In the context of our current financial crisis, how would you finish the title of this blog? What concerns me most about the crisis is what we are not being told! If in fact, we the taxpayer are footing the bill, shouldn’t we be allowed to see the agreement that we are being committed to pay? We get sound bytes from reporters who are fed only what the insiders want us to know.

Something is terribly wrong with this picture. It’s like me negotiating a purchase on your behalf that will cost your household $20,000 - $60,000 and all you know so far is that the “paper” I’m buying is a bunch of bad debt that no company can afford to own and remain in business. Would you agree to that? And if you were that foolish, wouldn’t you at least want to know ALL the details? I raise that question simply because not only do we not know the frightening details behind the scenes, but we will never be told. Only held responsible for fulfilling them!

I say all this because I feel compelled to help you see that change is coming to the financial sector, the economy, the system we find ourselves living in. That is not the end of the world, but it is something that we as children of the light need to be aware of, and have a Godly solution for. Crisis always creates opportunity. Are you going to be a victim or a victor? And if you choose to be a victor, what is your plan for accomplishing that?

First and foremost, we must draw near to God and He will draw near to us. We must pursue Him and be like the sons of Issachar in the Old Testament who discerned the times and knew what to do. Most of you reading this are in the business arena and I want to tell you this tumultuous time can open up for you great opportunity. In the rainforest, where there is destruction, there is immediate and abundant opportunity for early adapters to fill in the void created by the destruction. For those early adapters, also called innovators, it is the beginning of the best of days for their future. How the rainforest turns crisis to provision is what every business needs to know.

On Friday, be sure to check your inbox because my new book, Rainforest Strategy will be offered via email with a special FREE bonus to all of you who receive this email. You can make this the beginning of something great in your life!

A new reality is upon us. The economic world as we know it has shifted in a big way and there’s more to come. Soon. But life will continue. So will business, but it will require different skills or at the very least, additional or new skills. Are you prepared?

Soon, the means and methods you exercised to provide for you and your family will feel the squeeze, if not already. For many of you, a slight constriction in your cash flow is the difference between keeping your home or losing it. For over a year, I have told any of my friends and all of my clients that I was very concerned for the fourth quarter of 2008. We as a nation are proceeding through a gate in 2008 and what is on the other side includes a different way of surviving.  We must be prepared.

I have been seeking the Lord for a new model for doing business for the last 3 ½ years and some of you have heard me speak about the rainforest (something God made) as a business model. That is primarily because it is a system (an ecosystem) that flourishes and thrives despite having limited capital (topsoil) to work with. How it produces abundance from scarcity is what you and I need to know more than ever.

On Friday, my new book, Rainforest Strategy is being released. We will be offering a bonus one hour audio download called Rainforest Roundtable for all of you who receive my emails. I will tell you more about the book this week, but for now, it is sufficient to tell you that it is all about creating abundance from scarcity, accomplishing much in less time and all of that without the stress that usually comes from higher productivity. I am urging you now to watch for the email on Friday and order your copy with the free download. We will ship it out right away.

“And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” Gen 1:28

Just when you thought you had an easy to use, sure fire business plan from the first half of Genesis 1:28, then came the “AND”. AND have dominion over the fish of the sea (your lower nature), the fowl of the air (your thought life) and lastly upon every living thing that moves upon the earth.

If you haven’t been following the blogs for the last two weeks, this won’t make as much sense to you, but you can get caught up easy enough by checking them out. I want to submit to you a powerful application of what it means to take dominion over every living thing that moves upon the earth. The fish are below, the fowls are above but everything else intersects with you on the plane you live on.

This speaks of everything that vies for your time and attention. Every distraction. Every good cause. Every friend. Every foe. Everything that you potentially interact with on a daily basis. And our job is to take dominion over their interaction with our life. If your schedule is too full, don’t blame them… look in the mirror. Take responsibility for your schedule, for your interaction with everything that comes your way. You cannot totally control what comes to you, but you do control how you react and interact with them.

Don’t be at their mercy. Don’t be at the mercy of their timetable, their schedule, their preference. Notice how Jesus didn’t run over to heal Lazarus when he was sick. It was urgent, but he delayed his departure by two days and showed up four days too late. Or so it seemed. Jesus worked only where He saw His Father working and only when He saw Him working. He took dominion over the activities of His day, despite what came at Him. We would do well to learn from Him.

Important Note: I spent 3 ½ years researching the rainforest as a business model. All of my latest findings are now captured in my newest book to be released next week called Rainforest Strategy. I am offering everyone on this list a FREE BONUS gift when they purchase either the book or the E-Book next week. Be watching your inbox for details. It ties in very much to this $700 billion Wall Street fiasco. You won’t want to miss it.

Note to those in Southwest Florida: David Johnson is hosting an intimate gathering of marketplace warriors who want to successfully market their business. It will be this Saturday, September 27th. I assure you, it will be well worth your time to attend. Click here for details…

“And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” Gen 1:28

For this to make sense to you, you really need to read the previous blog. We’ve already discussed the basic 4 step business plan in the first half of this verse. We could write a book about taking dominion over our lower nature as pictured by the fish of the sea. Now I want to show you a second critical factor for succeeding at the 4 step plan…

You must take dominion over the fowl of the air. Can you guess what that might represent? I submit to you, it very well represents your thought life, specifically taking dominion over the unsolicited thoughts that come to set up nest in your mind. Some of those thoughts feed your lower nature. Others just keep you down or depressed. If you don’t take dominion over what you think, you will be at the mercy of the fowls of the air and they will pluck your eyes out (steal your vision), given half a chance.

We have a responsibility to cast down every vain thought and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. We are duty bound to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:5) We need to direct our thoughts into things that are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous and praise worthy.

Your thought life more than anything I know can make or break you. If you don’t take dominion here, don’t think you will succeed in the 4 step business plan. It will break down when troubles come. Rest assured, they will come.

Note to those in Southwest Florida: David Johnson is hosting an intimate gathering of marketplace warriors who want to successfully market their business. It will be this Saturday, September 27th. I assure you, it will be well worth your time to attend. Click here for details…

Note to those in the Charlotte, NC area: Join me as I attend a training conference to improve my ability to provide coaching to many of you beginning later in October. Click here for details…

“And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” Gen 1:28

OK. The basic business model is laid out in four parts…

1. Be fruitful: Create a self-replicable product or service of high quality and value.
2. Multiply: Create the systems necessary to efficiently and effectively recreate that model in multiple markets.
3. Fill the earth: Develop effective and reliable methods of distributorship. This should involve symbiotic and mutualistic relationships.
4. Subdue it: Dominate your market. Control the sphere in which you do business. Lead. Set your vision to be the head and not the tail in the markets you are in.

Now, here’s the bonus lesson. It’s actually in three parts. After God tells Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, He adds the idea of having dominion over three other areas. I do believe we are to take that text literally. However, I am also looking for an application to help me succeed in the first four steps.

Consider this… Have dominion over the fish. I believe fish which are in the deep places can be a picture of our deeper, lower nature which we are to have dominion over. This would include appetites of all kinds which are very real and must always be held in subjugation lest we throw our lives away or become ineffective due to poor health.

Consider well the words of Jacob on his death bed when he called his sons together to speak a blessing over them. When he came to Reuben, he said, “Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power: Unstable as water, you shall not excel; because you went up to your father’s bed; then you defiled it: he went up to my couch.” Jacob had great hopes for his firstborn, but because of Reuben’s lack of control over his lower nature (Gen 35:22) he would never amount to anything. Selah.

Note to those in Southwest Florida: David G. Johnson is hosting an intimate gathering of marketplace warriors who want to successfully market their business. It will be this Saturday, September 27^th. I assure you, it will be well worth your time to attend. Click here for details…

“And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it:” Gen 1:28

You’ve just read the best summary of a business model I’ve ever read. I know some of you got hung up on literalism as if I were somehow suggesting otherwise. Let me be clear, I take the Scripture literally where intended to be literal and allegorical where we are told the text is allegorical as in many of the parables Jesus told.

What I am doing here is encouraging you all to look at a passage of Scripture that is meant to be taken literally and then ask what other applications can be taken from it. For example, what is leaven in the Scripture? Is it something good or bad? It’s both. Jesus used leaven to describe the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and to describe the growth of the kingdom of God.

So while I understand that being fruitful in the above text is a directive to procreate, it can also be applied to creating anything. In business, that could be a product or service. If so, make sure it’s good. Then multiply and distribute it (fill the earth). But how far should you go? May I suggest you subdue your market? That’s the fourth phase. Bring it into subjection. Dominate your sphere. Your sphere doesn’t have to be large, but whatever sphere you are operating in, make it your goal to have dominion in that sphere.

“And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it:” Gen 1:28

Four things. As Christopher pointed out on yesterday’s blog, the first two should be rendered, Be fruitful, then multiply. It’s a simple principle really… make sure your model works before you begin exporting the concept. In the rush to make a buck, the product is rushed, quality is compromised and the long term damage to the brand you are trying to build – your name (Proverbs 22:1) is not only crippling but has been multiplied. Be fruitful first. Then multiply.

Thirdly, the mandate continues. Fill the earth. In business terms, this is distribution. If you create a good product, have the ability to multiply it, but have poor distribution you will be in a world of hurt. Our first business book, The Bible Incorporated was a great prototype and we ordered 25,000 copies to our basement. The printer pointed out the obvious, that we had no distribution and the average book published in America, even with distribution never sells more than 5,000 copies. What were we to do?

We created our own distribution network and in eight months were sold out of our first print run and that was before the internet. But here’s the deal… once you have a distribution network, you can use it over and over again to distribute other products you have been fruitful with and multiplied. Do you have a good product and lots of inventory, but limited distribution? You need to focus on distribution. It is a marketplace discipline of its own. It requires the same kind of discipline and focus to create distribution as it does to create a good product or service. If you don’t execute this step, you will never get to the fourth part of the mandate which we will discuss next time.

Need help on distribution issues? We will be dealing with those on our coaching program to be introduced in the next few weeks. Watch for it in your inbox.

“And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful,
and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it:” Gen 1:28

Four things. Simple, yet profoundly important for succeeding
in business. Rule number one was to be fruitful. Create
something of excellence, worthy of duplication. Create
something others would want. The better you are at step one,
the more important step two becomes.

Step two is multiply. Don’t try to multiply the franchise,
the product, the service until it is first of all proven to
be fruitful as a stand alone. Once it is proven, you are
ready to multiply. The secret to multiplication is systems.
The better the system, the faster you can multiply. Go back
about 100 years ago when there were hundreds of car
manufacturers in America. They would work hard all day
crafting an original masterpiece of a car. The next day they
would do it all over again. They weren’t multiplying – they
were adding!

Along comes Henry what’s his name and he streamlined the
manufacturing process based on Adam Smith’s economic
philosophy outlined in The Wealth of Nations, where men
focused on one aspect of the production and left the rest to
others. The work was terribly mundane but the pay was the
best in the country and the Ford motor car became the best
selling automobile in the country.

If you have been fruitful with an idea and it is working for
you, it may be time to multiply. If it is, you will need to
set up systems for sales, marketing, accounting,
communication, etc that integrate with each other. If you
need a little help transitioning to the multiplication
phase, drop me a line. I am introducing a coaching program
in a few weeks aimed at helping people do just that and a
lot more.

Speaking of multiplying… last week in Austin, I met a couple
of kingdom minded internet entrepreneurs who are widely
respected for their accomplishments and their walk with God.
One of them, Matt Gillogly has been very successful in
coaching people and shared with me that he is having a three
day event for a small group of folks interested in learning
how to do what he does. I believe the attendance is limited
to about 25 because he will be recording this entire
program.

There will be no pitches for product or upsell to additional
services. Just three days of training on how to run a
successful coaching business. I plan to attend because I
want to know the best methods, systems and technologies
available to help me provide coaching to many of you
beginning in October. If you are a coach or considering that
as a career, you might want to check it out. Maybe I will
see you there. It’s October 2 – 4 in Charlotte, NC.

“And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it:” Gen 1:28

There you have it. Four things every business person should have in view and remember when building their business. Rule number one: Be fruitful. Create something that is useful or beneficial. Find a need and create a solution. See what should be and make it so. The fact that you see it when others don’t is a clue to your assignment.

If you want to succeed in business, be sure to create a working prototype. Fruitfulness is measured in part by the good that your product or service does. If the thing you create is of little value or doesn’t work well, you have not created something that reflects the glory of God. You have not been fruitful.

Before you mass produce your product or franchise your service, make sure the prototype works. Create something of excellence. Work the kinks out. Creating something that works well, serves a purpose and meets a need is foundational to success. Test your assumptions. Do this well. Pass the test. Then you will be ready to multiply…

I just came back from Austin, Texas where I was speaking at the Kingdom Economic Conference with friends like Rich Marshall, Os Hillman, Kent Humphreys, Lance Wallnau, Myles Munroe, Doug Spada, Tamara Lowe and over a dozen others I was meeting for the first time. It was rather like a cruise ship with a continual buffet of all your favorite foods. It was more than any one person could take in.

There was a contingency there from Wasilla, Alaska joyfully sharing with us the credibility and authenticity of Governor Sarah Palin who they know very well and were eager to affirm to us as the “real thing”. In fact, they will be presenting our Psalm 91 book to the Governor and her son Track before he deploys for Iraq this week.

Like many I met, I was unsure of what to expect at such an event that ran from 8:30 in the morning till 10:00 or 11:00 each night. I did have the distinct privilege of meeting many of you there in person, from Switzerland, Canada, Bahamas and from all over America and I was indeed grateful for that opportunity to connect a face with a blog entry… (o-:  What I experienced at the event was an awesome sense of community within the body of Christ and in particular with you. Some of you told me how wonderful it was to meet others with whom you had communicated on this very blog and shared so much in common.

I received advance copies of my new book Rainforest Strategy on Friday and they were snapped up before I could even speak about it! I will be introducing it to you when inventory actually arrives at my office. Probably the biggest thing to come out of the conference for me was the importance of community and an awakening in me of how I can connect with you more directly and help you become the marketplace champion that is already encoded in your spiritual DNA.  I am seeking the Lord daily now on just how to facilitate that and a blueprint is beginning to emerge which I hope to share with you later this month.

Lastly I want to say we live in unprecedented times during an historic election that has riled up the forces of evil like I’ve never seen before. The mountain of government is being challenged by a righteous woman who was selected by John McCain. The fact that he chose her shows me God is working in his heart too. Be vigilant. Be prayerful. Be discerning. God Bless you all!