Follow God and enjoy blessings

I decided to include a portion of my new book in WFTD today. The following occurred many years ago when I was first starting out in business. I had been diagnosed with an inoperable malignant brain tumor and told that I might not live even three days. Three months later they discovered that the tumor had been misdiagnosed. This “near death” experience drew me closer to God than ever before and it was shortly afterwards that I developed my first mission statement for my first company.

“Having stared into death’s menacing black eyes and survived one more time created nothing short of a spiritual rejuvenation in me. I was very thankful to God for what I considered to be a mighty miracle, and I was overjoyed at being alive. I was especially thankful for His allowing me another chance to see my boys grow into men and to take care of Teresa.

I began studying my Bible daily and I stopped working seven days a week and started attending church every Sunday. I drew closer to the Lord than ever before and I made the conscious decision to not only base my personal life upon His Holy Scripture, but also to establish the foundation for my business entirely upon biblical concepts.

After considerable thought and prayer I produced a mission statement that I felt was appropriate for a faith based business. I did not look to sample mission statements produced by Harvard or Wharton Business School; instead I looked to the Bible. I asked myself, “If Jesus were to go into business for Himself, what would His mission statement be?”
I turned to a Bible verse where Jesus was asked, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus responded: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself, All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

The two greatest commandments in the Bible seemed like a good place to start. It seemed simple enough, I needed to put God first in all aspects of my life, and then incorporate this, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, philosophy into the centerpiece of my mission statement.

I envisioned myself as a customer and thought about how I would like to be treated by a company, and then wrote the following mission statement to reflect how my company needed to treat our valued customers:
1. Provide outstanding customer service
2. Create state of the art products of the highest quality
3. Offer fair prices

I believed then and I believe now that if Jesus had His own business, He would abide by a similar mission statement. He and His entire company would be dedicated to providing outstanding customer service, and He would no doubt serve every single customer with tremendous respect. Likewise He would never offer a product unless He was genuinely convinced that it was of the highest quality. And no doubt His pricing would always be consummately fair.

I used that mission statement for many years and it was only after I founded my ninth company Horizon Software International LLC, that we added a fourth component to it that dictated our character.
1. Provide outstanding customer service
2. Create state of the art products of the highest quality
3. Offer fair prices
4. Work together in a spirit of honesty, integrity, and pride

I insisted that everyone in my employ take it seriously beginning with me and this mission statement was prominently displayed on every cubicle in our company.

As I look back today, nearly forty years later, I really don’t know how to improve upon it and wouldn’t change a single word aside from maybe adding a line to the effect that my business would improve the world somehow. (I wouldn’t want to found a company that produced land mines or porn or similar business, no matter how successful it might become.) I credit this mission statement for much of the success that I have enjoyed throughout my life.”

That was how my mission statemnt came about. I intend to conduct faith based business workshops in the very near future where I hope to help business owners incorporate God into their businesses using several similar strategies that I developed over the years. Faith based businesses worked for me and they will work for you. If you know anyone who might be interested, then please send them my way.

Regardless of whether or not you own a business or you work for someone else, it makes sense to make God your top priority. If you will do so, then get ready for the blessings that will shower down from above.

Deuteronomy 5:29
Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever!