Wani Iris Manly sold her condo, gave away everything she owned, and moved to Paris without knowing a single word of French, because she said yes to one prayer on New Year’s Eve.
Episode highlights:
Why she walked away from a full legal career, a Porsche, and a life she’d spent decades building, and what obedience without a roadmap actually looked like 🕊️
The legal blind spot quietly costing Christian entrepreneurs their businesses: no trademark, no real contracts, no protection
Why “I don’t have a trademark yet” might be the most expensive sentence in online business
The chargeback trap: what needs to be in place before it happens, not after
“The test is also the testimony”: what years of loss and disorientation taught her about purification vs. punishment
Why treating your business “like Microsoft” isn’t unspiritual: it’s what protects the calling 💼
“The test is not punishment. It’s for your purification.” — Wani Iris Manly
On this episode, Wani joins Rachel to talk about the New Year’s Eve she chose to stay home and pray instead of going out — and three days later found herself pointed toward Paris. A year on, she’d sold her condo, given her things away, and moved with no job lined up, no French, and no plan beyond obedience. She talks candidly about what that season actually cost: losing her client base, learning to read children’s books in French in her thirties, and sitting in a kind of loneliness nobody warns you about.
As an IP attorney of over two decades, Wani lays out exactly where Christian entrepreneurs are leaving their businesses exposed — unregistered trademarks, copycat frameworks, chargebacks nobody saw coming — and what it actually takes to protect what God’s entrusted to you.
Also available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Episode timestamps:
00:00 — Intro
00:20 — Welcome Wani: 22 years as an IP attorney, speaker, author, change management consultant
01:15 — The New Year’s Eve decision that changed everything
02:30 — Selling the condo, giving it away, moving to Paris with zero French
04:00 — Losing every client and learning her ABCs in French in her 30s
06:00 — Obedience doesn’t skip the testing before the promise
07:30 — “The test is not punishment. It’s for your purification.”
09:00 — Stepping into the promise: the TEDx talks and what came after
11:00 — The biggest mistake online coaches make: skipping legal entirely
13:30 — IP theft, copycat frameworks, and the chargeback trap
16:00 — What to have in place before a chargeback happens
19:00 — What to actually trademark: your name, your program, your framework
22:00 — Registering internationally (the China example)
24:00 — Final words: treat your business like Microsoft, and answer the call
26:00 — Where to connect with Wani
Obedience before the plan. Wani didn’t have a job, a contact, or a word of French when she moved. “There was no home back in Miami to move back to.” The obedience came first, the clarity came years later.
The purification reframe. “The old you has to die off. The life you had planned, the way you thought it was supposed to happen… God has a bigger way, can see much better for you than you can for yourself.”
Trademark your name, your program, your framework. Not just the business name, the specific framework or method you’re known for is your actual moneymaker, and it’s copyable if it isn’t protected.
The chargeback trap. Have your onboarding documented, your terms visible everywhere your business shows up, and your client communication treated like a business relationship, not a friendship. “Hey love” texts don’t hold up when a chargeback dispute gets reviewed.
Resources mentioned:
The Kingdom Profit Plan — free guide + planner for building a profitable business in about 20 hours a week (rachelngom.com/profit)
Related listening + reading:
How to Hear God’s Voice for Your Business Decisions – Episode 591 — the five filters for telling His voice from your own ambition.
done choosing between results and obedience? — for the high-capacity woman weighing obedience against what looks smart.
the school plan that fell apart on a Thursday night — sometimes a closed door isn’t a no, it’s a redirect.
If this one named something you’ve been sitting on, the most helpful thing you can do is pass it to the next person who needs it.
PS — learning her ABCs in French in her thirties as a practicing lawyer still gets me. Sometimes obedience looks a lot smaller and a lot more humbling than we picture it.
What am I building without protecting? Look honestly at whether your trademark, contracts, and terms actually match the size of what you’re building — or whether you’ve been putting it off.
Where am I calling a season “stuck” when it might actually be purification? Wani’s years in Paris didn’t make sense until they did. What in your life right now might be doing quiet work you can’t see yet?
Am I treating my business like a friendship, or like a business? Look at your client communication and onboarding. Would it hold up if you had to defend it?
(Grab it at rachelngom.com/profit — free guide + printable planner.)
Hi, I’m Rachel — host of Christian Entrepreneurs Rise Up and writer of the Called to Build Substack. I help Christian entrepreneurs build profitable, Kingdom-funding businesses without losing their relationship with God or their family in the process. If you’re a Christian entrepreneur ready to build the business God is calling you to, you can apply to work with me directly.
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