What is the Why of your business?

Posted on | November 25, 2009 | No Comments

An illuminating Business Breakfast

The following are notes I took at a Business breakfast hosted by Arise Church in Christchurch, New Zealand this year (2009).  The speaker was pastor Neil Smith from Planetshakers Church in Melbourne, Australia.  His teaching was very illuminating and I thought could bear a wider audience so have shared my notes and recollection of it with my readers in this blog.

The message was directed to Christians, but I believe that you will find something useful here even if you are a person of another faith or no faith. Whether you work for somebody or work from home, ideas are important in advancing your business, whether your business is to sell you skills to a boss (i.e you are an employee (see how Robert Kiyosaki differentiates employees from three other main work quadrants), or you have an online home business or internet marketing affiliate program such as I follow, or a Christian home based business or have bought some sort of franchise in your quest to break out of the rat race.

Here follows portions of the message:

Why are you in Business?

When I go to work I don’t just “go to work” (as though it was something separate from my Calling):no-I go to do what God has called me to do.  Australian{or other}business people are not just here to “resource the Kingdom”{i.e pay tithes and offerings to their churches}.  Ask the question: WHY are you in business?  A good book to read on this is “The E-Myth Revisited: why most Small Businesses don’t work and What to do about it” by Michael Gerber .  It is a technical business book which asks the question just posed.

Business is about creating

Prepare the way for your ship

Business is in essence about creating. A by-product is that you prosper. Seriously wealthy people look for creative ideas, and don’t {in their private social time}talk about money.  Pastor Smith gave the example of a businessman he knows in a certain Asian city.  The businessman noticed that there were no large shipping vessels entering through the harbor channel to a particular city he was visiting.  He was told the reason was that the water depth was not sufficient to enable this.  The surrounding area was marshy swamp land.  Then he had his creative idea.  He went to the civic authorities and offered to dredge the particular channel for them.  They offered him a small amount for it and he told them that he would do it for FREE if he could have that 350 hectares of swamp.  The deal was done.

Later that 350 hectares became prime land. Construction took place on land that only seagulls had previously visited. The businessman’s wealth rose from $100 million to $2 billion because of that one creative thought.

Creativity comes from God

What was this man’s “wealth creation strategy”? Well,every Monday he fasts and prays-he does not “go to work”; on Tuesday he and his team of business associates pray through what he felt God says to him on the previous day. Then they have a meeting. Creativity comes from God.

And creativity comes from WHO you are (your “Being”) rather than how BUSY you are (your “doing”). In the business community today many people suffer from some kind of mental problem because of stress {and I could add to that high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, colon and digestive problems like Crohn’s disease, ulcers, hemorrhoids}

We need to recognize as business people that we are conduits delivering a concept to someone else. The truth of “Calling” is knowing what is in you -and letting it flow out of you.

Thank you Pastor Neil Smith!

These notes will be continued in a future post. Please leave comments if this has helped you in your business or in other ways, and consider bookmarking it.

Have a great day!

John Reason,
Salesman, teacher, Article Writer, Internet Marketer.
© 2009-2010

Get E-myth here
or for U.K or European readers click here.
Australasian readers click here

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