One of the other lab speakers at Catalyst West was Blake Mycoskie, Chief Shoe Giver at Tom’s Shoes. I’m wearing a pair of Tom’s shoes this weekend as an illustration in the Influence series. Blake was touring Argentina in 2006 when he noticed how many kids didn’t have shoes. He decided to do something about it. He started Tom’s shoes with a simple premise: for every pair of shoes they sell they give a pair of shoes to a child in a third world country. So simple. So brilliant. Blake went back to Argentina later in 2006 and gave away 10,000 pairs of shoes!

To date they’ve given away 140,000 pairs of shoes!

Let me share a kingdom equation: God Idea + Sweat Equity = Movement. Every Spirit-led movement has a genealogy that traces back to a single-celled God-idea. But nothing will happen unless you invest tremendous amounts of sweat equity. In fact, I think it was a Thomas Edison who said that success was 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. Here’s the encouraging thing. If you know an idea is from God, you’re willing to work so much harder for it.

Check out the AT&T commercial.