Every author hopes for good book reviews. With technology, it’s easy to find a review or to write them on the Internet. Sites like B&N.com, Amazon.com, Goodreads.com and others provide accessible and visible forums for readers to share their opinions. An author should be prepared to receive negative reviews. After all, no one can please everybody! In fact, when accepted with the right spirit you can learn from the constructive criticism in a review that is well-thought out and presented professionally. But what happens when someone goes overboard, gets personal, vulgar, and mean? That’s a different story, and the responsible websites will remove such reviews as they distract from the site’s intended purpose and can become a forum for hate.

I encountered this situation last week when a review posted on Goodreads.com was brought to my attention. It concerned my book, How to Run Your Business by THE BOOK. The problem was that the reviewer said nothing about my book. Instead, he criticized the book on which it was based, the Bible, as well as the people who read the Bible. Using obnoxious language, he referred to the Bible as a “crap book” as “toxin” and to those who read it as, “brain dead myth believers, stupid.” He also used a four letter word I won’t repeat here. In today’s hyper-sensitive times, this review could be labeled as hate speech! I emailed Goodreads and brought this to their attention. Yesterday, I received word that they deleted the “off-topic, flagrantly offensive” review, and by doing so have maintained the integrity of their site and stayed true to their core purpose of sharing honest reviews–either positive or negative. I want to thank them for doing what is right.

In yesterday’s posting I promised to share insight on a topic I will cover as one of the seventy strategies in, How to Lead by THE BOOK: “When are leaders most susceptible to character breakdowns?” The Bible makes the answer clear. And as you survey the business, sports and entertainment world of modern times, you discover that nothing has changed. Human beings are most susceptible to character break-downs when they are at the top of the mountain, after a major victory, and when they feel invincible. This is when its easy to forget about God. At the point of our greatest success is when we can become prideful and rely on our own strength, and begin to believe that the moral and ethical rules others must play by no longer apply to us. There is danger at the top of the mountain! In How to Lead by THE BOOK I’ll offer several strategies to help you overcome this common trap of success.

When the disciples were arguing about who was the greatest, it is interesting to note what Jesus did not tell them. He never said that they shouldn’t try to become great. Rather, He gave them the recipe for greatness: serve others. Business people should learn from this. There’s nothing ignoble about trying to become a great leader or build a great organization. The question becomes: what are your motives and intended methods for doing so? Do you want to become great because of what you “get”, or because of what you become in the process of adding so much value to employees, customers, and your community that greatness ensues? In, How to Lead by THE BOOK, I’ll tackle the myth perpetuated by some that it’s wrong or prideful to pursue greatness. Instead, I’ll outline the Bible-based steps and motives necessary to become great.

We got word yesterday that, How to Run Your Business by THE BOOK” was on the Hudson Airport Bestsellers list for the 12th straight week, at #24. That’s nice. But what’s most important is that people in all across America are looking to biblical principles to improve their lives, families, and businesses. The fact that we are able to help them do that is what puts smiles on the faces of everyone on our team!

When is a leader most vulnerable to character break-downs? I’ll offer two specific points to watch for in tomorrow’s posting.

I’ve started the process of enlisting cover quote contributors for, How to Lead by THE BOOK. These are the men and women who agree to read the book prior to publication, and provide a supportive quote that appears on the cover. The publisher likes authors to seek out influential, well-known leaders, authors, business people, pastors and the like. I’m still in the process of sending out solicitations, but here’s who has already come on board: Joe Calloway, author of  Never by Chance; James Strock, author of Reagan on Leadership, Theodore Roosevelt on Leadership, and Serve to Lead; and Ed Bastian, President of Delta Airlines. I’m off to a great start with these three friends already agreeing to help me out.

When I was in Israel this past February, we traveled through the town of Cana on the way to our hotel on the Sea of Galilee. Cana is the place where Jesus performed His first recorded miracle in the Book of John. He turned water into wine at a wedding He attended with His disciples and mother. In fact, it was at Mary’s implicit suggestion that Jesus stepped up and helped the wedding host save face by making the water-to-wine conversion. In the second chapter of John where this miracle is recorded, Mary preached her only sermon recorded in the Bible. It was short and to the point as she instructed the servants, “Whatever He says to you, do it.”

It was obviously a pretty good sized wedding since Jesus converted the water in six pots, each containing 20-30 gallons of wine. But it was what Jesus did after He performed the miracle that provides instruction for us as leaders. He told the servants to take the new wine and bring it to the master of the feast, who didn’t know where the wine had come from. The feast master was so impressed with the quality of wine that he called over the bridegroom and commended him for saving the best wine for last. Jesus could have been the hero and taken the credit for Himself.  After all, He had saved the party and the day. But even early in His ministry He was committed to demonstrating servant leadership. In this case, it meant doing the work so that someone else could look good and get the credit, rather than being motivated by personal gain and recognition.

I’ll discuss the importance of giving away praise and credit in my new book, and offer biblical examples that instruct what to do in these regards and how to do it.

The Ten Commandments are divided into two sections. The first tablet concerns your relationship with God. The second tablet refers to your relationship with others. In Matthew 19, when the rich young ruler approached Jesus to ask what he must do to have eternal life, Jesus began His reply by telling him to keep the commandments. When the ruler asked, “Which ones?”, Jesus recited the commandments from the second tablet, dealing with relationships with other people. After the ruler affirmed that he had kept those commandments, Jesus dropped the hammer and gave an instruction that would reveal the ruler’s failure to prioritize the first tablet and put God first: He instructed him to sell all he had and follow Him. At this point, the ruler walked away sad, because he had many possessions.

What was Jesus trying to teach this young man and how does it relate to us? While the rich man had good relationships with others, he was not right with God, and had not put his trust in Him as a priority and prerequisite for eternal life. In fact, he prioritized money over God and refused to give  up his “stuff” in order to put God first in his life. Many business people today do the same. They are friendly, respectful, considerate, ethical, and well liked by others. They’ve got the second tablet of commandments down pat! Their problem is that they have never put God first in their lives. Rather, material gain reigns supreme on their life’s altar. They are possessed by their possessions, and because of this, they follow their own will rather than God’s. They may appear successful on the outside, but will never enjoy what God had in store for them, spiritually or materially, because they put other “gods” before God. These gods can include but are not limited to: money, fame, power, and all that it brings in this lifetime.

In How to Lead by THE BOOK I’m going to present strategies for putting the first tablet first, despite the daily distractions, busyness, and emergencies of the moment. If you want to be a leader that lasts over time, and fulfills your full potential, prioritizing God is not an option.  Enjoy your Sunday!

I’m including excerpts from an article I read yesterday.  Stories like these no longer surprise me as much as they concern me. They indict the spiritual bankruptcy of our nation and portend a more indifferent, evil, perverse, and violent future for our kids.

I’ve included comments below each statement included from the article:

Arizona school children are told they can’t pray in front of the Supreme Court building … Two University of Texas Arlington employees are fired for praying over a co-worker’s cubicle after work hours … In Cranston, R.I., a high school banner causes controversy when a parent complains it contains a prayer and demands that it be removed.

XXX: No one is forcing anyone to pray that doesn’t want to pray! Those who are offended by prayer can simply do something else. Having to listen to someone’s cell phone conversation is a greater offense and invasion of privacy than hearing or witnessing someone’s private or public prayer.  If it bugs you, tune it out or look the other way!

There are more legal challenges to prayer in the United States than ever before, says Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-founder of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, an atheist organization whose business is booming as Americans increasingly tackle church vs. state issues.

XXX: Most Americans don’t even realize that the terms  “separation of church and state” are not even mentioned in our Constitution! They are a manifestation of modern times.  As Hitler proved, if you tell the big lie often enough, people start to believe it.

“We’ve never had more complaints about government prayer,” Gaylor says. “We have just hired a second staff attorney in July. It’s turned into a cottage industry for our attorneys.”

The foundation has had a huge volume of complaints about prayer in the public sector, including numerous issues involving civic and government meetings where sessions have traditionally begun with a prayer or moment of silence.

XXX. Help me out here, in today’s age of noise and busyness, how does a moment of silence offend anyone? Again, no one is forcing anyone to pray during the moment of silence. They can use that golden time without noise to do whatever they’re accustomed to doing as an alternative to prayer: worry, plot, envy, lust and the like.

“Religious liberties are under attack across the country,” Nate Kellum, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund says. “My sense is that there’s some type of knee-jerk reaction, almost an allergic reaction, if someone sees the expression of religion,” he says.

And the bulk of the complaints are directed at Christians, he says.

XXX. The Alliance Defense Fund is an excellent organization. Check them out! Help them out!

“Fifteen percent of the people are not religious,” Gaylor says. “There’s an increasing plurality of faiths. It’s inevitable there’s going to be this clash with more people being offended.”

XXX. How did the 15% gain veto power over the 85%? Incidentally, there is nothing in our Constitution that guarantees anyone, including atheists, the right not to be offended! If what happens in this country offends you too much, exercise our greatest freedom and leave it! Personally, I think what really motivates the atheists in their quest to rob believers of religious freedom is this: if they don’t have the peace, joy, love, and fulfillment in their sad lives that comes from a robust relationship with God, they don’t want anyone else to have it either.

I’m writing my second business book based on the Bible’s principles, and my eleventh book overall. I’m grateful that in the book publishing world, an author can still express his or her thoughts without the censorship you find in the media, or the discrimination pervasive in courtrooms. The cultural current against God, religion in general, and Christianity specifically,  has motivated me to make, How to Lead by THE BOOK an even more enlightening, bold, and instructional resource for the men and women in business still committed to submitting their lives to biblical principles, rather than to subordinate their beliefs to modern, secular culture.

Here’s one of the 70 challenges that I’m working on today: “How do you convince people to go along with what you want to do?” “How can you get them on board with your vision?” “What is the secret to talking them in to doing things a certain way?” In other words, “How do you convince people who aren’t open to being convinced?” Every leader wrestles with this challenge.  Sadly, there is normally a small group of people who, regardless of your past track record, integrity, and compelling reasons for why they should change, won’t go along. In fact, Jesus had the same problem.

In Matthew 16, the Pharisees and Sadducees, approached Jesus with a demand that He give them a sign from heaven. To understand the hardness of their hearts, it’s important to remember that by this time Jesus had already done the following: healed lepers, paralytics, the blind, raised the dead, miraculously fed the 4,000 and the 5,000, cast out demons, calmed the storm with His words, walked on water and more! Jesus called these men hypocrites and then left them. Notice, He didn’t argue with them, or try to convince them–He walked away from them.  We should do the same.

I’ve learned that it is productive to work with those who have not made up their minds and remain open to doing what is right. But those who have shut their minds, dug in their heels, and have assumed the role of mockers; there is nothing you can do with them except to leave them. Or, better yet, send them away and purge your organization of their cancer. Your time is precious and you shouldn’t waste it by believing it is your job to smack people in the head with a bat and drag them around the bases! Rather, invest your time and efforts into those who are humble enough to still listen, and open enough to change. I’ll go more into depth concerning this principle in, How to Lead by THE BOOK, when I address the challenge, “How do I convince people who aren’t open to being convinced?”

Why do so many successful people fail to stay on top? In fact, they seem to self-destruct. No one gets in their way, they just can’t seem to stay out of their own way. At this writing, the former governor of Illinois is on trial for corruption, Mel Gibson is in hot water, again, over his behavior, Lindsay Lohan is in jail, etc., etc., etc.

Because of this persistent dilemma, one of the 70 challenges I’ll present in, How to Lead by THE BOOK will be:   “How can I survive success and finish well?” Here’s a hint: you’ve got to carefully guard your character choices! Normally, it’s not a diminished level of competence that creates the conditions to fall from grace. Rather, the problem is usually rooted in poor character decisions, and I’ll give several examples and remedies in the book.

The bottom line is this: When people become successful, they tend to let down their character-guard and fall. They fail to protect their talent by maintaining strong character. Frankly, they get sloppy, careless, and often-times arrogant. They believe that since they’ve “arrived”, certain rules don’t apply to them anymore and that they’ve earned the right to do what comes naturally, rather than to live with intent and discipline. Everyone, and not just high-profile people like those I’ve mentioned, is prone to this pitfall. Because of this, I believe that the way I address this issue in the book will help many readers.

I had to tone the book’s introduction down a bit yesterday. It was turning into a rant against our modern age’s attempt to erase God from public sight and speech! I do intend to get the point across, only in a more gentle manner than what was on my first draft! Whenever I write about a controversial topic, I normally write it in “rant” form first, and then reshape it in an effort to make it more professional, humane, and intelligent. There is a danger in coming across too strongly in writing or speech and it is this: what you appear to be as a person, can shout so loudly at a reader, that they can’t even hear what you’re trying to say. In other words, they can’t get past you, to get to your message. A good lesson for all of us.

Research. Research. Research. It’s tedious, but necessary in a book like, “How to Lead by THE BOOK.” After all, I have 74 business challenges to find supporting scriptures, quotes, analogies, and real-world examples for.

I’m still committed to paring the number of strategies down to an even 70,  so I will  combine some of them.

How do you do research for 74 different topics? It’s simple. I log each strategy under its own heading in a document on my computer. Then I begin to file what I know about each strategy under the appropriate heading. I include quotes, scriptures, personal experiences, and the like. The strategy headings without much, or anything, filed under them require the most research. As I read, listen, study, and research, certain points will stand out as being a good fit for this or that strategy. Once the research is done, I begin writing and tie it all together. Fortunately, I’ve already assembled very good information for nearly half the strategies. The quality of the examples, supporting scriptures, and real world application ideas will greatly influence the quality of the message that shows up in the book.  It’s either garbage in, garbage out, or insightful material in, high-impact writing out!

Here’s a common dilemma: Large companies are often accused of putting profits ahead of their people. What happens when the leaders value money, perks and possessions more than employees and/or customers? Matthew 8 and 9 shed some insight. Jesus had just left Capernaum for the Gadarenes district, across the Sea of Galilee. Upon arriving, He’s met by two exceedingly fierce, demon-possessed men. Jesus casts out their demons who, enter into a herd of pigs, run into the sea and drown. The local people, not at all pleased about what has happened, despite the fact that two tormented souls had been freed, ask Jesus to leave them. They were far more concerned with their pigs, than with what Jesus had to offer people. Jesus obliged and returned back across the Sea of Galilee to Capernaum, where He got on a roll and performed six consecutive miracles: healing a paralytic and a woman who had been afflicted for 12 years, restoring life a dead girl to life, restoring sight to two blind men, and curing a man who was mute and demon-possessed.

The moral of the story? Wherever people place profits (pigs) ahead of people, Jesus will not be welcome there. And when He is not welcome, He will leave–and take his blessings and miracles elsewhere! I’ll elaborate on this concept and the strategy for remaining “bless-able” in your business, in the book.

One of the challenges of applying biblical principles in the workplace is that modern society seeks to use its culture to shape the Scriptures, rather than allow the Scriptures to shape modern culture. The progress culture has made in shaping Scripture to its liking and “putting God in its place” has, unfortunately, made remarkable progress over the past few decades. There are laws now, and legislation pending in many states, that would have never even been considered as reasonable in a moral society earlier in our lifetimes. This pressure to “conform your Scripture-based beliefs” to culture, rather than to stand on and up for your Scripture-based beliefs causes many Christians in the workplace, families, and in society, to stumble. Some take their beliefs underground, fearful of ridicule and being ostracized, while others go to another extreme and use their beliefs as a license to judge and hate. My goal in, How to Lead by THE BOOK, is to create a blueprint for applying biblical principles in a manner that would please Christ.

In yesterday’s post I promised to share one of our corporate values and to explain how we use it to strengthen our culture. This is a topic I’ll cover in the book. We have five values that are the centerpiece for how we do business. My favorite, is “integrity.” We define integrity as, “Always doing what is right, and not what is easy, cheap, popular, or convenient. And doing so without excuse, and regardless of the cost.” It’s not enough just to list a value. You must describe what it looks like in practice. This provides a powerful visual for each employee, and they can use it as a filter for their decisions and behavior when faced with challenges, opportunities, and in their daily interactions with co-workers and customers.

Tomorrow, I’ll discuss my tips for researching. I’ll also present what happens when you put profits ahead of people, referencing Matthew 8 and 9.