The sky is not Your Limit, You Are

"When an egg breaks by a power from outside, a life ends. When an egg breaks by a power from within, a life begins"
Unknown

Thomas Carlyle once said “The block of granite which is an obstacle in the pathway of the weak, becomes a stepping stone in the pathway of the strong”. I never understood the power of this simple cliché until I thought really deep about something.

Geography has taught us that Mount Kilimanjaro is one of the tallest mountains in the world, but think about it for a second. If you were on a plane right on top of Mount Kilimanjaro, would you give the same rendition?

The answer is no. This is because, from a plane's view, Mount Kilimanjaro is as small as a marble. Now, how tall or how small Mount Kilimanjaro is will be determined solely by the POSITION IT IS VIEWED FROM.

The difference between somebody who wrote geography and a person who sees Kilimanjaro from a plane view, is the position they view it from.

You might be asking yourself, Thapelo Jonas, what are you getting at? Well let me break it down for you. Life has a tendency of throwing lemons our way, sometimes we find ourselves in the valleys of disaster. We get to be faced with gigantic goliaths of life who surfaces in the form of poverty, unemployment, low self esteem and shattered backgrounds.

But the reality is….Life happens, you might have been born in poor background and life has dictated to you that you can never amount to anything, you will never rise above your situation maybe its time you change your view.

Dr. Maswanganyi once said “there is nothing wrong in been born in a poor family but there is something wrong when you die in one. You have a choice of looking at yourself from the top view and declare that you are born for great exploits, thereby planting seeds of greatness in your tomorrow.

What does looking at your problems from a plane view mean?... If you are one of the thousands who is asking that question, don’t worry you are at the right place.

I believe in God therefore I can attest to what the bible says when it declares that as a man thinketh in his heart, so he is. Think about this, can you build a house without a plan…?

 In other words if you don’t have a blue print of where you are going then you can’t get there. Have you ever taken time to think about what it means when it says God created us in his image? You are created by an imaginative God who cannot create unless he has an image/blueprint or material to create from.

You need to think big if you want to be big. An interesting phenomenon of life is that images we have about the kind of future we want, always transcends into physical realities if we don’t let go of them in our minds.

Remember to dream big no matter where you are, that blue print you have in your mind must be there and if you don’t have it…destiny cannot create because it has no material to use.

Where you are today does not determine where you can go, and if you can dream it then you can do it.

Thapelo Jonas [Your Very Own...Life Coach]

© Copyright 2008. All rights reserved

Which Leadership Style Do You Use?

"If you do not know the use of something…abuse is inevitable." Myles Munroe

I have been studying the book of Esther recently, and the word caught my attention on the piece of text that blew my mind completely.

The Lord showed me the contrast between two leadership styles, Haman Leadership style and Esther's Leadership style, and how they both handled power and authority that came with it.

In Esther 3 verse 8 – 11, we hear of a very cruel man called Haman and how he went to King Ahasuerus and lied about the Jews with the intention to completely wipe them out of the kingdom.

The bible records, the king believed his story and gave Haman the ring from his hand and said, “The silver is given to thee, the people also, to do with them as it seemeth good to thee. “ NKJ

In today’s terms, we can say, The King gave Haman, the signed cheque book to do as he will. He was given the position of power, the authority to exercise as he deemed fit.

I wonder….what amount would you and I write on that cheque book if the king who owned everything gave us his cheque book and said I could do anything with it?

Authority can be defined as, the legal right to exercise power. But when the king gave Haman this legal right to exercise power, he abused it. He compelled everyone to reverence him, even though his vision, mission statement and leadership did not cause people to willingly follow him.

He even went as far as plotting to kill Mordecai when he refused to reverence him.

But contrary to Haman’s business acumen, the bible also tells us about Esther, what a woman? Esther 5 verse 3 declares, “Then said the king unto her, what wilt thou, Queen Esther? And what is thy request? It shall be even given thee to the half of the kingdom.” NKJ

What answer would you have given the King? I hear somebody saying, I would have asked for half the kingdom. But Esther’s motives were not selfish; she did not have any personal agenda to push at The King’s expense.

She invited The King and Haman to dinner because she wanted to convey her people’s dissatisfaction, ill treatment to the king, talk about a woman who has her people’s interests at heart.

Both Haman and Esther were in positions of power; The King gave them authority to exercise respectively. But because Haman did not know the use of his position, he abused it, he lead militantly not strategically.

He forced his followers to respect him not earned it by his deeds. He used his position of power to push his personal agenda. What kind of a leader are you?

But Esther on the other hand, had her people’s interest come before hers. She used the King’s favor for her people’s benefit not hers. She became selfless in an attempt to save her tribe. What kind of a leader are you?

Are you the Haman kind of leader…or the Esther kind of leader?

Thapelo Jonas [Your Very Own...Life Coach]

© Copyright 2008. All rights reserved