Final Words

October 5, 2010 in Leadership, Life, Ministry, My Lessons From Last Week, Parenting with 2 Comments

We all have people we look up to for diverse reasons. Some of the reasons we look up to them could be that they have strengths in areas we don’t. Or they’ve achieved in areas we desire to achieve in… The reasons are numerous, perhaps innumerable. And, every now and then we contemplate on questions we would ask them on what it takes to get where they are. We want to know what it is that sets them apart and in some cases what makes them nothing short of demigods in some people’s eyes. When the opportunities to sit at the feet of our heroes we quickly turn them to victims of sort, as we bombard them with one question after another. Let’s flip the tables for a moment; imagine you are in the hero’s chair and someone asks you, “If you had one thing to say to the world what would it be?” Hold the thought for a moment…

This week I will not be posting (what should be my weekly) “My Lessons From Last Week”. However, I’d like to share about someone that made an impact on my life. Last week my last surviving grandparent, my grandmother, (mom’s mom) passed away. I spent some time reflecting on what I’ve learnt from her. As I reflected, I realized I could not recall a time I actually sat with my granny for a lesson. I cannot remember a time I quizzed her about many of ‘life’s issues’. Yet, her signature is undeniably evident on me (and my siblings through mom).

Growing up, I was often not too pleased with my mom assigning my siblings and I seemingly never-ending chores. Mom always saw and or created something to do around the house or in our garden. She was somehow a workaholic and seemed not to have ‘rest’ or ‘break’ in her vocabulary. The truth is as we were growing up we also wanted our ‘breaks from chores’ to last the rest of our lives! In retrospect, the work ethic my mother carried, which when we were younger and felt victims of, was actually ‘inherited’ from granny. In her old age my granny still wanted to work her garden and never could sit still. I now more evenly distribute the ‘blame’ for attempting to instill a work ethic in my siblings and I to include my granny.

This is yet another reminder for us to never underestimate the impact we have on posterity and those close to us. The decisions we make and lives we live daily have directly implications on our children’s children and the children’s children of those we influence now! There are a few other things I realized in my reflection but want to keep to this example and get back to the question, “If you had one thing to say to the world what would it be?”

I got to see my granny for the last time in December last year. The thought that it could be the last time I saw her did cross my mind… The last thing she said to my siblings and I was, “Love one another and never lie”. From all the life lessons she could share she chose to say these words to us. I think that’s profound. Allow me… Love one another – This means that granny probably realized that the most significant thing to be pursued and attained in life is not inconsiderate self gratification. Part of me thinks granny saw where she was in her life as the ‘last stretch’. I think, “Love one another” came out of her time in reflection and allow me to put forward another assumption. At the end of our lives we are going to measure the worth of our lives based on what we did for others. What we did for others will be of more worth than personal achievements. I think granny was also saying, “Live for others and not your selfish ambition and desires”. People who are highly esteemed are those that have been selfless and did something for the enrichment of other people’s lives.

“Never lie”- Granny was reminding us to embrace the value of truth and to not forget the devastating effects of lies. I’m sure granny, in her long life, had seen some devastating effects of lies. Truth builds up and lies ultimately destroy. Truth is the bedrock of character. Being truthful to ourselves and others will protect us. Truth will build and give you a good reputation that cannot be priced. Truth is the cornerstone of authentic relationships. Truth will truly set us free; lies will entangle us it often take another lie to cover another. Truth will create enemies and simultaneously give you true friends. My granny was my hero, but an even greater one now as see how she enriched my life both directly and indirectly.

Who is one of your heroes and what is the one thing you’ve caught from them? If you were in the hero’s seat right now, what’s the one thing you’d say?

Beyond Me, Beyond You!

September 23, 2010 in Chrstianity, Church, Leadership, Life, Ministry, Passion, Vision with 0 Comments

I think as Christians we sometimes underestimate the responsibilities that God has entrusted us with. Don’t get me wrong, I am not in any way saying that we are indispensable; that God cannot see His purposes accomplished without us.

Why is the LORD bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be taken as plunder. Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?”… Your children will be shepherds here for forty years, suffering for your unfaithfulness, until the last of your bodies lies in the desert. – Numbers 14:3, 33 (NIV)

This is a part of one of the most fascinating stories in history… Israel was on the verge of inheriting what God had for them and they, in a sense, opted out.  The reason why they should have fought and possessed the land God had given them was what they used as an excuse not to fight! They did not want the ‘inconvenience’ on their part at the expense of the future of their children and their children’s children! At this point, all they thought about was themselves. Christianity at the core is not just about ‘me’. Being like Christ means that we follow His example of putting others before ourselves. Being selfless is not an optional Christian attribute, it must be characteristic of all Christians.

How we respond to God’s call now has direct implications on generations after us. The decisions we make, the way we serve God serves generations around us. Both positively and negatively. Hence the importance of us checking the basis upon which we serve God. Are we serving God with a selfish ambition i.e. for what we can get out of it and not for something greater – others and God’s glory beyond our lives. Our selflessness (or lack of it) also has direct implications for the community God has placed us in. Something I’m grappling with (I dare say) – the state of the community in which we are as a church has some sort of reflection on how we’re serving God? Is that too harsh? Perhaps unreasonable?

Jesus placed a lot of responsibility on the disciples of establishing His church after He left. I don’t think that we are too ‘small’ to impact the community or cities we’re in as the church. Jesus called us the salt of the earth. It doesn’t take a lot of salt to make a big difference! We have to think and act generationally; beyond ourselves. The Christian faith is not exclusively personal and the impact thereof has to be ‘others-focused’ too. The battles we win are not only our victories but others’ also, in our time and beyond us. This also means our failures have the same impact. Your commitment to serving God shapes the face of our city / community and many generations after us, don’t trifle with it!

My Lessons From Last Week – Week #5

September 21, 2010 in Ideas, Leadership, Life, Ministry, Passion, Productivity, Self Leadership, Teamwork, Vision with 0 Comments

I went through my blog sometime last week  – a little maintenance work, if I can call it that. I use WordPress for my blog. I checked if plugins were working the way they should, links etc. I realized something; most of the times I’ve checked my links, plugins and other functionality of my blog and overlooked the RSS feeds. Well not this time! I discovered it wasn’t working as it should be. I then installed FeedBurner to remedy that – now working perfectly.

The Lesson: There are the “invisible” components of “systems”.  Because these are more in the background and out of sight it makes it easy to forget or overlook them. Because we cannot see them doesn’t meant they don’t exist and cannot affect us. I was challenged to think about the “background” things in my life and functions that facilitate the more visible ones. These same things have the capacity to bring down projects. A little oil is necessary to prevent a gigantic machines / engines from breaking down. I realized I have checklists for some things but not all. The invisible that matters can be made and kept visible through checklists. Checklists help make “maintenance” systematic. In a team context checklists can facilitate easier duty / task transferals and subsequent continuity.

What I’ve Learned From Twitter

September 10, 2010 in Ideas, Leadership, Life, Social Media, Twitter with 4 Comments

  • Follow: People need you to give them a reason to follow you. Do you have something worthwhile to tweet or are your tweets relevant to them? At different stages I’ve followed different people depending on what I am interested in at that time. There are however, those that i follow constantly. There are other people or organizations i follow “indirectly”. I do this through the use of private lists. I’ve also learnt that people follow you for different reasons. Some to spam, others because they want to “hear” what your thoughts are, others to engage with you on areas of interest. It’s normally the same in “real life”… People may be following you but for different reasons. Some may follow because they are skeptics and want to be around to say, “I knew you wouldn’t be able to do it”. Others follow you because they believe in your cause, or want to learn from you.

  • Discipline: When I decided to get on twitter, I set myself a challenge; to say at least two things everyday that were edifying in some way. I do use twitter to interact and engage with other people also, but want to also challenge others as they challenge me. It was not a walk in the park at first but with time got better. As an ‘aspiring author’ this has helped. I also used twitter as my practice field for blogging. I thought, “if I can commit to a couple of (edifying) tweets everyday, it will help my discipline when I get back to blogging“. Nothing can be sustained without discipline. You are probably the most disciplined person you know! To know what you are disciplined in, look at the most defined areas of your life.
  • Worth: “140 characters?!” I get that reaction a lot when I explain twitter to people. They just cannot get their heads around the number of characters a single tweet can comprise (obviously they’re not on twitter). I’ve learnt the value or worth of what we say everyday is not in the amount of words you use. I’ve come to appreciate more the worth of words; how to use them to communicate. Tweeting has helped me get straight to the point of what I want to say. If it’s worth saying I challenge myself to say it in a single tweet. I think it’s the same in everyday life and not just in the “twitterspehere”. The most important things we can say are normally phrases with very few words, “I love you, I’m sorry, Thank you”… When we use a lot of words sometimes, there is possibility of losing the essence of what we’re trying to communicate. The target for my tweets is 120 characters at the moment. Some of the deepest things I’ve heard or said have been phrases that are concise.
  • Community: Some people I’ve interacted with claim that twitter and social media in general, are a hindrance to “normal relationships”. I think differently. Twitter has closed the time and geographic divide for me. I’ve been able to interact with people that time and space don’t allow in real-time. I dare say – with the digital age community has been redefined. I could be wrong,  but my take is if studies are done to contrast the “normal” community and social media communities there would be more similarities than differences. I’ve shared ideas and resources. For the friends I follow on twitter and interact with in person, Twitter has enhanced relationships. It has helped either start or continue conversations offline. Through use of hashtags I’ve also been able to see what others are saying about a particular subject in real-time. I’ve also learnt to share more, especially when I visit websites or blogs providing the option to tweet the link. I think sharing is one of the characteristics of community, don’t you?
  • Capture: I always have an “ideas journal” on me, but twitter has become an additional means to capture an idea and to get other people’s insights or thoughts on it. Some of my blog posts are actually “tweet spin-offs”. When I get ideas or brainstorm I normally capture them in short phrases, so twitter has become great resource for capturing ideas for me. Sometimes those reading my tweets may see a tweet but I see a marker or reminder for an idea, which could be a talk, blog post, an article, an initiative etc

 

If you’re not on twitter why aren’t you? If you are on twitter, what lessons have you learnt?

My Lessons From Last Week – Week #4

September 6, 2010 in Leadership, Life, My Lessons From Last Week, Productivity, Skills, Teamwork with 2 Comments

Lessons in life often pay us a visit as we go through the day. When we don’t stop to reflect we waste opportunities of learning and growth. Since I started sharing “My Lessons From Last Week” I’ve been astounded by the things I learn about myself and life in general… As always I will share just a couple of what I learn last week and hope that it somehow enriches you…

  • My Body Talks To Me: I paid a ‘visit’ to the emergency room at the hospital on Wednesday night. It definitely wasn’t fun at all and that was probably one of the longest nights of my life! My skin color changed to grey! That was weird to say the least. To cut a long story short, I was reminded of something and learnt simultaneously. My body actually talks to me! I could hear it speak but I didn’t listen to it much. My body has been telling me that it doesn’t like what is happening in its ‘belly department’. It would speak then keep quiet. On Wednesday it decided to shout a little louder, I could not even ingest a sip of water! There are many things our bodies tell us, it is just that we don’t listen hence they end up telling us in more aggressive ways.
  • Sometimes fatigue is your body telling you to slow down or that we are not servicing it with needed exercise or good diet. Other times it tells us it doesn’t like some foods no matter how good they taste. At other times our bodies speak in a language called pain, telling us to handle them a little more delicately. This morning as I thought about this post I started to ask myself, what else has been body been telling me and I’ve been ignoring? You can get a transplant for some body parts but I’ve never heard of a whole body transplant! You have one body and should take serious care of it. It will treat you like how you treat it! So I am going to listen a little more intently to my body from now on. you can easily avert some life threatening issues if you take time to listen, even to the seemingly minute things your body says. Your body has been speaking; have you been listening?
  • Team: On the squash court… Things are not going as well as I would like. If you’ve been following my blog you’ll know I’m just one of those guys who sees no point in playing without the intention to win… At the moment my squash league team is not doing as well as we’d like. We’re not accumulating substantial points in our weekly fixtures… Last week we had no matches and instead of ‘taking a chill’ like some teams, I proposed we use the normal match day as a practice day. I’m glad we did it! My lesson: a win from my teammates is a win for the team. The opposite is true – my loss is not just mine but team’s! It is rather obvious and you probably know this but there something I’d like to add in this regard.
  • When your team is not winning or reaching its goals the responsibility is not just the captain or leader to turn things around. Teams, on some occasions, continue to miss targets or lose because all responsibility is placed on the leader. There is a line from the movie, ‘A  Bug’s Life’, “When you’re the leader everything is your fault”. I agree with that in part. As a team player you also have some influence leveraging your team to a better game! It is not all up to the leader. Frankly, there are times even when he doesn’t know what to do. Never stop looking for the solution. Your team will only be as great as you make it. Take responsibility in turning things around. There is something you can do. Not being the leader doesn’t make you powerless; it actually empowers you to take risk.
  • When my team is not winning, it is my responsibility even if I’m not the leader, to be part of the solution! Some team members have watched their teams fail as they kept quiet with solutions. Speak up! Most team players only want to identify with their team when they win. However, true loyalty is always proven in the heat of adversity. Do you cower and refuse to identify with your team when you experience losses and associate with them in wins? As part of the team, what do you do when things aren’t going as you’d like? If you’re part of a team you don’ t lead, have you been as responsible as you could be? Why or why not?

There most certainly is an “I” in “team.” It is the same “I” that appears three times in “responsibility.” – Amber Harding

Don’t just let life happen to you, learn something and grow!  Have a great week.

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