Tuesday, September 04, 2007

“What All Great People Of Faith Have Done BEFORE They Saw Results”

Intro:
(Scroll to bottom to stream or download the audio now.)


I’ve felt like God’s led recently to do a personal self-study on faith again. I started reading Abraham’s story again, and others. I’ve reread Hebrews 11, Romans 4, and James 2.

In the middle of this study I’ve discovered what seems to be THE requirement for seeing God do huge things in and through your life. This simple thing is something that needs to happen before we see any results.

I want to talk to you about that today, but first I want to tell you an amazing story about an Eastern Indian women that I read in INC magazine.

This woman came to this country with just a simple goal. And it came true in a way that was beyond her dreams…

Prathiba Ramadoss emigrated from Chennai, a coastal city in southeast India, to St. Paul in 1999 when she was just 21 years old. She was newly married, and determined to start a business.

Two years later, with a six-month-old in tow, she launched an IT staffing firm, Business Integra, from her garage. When she started out she persistently called 50 to 60 companies a day until her husband, Selva Jay, a software consultant, came home to help her tackle the West Coast.

With Jay as her CTO, Ramadoss has transformed her company (now based in Maryland) into a full-scale contracting firm and software developer with $4.7 million in sales.

Listen to how she describes starting the company…

It was very difficult initially. When I called companies, they wouldn't listen--probably because of my accent. They would just hang up the phone. I don't blame them; they tend to get numerous calls a day. But I was patient and persistent. I would call the next day and say, "Sorry, when I called you yesterday the phone got disconnected. That was my fault, but I have some good consultants looking for a project, so if you have anything coming up I'd be happy to help." Now one of the companies that hung up on me calls me every day to get into our vendor program.

She went on to say…

My degree was in zoology, but my husband's experience in IT made it easy for me to transition. Otherwise, I would have gone into biotech.

They say behind every successful man is a good woman. Well, I have a good man behind me. Selva molded me into this level. It would have been different if I was in India, but here I am shy. He taught me the business way of talking. Like when we speak to clients, we should refer to our consultants as resources, not people. Because of my background in science, I also didn't have an in-depth knowledge of things like Dot.NET, Java, and data warehousing, which he explained to me. I'm planning to enroll in an M.B.A. program--once I have a little more time.

__________________

Did you catch where she said, “It would have been different if I was in India, but here I am shy.” She grew the company to $4.7 million in sales! And that’s when she’s SHY!

This woman came from another country and for some reason had enough guts and determination to start a business and see it succeed in HUGE ways. Her company is listed in INC as one of Americas 500 fastest growing private companies!

There are three things that she had or did that helped her succeed. She had faith. She believed she could do it. She gained the knowledge. She talked to her husband and learned the industry. And this is the most important part - she took action! She continually called 50 to 60 companies a day! And she didn’t just call them once. She called them again and again – even when they hung up on her!

A lot of people have more knowledge in the IT field, but they never accomplish anything like she did!

Why? I think there are two reasons. They don’t believe they could and they won’t take action.

Belief and action are BOTH needed in order to succeed.

If you have belief but no action you’ll have no results.
If you have action, but no belief that you can do it, then you have poor results. You won’t try hard enough. You won’t be persistent, etc.

You have to have strong belief and action to succeed!

I just got a book in the mail yesterday, that I ordered from Amazon.com called, “The Magic Of Thinking Big”. It’s a classic book, that’s sold more than 4,000,000 copies, by a Ph.D. named David J. Schwartz.

The whole premise of the book is that successful people aren’t successful because they’re smarter, luckier, work harder or any other advantage like that. He says that the reason their successful is just they believe in themselves and because the aim higher!

They have the confidence and belief to try something BIGGER than most people would. I can really see that in Prathiba’s story! Can’t you?

This idea that has some things in common with what I’ve discovered in my study of the “greats” of faith.

Listen to the talk now:

Stream it

Download it

No comments: