By Dr. Myles Munroe

In the world of business, success is rarely the result of chance. It is the outcome of precise laws. What is fascinating is that the greatest multinationals of our time — from Microsoft to Apple, including McDonald's and Coca-Cola — rigorously apply fundamental principles that come directly from the biblical scriptures. Yet while the secular world prospers by using them, many people of faith continue to stagnate. To transform your potential into a thriving business, you must understand the true nature of leadership and vision, then apply the five-step growth strategy established at creation.

Redefining Leadership and Vision

Leadership is not a position one pursues; it is the result of an internal process. After more than 30 years of study, here is how we can define it:

Leadership is the ability to influence others through inspiration (not manipulation), generated by a passion, itself motivated by a vision, born from a conviction, produced by a deep sense of original purpose.

To become a leader in your field, you must reverse this definition and start from the bottom:

  1. The Purpose: Discover what you were born to do.
  2. The Conviction: Develop the absolute certainty that you must accomplish this mission.
  3. The Vision: Clearly see the future and how to achieve this purpose.
  4. The Passion: The inner energy that gets you out of bed every morning.
  5. The Inspiration: Your passion becomes contagious and inspires others to put their talents at the service of your vision. If you do not inspire, you will be forced to manipulate. The true leader inspires; the dictator manipulates.

Vision vs. Sight The greatest gift God gave to man is not sight, but vision.

  • Sight is a function of the eyes, limited to the present and to what already exists. It is sometimes the greatest enemy of the entrepreneur, because it restricts reality to what is visible.
  • Vision is a function of the heart. It has no limits other than your imagination and deals with what could and should be.

The poor person is not the one who lacks money, but the one who lacks vision. The rich and the poor have one thing in common: God gave them eyes, but their financial reality depends entirely on how they see. Where one sees a wasteland or a dump (a Hog Island), the other sees a world-class hotel complex (Paradise Island). Where one sees bare feet in the mud in India, the other sees the opportunity to create a million-dollar shoe company.

The Divine 5-Step Strategy for Business

In Genesis, even before giving specific orders, a clear strategy was given to humanity to dominate the environment (resources, wildlife, flora), and not to dominate other men. This strategy rests on five interconnected laws.

Be Productive ➔ Multiply ➔ Distribute ➔ Control the Market ➔ Dominate

Step 1: Be Fruitful (Productivity)

The first commandment is not to have children, but to be productive. Produce something. When the Creator asks for fruit, it presupposes that the seed is already in you. Your seed is that idea or natural talent that never leaves you. The wealth of a nation does not depend on its currency, but on its gross domestic product (GDP) — its productivity. To get out of poverty, you must stop consuming and start producing from the seed that is in you.

Step 2: Multiply (Systematization)

Once you have a quality product or service (the fruit), you must be able to reproduce it identically thousands or millions of times. This is the secret of franchises like Burger King. They created a unique burger — the Whopper — and developed a system so that the taste is exactly the same whether you buy it in Mexico, Ukraine, or Venezuela. You must standardize your know-how in order to multiply it.

Step 3: Fill the Earth (Distribution)

Success requires an effective distribution channel. You must bring your product where the customers are. This is what Walmart or the major banks did: create a logistical network and infrastructure to make the product available everywhere, consistently. What is your distribution strategy?

Step 4: Subdue (Market Control)

Subdue means to control your market. If you do not control your niche, your business will die. This means that when someone thinks of a specific need, your name must be the first that comes to mind. Do not try to sell shoes to everyone, you will confuse the market. Specialize (for example: “only baby shoes” or “only for teenagers”). Find your niche, control it and protect it.

Step 5: Dominate (Authority)

This is the pinnacle of the strategy. When you dominate, you become the undisputed reference in your industry. Your name becomes synonymous with the solution.

3. Do Not Seek Success, Become a Person of Value

If you want to succeed in business, do not chase money. Money is only an economic report of force that follows a simple law: money follows value. Do not seek success. Instead, seek to become a person of value. Refine your natural gift to such a point that the whole world will need you, will come looking for you and will pay you simply for being yourself.

The Story of the "Biscuit Lady" During a conference in Mount Airy, a woman who worked as a hotel maid came to see me, inspired by this message about the seed. She said to me: "I understand. I have a seed. Tomorrow I will bring you my fruit." The next day, she gave me a slightly greasy paper bag containing six homemade biscuits. Tasting these biscuits at the hotel, I realized they were absolutely perfect. She had a unique gift. I told her: "You have found your fruit. To start, give it away for free, offer it around you to test it." Twelve months later, I returned to the same city. A beautifully dressed woman, looking like a queen, came forward to me. It was her. In one year, she had structured her business, created professional packaging and her biscuits were now distributed in the biggest stores in the city. She employed 258 people and her company was already worth 3 million dollars. She had stopped cleaning beds to deploy the seed she carried within her.

Conclusion: You Are Needed

You are not an accident. You are on this Earth to solve a specific problem. You are God's answer to a need He created, the answer to a question your generation is asking. Each of you possesses seeds of greatness. The world does not need your raw seeds, it needs your fruit. Find your natural gift, master your field, refuse to be a mediocre "jack of all trades", become a slave to your discipline (like Tiger Woods who trains from 4 a.m.) in order to then serve the world a fruit of priceless value. If you do not deploy yourself, you will spend your life being employed by those who have done so. It is time to make your forest grow.