But one good thing about the go-greeners, the economy-stressed penny pinchers and the social justice do-gooders is that in many ways, although their underlying motivations can be very different, the outcome of their actions are often very similar.

I’m seeing a convergence of causes.

The quick illustration above is a 5-minute brainstorm of such a convergence. With further study, the implications and intricacies of these causes converging would be a fascinating story.

Known as “Daddy” by Adeboye admirers, he’s the pastor of The Redeemed Christian Church. They claim to be in 110 countries, with 14,000 locations, and 5 million members in Nigeria alone. There are a few hundred RCCG churches in Britain and the U.S.

With 600 million Pentecostals in the world, second in size only to Roman Catholics, Adeboye “wants to plant churches the way Starbucks used to build coffee shops: everywhere.”

Stories like this always stand out to me because of mainstream media’s observations and outlooks on religious movement in the world.

Bonus: NEWSWEEK’s “Global Elite” list also has a great prelude on The Story of Power by Jon Meacham.

I became a Malcolm Gladwell fan after reading his first book, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. His second book, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, was equally engaging yet more of a shift from the business/marketing angle found in Tipping Point.

In his third book, Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm continues his journey toward pop-sociologist. Outliers is a fascinating perspective on success, and blows away so many of the myths we have for what success looks like and how we achieve it.

In typical Gladwell fashion, Outliers is packed with stories that bring research to life. A premise of the book suggests, “It is only by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn’t.” Gladwell says that “the closer psychologists look at the careers of the gifted, the smaller the role innate talent seems to play and the bigger the role preparation seems to play.”

A reoccurring theme throughout the book that Malcolm observes is the “ten thousand hour” rule. Every story of success can point back to a person who has invested at minimum and approximately ten thousand hours of practice. Bill Gates. The Beatles. Lawyers. Immigrants from Europe to America in the early 1900s who brought their experience in making clothes. The list goes on.

The power of the ten thousand hour rule (about 4 hours a day for 10 years) is that you’re ready to “succeed” when the time is right. It’s tempting to pick a trendy thing and attempt to get good at it, but the trend might be over by the time you’ve mastered the craft. Outliers suggests that we should get good at what we’re passionate about. “Practicing isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.” Malcolm continues, “And what’s more, the people at the very top don’t work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder.”

“Hard work is a prison sentence only if it does not have meaning. Once it does, it becomes the kind of thing that makes you grab your wife around the waist and dance a jig.”

There were two phrases in the book that deserve to be unpacked further, and Malcolm merely scratches the surface of their definitions. The idea of “social inheritance” and “concerted cultivation” are powerful allies in the journey of Outliers.

One should be careful when absorbing Outliers because a premise of the book assumes we all measure success in terms of wealth, health, influence and power. “If you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your mind and imagination, you can shape the world to your desires.”

The conclusion of Outliers gets personal as Malcolm tells the story of his own life and family background, including generations of slavery in Jamaica. Gladwell goes on to argue that more of us would become Outliers if we lived in a “society that provides opportunity for all.”

“Outliers are those who have been given opportunities—and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them.”

Shortly after I moved to Los Angeles in 2000, I realized quickly that design and marketing was not really the business I was in. Sure, that’s what clients thought they were paying for, but it didn’t take much looking around to see that the work I was providing was just as good—if not worse—than the next guy’s. The difference was in how I delivered the work. I was dependable, trustworthy and fast. I made things happen. I brought together the right people to make the project work. If I didn’t know how to do it, I figured out how to do it. I hardly ever said no.

And the business grew.

After five years into the life of the company, it was time to take things to the next level. The design and marketing business was consistent work, but it wasn’t what I was wired to do nor was it my dream. I did it because it was a bridge to what was next. If the business was ever going to be all that I dreamed for it to be, it was going to take more than just me to dream it and build it.

It’s been a bumpy ride ever since I made that shift five years ago. Where we’ve landed is better than I would have ever imagined, but the ride hasn’t been easy. It’s been full of risk at every turn.

When I read Seth Godin’s post earlier this week on building an albatross, I immediately resonated with his journey building Squidoo. Using the example of an albatross bird, Seth distills two great points that I have been following but never put it into words quite like Seth does:

1. Plan for the long slow ramp up. That means super low overhead and patience and not trying to launch with a huge splash because you’re impatient.

2. Architecture matters. If you intend to build an albatross, you’ll want to design a business where each customer brings you new customers, where the more it gets used, the better it works.

The “slow ramp up” continues for Personality. We’re years away from any sort of splash, but I think the journey and the stuff we’re working on is worth it.

If you’re interested in joining other innovative and creative leaders from around the country to share ideas, intentionally network, and think collaboratively, I’d love to see you there.

We got the late-night tear-filled call from Dottie the day after Jamaica gave her shoes to Medea. Dottie and Medea are a regular part of our home(less) group that meets each week. I was unable to participate in last week’s gathering, but I later learned that Jamaica and Medea spent an unusual amount of time with each other that night. Come to find out, giving her shoes to Medea was the culmination of a strong bonding time they shared through conversation and the care-filled presence of one another.

The call from Dottie was to inform us of Medea’s sudden death. Medea was found face-down in the dirt and was still wearing Jamaica’s shoes that she had received the night before. From what we can gather, Medea died of liver failure.

For reasons different than the passing of those familiar to our lives, it’s challenging to mourn the life of an invisible person. Who witnessed her life? Where is her family? Who will miss her? What impact did she have on people for the last half a century? Was Medea even her real name?

Several of us gathered last night around the space Medea called home. Huddled around the glow of a few candles, we read Scripture and prayed. We shared memories of the Medea we knew so briefly and ended with a group recitation of the Lord’s Prayer.

Last night I returned to the room after a long day of deliberations. Jamaica had arrived a few minutes before me, herself returning from a small group we’re a part of that communes with a handful of our homeless friends each week.

One of our homeless friends last night was barefoot and had lost her shoes. In a blink, Jamaica took her shoes off and gave them to our friend. If you don’t know my wife, this is the way she’s wired. It’s second nature for her to give sacrificially.

The funny part of this story is when Jamaica came back to the hotel. As she got out of the car and gave the keys to the valet (the only way to park at this hotel), the attendant noticed she was barefoot. “Are you a guest here?” said the valet guy. “Yes, I’m in room 621.”

Then she walked through the fancy lobby and up the elevator and to our room.

Barefoot.

I love my wife.

If you don’t have anyone to give your shoes to, perhaps you should consider a $5 donation to Soles 4 Souls which gets two pairs of shoes to people in need.

Nearly 30 years ago, a bi-partisan U.S. Presidential Commission on World Hunger suggested that “promoting economic development in general, and overcoming hunger in particular, are tasks far more critical to U.S. national security than most policy makers acknowledge or even believe.” The deepest causes for conflict in the world today, according to former U.N. Secretary Boutros Boutros-Ghali, are “economic despair, social injustice, and political oppression.”

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I haven’t heard much talk these days about overcoming foreign conflicts with generous giving, extreme kindness and courageous leadership with integrity.

Sider nails it when he says, “The rich often neglect or oppose justice because it demands that they end their oppression and share with the poor.” He continues, “We know that knowing more will make us morally obligated to change.”

So Now What?
“We must develop a theology of enough,” says Sider. “Christians in the United States spent $15.7 billion on new church construction alone in the six years between 1984 and 1989. Would we go on building lavishly furnished expensive church buildings if members of our own congregations were starving?”

“God casts down the wealthy and powerful in two specific situations,” says Sider, “(1) when they become wealthy by oppressing the poor; or (2) when they fail to share with the needy.”

Sider doesn’t mince his words. “Is the church really the church if it does not work to free the oppressed?”

But how much should we give? John Wesley gave a startling answer. One of his frequently repeated sermons was on Matthew 6:19-23 (“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth” KJV). Christians, Wesley said, should give away all but “the plain necessities of life”—that is, plain, wholesome food, clean clothes, and enough to carry on one’s business. One should earn what one can, justly and honestly. Capital need not be given away.” But Wesley wanted all income given to the poor after bare necessities were met. Unfortunately, Wesley discovered, not one person in five hundred in any “Christian city” obeys Jesus’ command. But that simply demonstrates that most professed believers are “living men but dead Christians.” “Any ‘Christian’ who takes for himself anything more than the plain necessaries of life,” Wesley insisted, “lives an open, habitual denial of the Lord.” He has “gained riches and hell-fire!” Wesley lived what he preached. Sales of his books often earned him fourteen hundred pounds annually, but he spent only thirty pounds on himself. The rest he gave away.

John V. Taylor suggests that “the biblical norm for material possessions is ‘sufficiency.’” We see this concept of sufficiency throughout Scripture. Sider says that the “costly generosity of the first church stands as a challenge to Christians of all ages.”

He even goes so far as to dare church institutions to “undertake a comprehensive two-year examination of their programs and activities to answer this question: Is there the same balance and emphasis on justice for the poor and oppressed in our programs as there is in Scripture?”

Rich Christians is another one of those books that is either going to sit on a shelf filled with highlights and tear stains, or become a manifesto for change.

Read Part One