Welcome to the July 3rd edition of Faith & Life Lessons.
You will see this email full of tidbits from my week. My goal is simple. I hope that from how I live my life, you can find a thing or two that helps you as you try to live a life that matters. I am always trying to do one thing - make Christ-focused decisions in love, work, and life. And this was my week.
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The Story of My Week
A bigger part of my week was spent at a 4-day training we organized for the whole company.
I took two sessions during the training.
I realized this was my first physical training in a long time.
COVID changed the game and most of the training I have done recently was virtual.
The main organizer remarked that I lead my sessions effortlessly.
That didn’t come easy.
It came with years of practice and honing my craft.
Adjusting content to an audience comes with observation and near-disaster experiences.
I was happy for the staff.
A few of them remarked that this was the first training for them in a long time.
I like what we are communicating as a leadership team.
It’s the importance of the staff to the overall success of the company.
At a time when cutting down staff-related costs could have been the easier choice, we decided to invest in them.
It’s something I learned and I am trying to live out on this job.
It’s the way I bring the difference God wants me to create to this team.
It’s the way God communicates to them that they count for something.
Through me.
And by what He does.
Through my actions.
Things I Learnt
1-Principles Will Your Money Safe: I was listening to an interview with Ken Langone, co-founder of The Home Depot, in the US.
During the interview, he spoke of being approached by Bernie Madoff a few weeks before the truth behind his Ponzi scheme came to life.
Ken had just closed a deal where he and his partners sold their business for $4.3bn cash in 2008.
Bernie Madoff reached out to him through a friend of his that he would like to meet him.
Still wondering why Bernie would want to see him since they were not friends but out of courtesy to the mutual friend, he agreed to meet.
He went to the meeting with his partner. Bernie tried to impress him first with his art collection.
This was meaningless to him as he was not an art connoisseur.
He told Bernie to go straight to why he wanted to meet with him.
Bernie said he had an opportunity that required a $500m investment and he wanted him to get in on it.
Ken asked, “why not give it to your existing clients?”
“It’s not big enough for them and all I will do is make a lot of people unhappy” was Bernie’s response
Ken thought to himself “he’s going to give me this phenomenal deal. He’s never met me before tonight. And he’s got all these people who have been his partners for years and he’s not going to give them any of it. How would I feel if I was them?
His rule was the golden rule - do unto others as you want to be done to you.
He said to himself “something is wrong here.”
So he gracefully declined.
Within a month, the truth about Bernie Maddof came out.
Saved by principles.
2-Take the First Action: One of the things that have been at the back of my mind since I took over leading the teams has been how I can raise the expectations in the minds of the team.
To achieve more, people need to be able to demand more from themselves.
To demand more means they are thinking bigger about their capacity and the capacity of the business.
It’s something I believe God has put into our minds that we need to reach for.
So far, we have been on a journey that has been working.
And now, I needed to find the next activator which came from an unlikely source.
I’m the kind of guy who reads books with the hope of implementing things I discover in them.
I recently picked up a book I had bought some years back.
After reading it, I concluded that this was the next thing we needed to roll out for the firm.
The authors also consulted with companies and helped them to implement the framework that the book taught.
Most of the company case studies in the book were large organizations and I know the cost of such implementation could be expensive.
Notwithstanding, I sent an email to them along to find out about implementation.
They were based in the US and the most I would get is a bill that would get a “sorry I can’t implement this” response from me.
As it turned out, since they had written the book, they had set up an implementation framework for smaller organizations.
Add to that, they also had an implementation team based in Africa that could work with me.
A couple of emails and zoom calls later, they offered me a price that was well within budget with the support that would be there for the implementation process.
The whole process reaffirmed the mindset I picked up a while back - never be afraid to ask, no matter how absurd the request sounds.
Leave the choice to say “no” to the other person.
I refuse to say “no” to my request before the other person does.
What if they say “yes”?
And that’s why I’ll keep asking.
God inspires a request in my heart.
I will take the courage to ask for it and see how the other person responds.
I don’t lose.
I win by taking the first action with courage
Postscript
May the courage of Jesus inspire you to take action on the things God has planted in your heart. Amen
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Tola - The Everyday Disciple
I help Christians like you who want to live intentional lives incorporate their faith into everyday life so they can make Christ focused decisions in all areas of life and truly live to make an impact and make God happy.
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