Steven Garofalo
Spirituality/Belief • Education • News
WHY NUMBERS ALONE DON’T DEFINE SUCCESS
By Steven Garofalo, (Copyright April 12, 2024)
April 12, 2024

Business is about the numbers but character is about success. And success is all about how you get to those numbers, right or wrong.

Today, I am going to show you that while numbers are necessary for running a sales organization, or any organization for that matter, including our family budget and personal lives-the lack of good character in achieving those numbers is false success. It also leads to a heartless soul organizationally and personally speaking through wrongly, ill-gained profit. On the other hand, godly character leads to God-dependent success. That success must be coupled with our obedience to work hard, smart and ethically-moral.

I was in outside sales for many years and can attest to the fact that marketplace success is based on numbers.  In sales, success is measured and driven by the NUMBER of cold calls, appointments, presentations and closed deals. In the end, the value of a sales-person is based on how much money a salesperson bring as defined by closed sales at the end of each month.

To be blunt, compensating people on performance is the best way to reward sales people, but selling based on one’s character is the right and best model. If a person is honest, hard working, driven, fair, thinks of the other person first, that salesperson will in most cases perform more highly than if strictly driven by numbers. To be fair, there are many lazy and dishonest sales people (and people in general) in the marketplace and world in general. Laziness is slothfulness, and that goes back to character. If doing business and closing sales with a foundation of good character sounds like a pipe dream, it’s not. It’s the way that Americans business used operate and in some cases, still is. While character driven business has never been perfectly executed in America or in any culture, it was executed with a high level of success up until the 1990’s.

When a company judges a person strictly by their sales numbers, they create an environment based on a lack of character and a lack of moral values. More specifically, a lack of Christian values which used to be the values of the United States in particular. It’s important to understand that nothing acts or operates in a vacuum. If Christian values such as “do not steal, murder, lie, honor other people as you would want to be honored”, etc. are no longer the cultural foundation of business ethics, what is? The two main choices are as follows: ATHEISM: (Communism or Socialism-every man and woman for him or herself with the government running the economy). Or ISLAM: (which is communism under a theocracy). These two worldviews have already taken over much of the world’s economic philosophies, but Christian values based on character still exist and can make a come back! Indonesia has the highest number of Muslims in the world of any country. They never sent a missionary or religious people to accomplish that. They sent business people to start businesses.

GOALS:

Sales is not for everybody, but everybody sells and should have goals. We should all have goals, including stay at home moms, teenagers, the president of companies and the president and leaders of countries, as well as sales managers, sales people and sales teams. But one’s value system ought never be attached to a number, and one’s character ought never be judged by their numerical success. I agree that if your numbers aren’t met after a specific time, perhaps that person ought to look for another job-probably outside of sales. This goes back to character and ego. I

In our next episode, I am going to tie this into the Bible through 2 Samuel whereby we read about David’s taking a CENSUS in numbering of the people, which was usually done for the purposes of taxation or military draft. David’s sin was in putting his faith in NUMBERS rather than in God. This is the danger of measuring  success strictly by numbers without biblical character. To be fair, numbers are necessary in living out our lives, including how organizations run their sales organization. With that in mind, God is today with out us today as He was with king David in 2 Samuel that there are occasions whereby we are not to use numbers. In David’s case, he was not to measure the numbers of citizens due to the fact that it would puff up David’s ego and give him a false sense of his own worth, power and success as opposed to depending on God and giving him the glory, honor and credit. This will be the subject of part two!

CONCLUSION:

In the end, building a business and a successful sales team must be by numbers. That being said, they must also be driven by character and personal development and understanding, based on biblical character. The final determiner of true success in God’s eyes boils down to how the person, manager or organization gets to those numbers. While numbers are necessary for running an organization, our family budgets and personal lives, the lack of good character in achieving those numbers leads only to a heartless organization and wrongly driven profits. But it doesn’t have to be that way. In our next episode we are going to look at what happens through the biblical story of king David’s ordering of a numerical census for personal ego and trying to achieve numbers apart from God.

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By steven Garofalo, April 21, 2025 (Copyright 2025)

WHY WE ARE NOT TO MESS WITH GOD
EXODUS 9:27-35

When we tell God we are going to do something, we better do it. Today, I am going to show you WHY we are not to mess around and lie to God. Let’s get started.

In Genesis 9:27-35, we find Moses coming around towards the very end of all his warnings and plagues on Egypt. After Moses called down dust to create a storm of hail, lightening and fire which killed most of the Egyptian’s servants and livestock, Pharaoh, calls for Moses and tells his this: 

"27 Then Pharaoh sent and called Moses and Aaron and said to them, “This time I have sinned; the Lord is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong. 28 Plead with the Lord, for there has been enough of God's thunder and hail. I will let you go, and you shall stay no longer.” 29 Moses said to him, “As soon as I have gone out of the city, I will stretch out my hands to the Lord. The thunder will cease, and there will be no more hail, so that you may know that the earth is the Lord's."

It was bad enough for Pharoah to confess his sins, but worst that he really never meant it; hence he lied on top of rejecting God’s commands. Thats a really bad place to be for any human being, especially a world leader.

GOD’S GRACE EXTENDED TO PHARAOH

“33 So Moses went out of the city from Pharaoh and stretched out his hands to the Lord, and the thunder and the hail ceased, and the rain no longer poured upon the earth.” 

PHARAOH SEALS HIS OWN FATE WITH A HEART EVEN MORE HARDENED

"34 But when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunder had ceased, he sinned yet again and hardened his heart, he and his servants. 35 So the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he did not let the people of Israel go, just as the Lord had spoken through Moses.”

The moral of the story is that the worst we try to lie to God and/or not keep our word in carrying out what we said we would, the worst the judgement of God will eventually be in our own life.

Conclusion

When we tell God we are going to do something, we better do it. Today, I showed you through God’s Word WHY we are not to mess around and lie to God. And this was not the rest of the story. As all know, Pharoah lost his only son for disobeying God to the degree that he did. Let’s think about this very truth and reflect on how we can do better with honoring God and keeping our word in obedience to God in our lives.

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PURPOSE OVER STAYING PUT
By Steven Garofalo, April 18, 2025 (Copyright 2025)

PURPOSE OVER STAYING PUT
Moses and Aaron Before Pharaoh

THE CALLING (Exodus 7)
“1 And the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet. 2 You shall speak all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall tell Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go out of his land…4 Pharaoh will not listen to you…5 The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them” (Exodus 7:1-5).

PURPOSE IN ACTION (Exodus 7)
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FIRST:  
THE LORD CALLS MOSES & AARON. “1 And the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet." 

SECOND: 
THE SPECIFIC MISSION:
The Lord calls Moses and Aaron and instructs them as to the mission of his life.

"You shall speak all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall tell Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go out of his land…"

THIRD: 
GOD MANAGES EXPECTATIONS REGARDING WHAT THEY WILL ENCOUNTER IN THAT THEY WILL FAIL AT FIRST.
"4 Pharaoh will not listen to you.”

FOURTH: 
THE BIG PICTURE: THE EGYPTIANS WILL KNOW THE TRUTH OF THE TRUE GOD!
"5 The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them” (Exodus 7:1-5).  

God was clear that He would reach out his hand against the Egyptians, and bring the the Israelites from among them. Then God moves from calling to action.

PURPOSE IN ACTION (Exodus 7)
In verse six, Moses writes not that they contemplated, thought about, or prayed on God’s calling. Moses and Aaron simply got up and “made it happen”!

"6 Moses and Aaron did so; they did just as the Lord commanded them." 

NOW FOR THE KICKER: THESES GUYS WERE IN THEIR 80’s! Let’s pick it up in verse 7.

OLD MEN WITH A NEW MISSION
"7 Now Moses was eighty years old, and Aaron eighty-three years old, when they spoke to Pharaoh.”

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