Stop Asking God to Bless Your Plan: Kevin Aschman on Obedience, Abiding, and Building Lafayette & Oak

Most people leave corporate America with a spreadsheet. Kevin Aschman left with a calling.

After 25 years of building brands and leading marketing efforts inside some of the country's most demanding corporate environments — from ad agencies to private equity firms — Aschman found himself at an inflection point about eight months ago. He had the experience. He had the résumé. What finally moved him wasn't a perfect business plan or a guaranteed client roster. It was something far harder to quantify: conviction.

"It was really conviction," he says. "I really felt God calling me out of the familiar and the safe, and into the opportunity to do something different and unique and new."

That step of faith led to Lafayette & Oak, a consultancy he joined as a partner that serves established operators in service-based industries — real estate investors, property managers, trades businesses — helping them build brand foundations, deploy AI-powered systems and automation, and access growth capital when they're ready to scale. The work is technical and sophisticated. But for Aschman, the story underneath it is deeply personal.

A Foundation Built at Home

Aschman didn't grow up in a faith-filled household. His walk with God began the way many of the best things in life do — unexpectedly, and through someone he loved.

"The person who brought me to the Lord was my wife," he says with warmth in his voice. "We were dating, and she said she was going to church on a Sunday and asked if I'd like to come. Of course, I wanted to spend more time with her. That was sort of the start of my faith journey."

That initial Sunday turned into a two-decade journey of growing faith. His wife, Sno E, remains one of the most formative influences in his life. "She's one of the most kingdom-focused people I've ever been around," he says. "Having a home that's genuinely devoted to Jesus really changes everything about how we run our life and our business."

Today, Kevin and Sno E both work from home, raising their two daughters. That proximity — to family and to faith — isn't incidental to his professional life. It's the architecture of it. He's been intentional about building what he calls "margin" in his week: space for men's groups, for faith-based connections, for the kind of relationships that don't show up on a calendar as billable hours but shape everything that does.

Obedience Over Outcomes

Ask Kevin Aschman what his workday looks like, and he won't lead with meetings or metrics. He'll tell you about the quiet before all of it.

"Everything starts with obedience over outcomes," he says. "As business leaders, so many of us are fixated on results. But the constant discipline of abiding in his Word and staying connected with God throughout the day has been one of the biggest unlocks for me recently."

He's part of a men's group that's been exploring the biblical concept of abiding — the kind of ongoing, moment-by-moment connection with God described in John 15. It's not a technique or a morning routine hack. It's a posture. And for Aschman, it's been genuinely transformative.

"It's not that I'm constantly stopping to pray. It's woven into the fabric of who I've become. Every micro-decision, every thought — they're bounced off my relationship with Him. If I'm connected with Him and tapped into His direction, I can feel confident. I can reduce the fear and increase the faith."

His mornings begin with scripture and journaling — not as spiritual performance, but as honest acknowledgment of need. "I know I'm no less prone to failure than anyone sitting across the table from me," he says. "I need to set myself up with the discipline of starting my day rooted in Him."

The Blessing Is the Relationship

There's a subtle but seismic shift in how Aschman thinks about God and work — and it's the insight he most wants to pass on to other faith-driven leaders.

For most of us, faith operates transactionally, even when we know better. We pray hardest when things are hardest. We seek God most urgently when we need an answer. We hope that faithfulness will eventually produce the outcome we've been working toward. Aschman has felt all of that. And he's moved past it.

"The blessing isn't a result of the relationship with God. The blessing is the relationship. That shift has changed almost everything for me."

It reframes prayer, work, and even success. Rather than presenting God with a business plan and asking for His blessing on it, Aschman has learned to ask a different question: What plan has He already started in me?

"Stop asking God to bless your plan," he says plainly, "and start asking what plan He's already begun in you. It's a different posture. But it's been fruitful because it moves everything into this always-on relationship with Him."

Since launching Lafayette & Oak, Kevin has noticed something he can only describe as a series of divine confirmations. A significant portion of his new business has come through faith-based organizations and connections. He's clear-eyed about what that means.

"We all like the 'attaboy' from God," he says with a laugh. "It's like, keep going, you're listening, continue down that path."

Built for the Storm

Kevin doesn't present his life as a highlight reel. He's quick to acknowledge that the family and business he describes today were forged through difficulty — heartache, professional upheaval, personal trials he doesn't detail but doesn't minimize either.

"Those troubled times, when you get through them, you realize they are the blessing," he reflects. "And if you're not in a storm right now, you've either just come out of one or one is coming. So in the good times, strengthen the relationship. Build the margin. Do the work — because that's exactly what prepares you for what's ahead."

It's the same wisdom he applies to his clients' businesses: identify the leaks, build the systems, strengthen the foundation before you need it to hold under pressure. The spiritual parallel isn't lost on him.

A Word for Leaders Who Are Tired of the Grind

For the business leader who's privately exhausted from striving — who knows all the right faith language but feels the gap between Sunday morning and Monday morning — Aschman offers this:

Don't look for the shortcut that makes the work easy. Look for the presence that makes it purposeful.

"It's not religion," he says. "We all know it's not supposed to be religion, it's supposed to be a relationship. But most of us come into faith the same way we come into business — what can I get, how do I level up? The abiding concept is different. It's this constant, ongoing conversation. Not just for the big decisions. For all of it. And once you start consulting with God in the small things, it becomes a real relationship."

That relationship — with God, with his wife, with his daughters, with a growing company that reflects his values — is what Kevin Aschman is building at Lafayette & Oak. Not just revenue. Not just systems. A life where faith and work aren't two separate tracks running parallel to each other, but one integrated whole, moving in the same direction.

And if the last eight months are any indication, he's exactly where he's supposed to be.