.

The law of reciprocity is real. When you invest in what your people care about, they invest in what you care about. Getting the job done. Serving the customer. Staying profitable. Staying safe.

I walked Ken through an exercise I use with every client. Write down your ideal employee. Everything about them. Their behaviors, their communication style, their work ethic. Then look at that description and ask yourself one honest question. Am I the employer that person wants to work for? If the answer is no, you have work to do before you post a single job ad.

People ask me all the time, "How do I find out what's important to my employees?" The answer is the same every time. Ask them. Just ask them. What's going on in your life? What matters to you right now? What are you working toward?

If we don't care about what they're going through, we have no business asking them to care about what we're going through.

Scaling without losing the culture

As companies grow, the owner can't be the sole carrier of culture anymore. That's where most businesses break. They take a great individual contributor, promote them to manager, and then abandon them on an island with no training in people leadership. A pastor of mine said something years ago that stuck with me. Values are caught, not taught. When you promote someone into leadership, you have to invest more in them, not less. They now have to exemplify your values, not just live them. And that's a completely different skill.

Intentionality and accountability. That's how values move off the wall and into the operation. And it starts with the owner looking in the mirror.

If you liked this conversation, I go deeper on building culture, hiring the right people, and becoming an employer of choice on Titans of the Trades.