Choices

Jerry is the kind of guy you love to hate. He is always in a good mood and always has something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, ‘If I were any better, I would be twins!’

He was a unique manager because he had several waiters who had followed him around from restaurant to restaurant. The reason the waiters followed Jerry was because of his attitude. He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry was there telling the employee how to look on the positive.

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to Jerry and asked him, ‘I don’t get it! You can’t be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?’

Jerry replied, ‘Each morning I wake up and say to myself, Jerry, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood.’ I choose to be in a good mood.

Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life.’

‘Yeah, right, it’s not that easy,’ I protested. ‘Yes, it is,’ Jerry said. ‘Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or a bad mood.

I reflected on what Jerry said. Soon thereafter, I left the restaurant industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.

Several years later, I heard that Jerry did something you are never supposed to do in a restaurant business: he left the back door open one morning and was held up at gunpoint by three armed robbers. While trying to open the safe, his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination. The robbers shot him. Luckily, Jerry was found relatively quickly and rushed to the local trauma center. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body.

I saw Jerry about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied, ‘If I were any better, I’d be twins. Wanna see my scars?’ I declined to see his wounds but did ask him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place.

‘The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door,’ Jerry replied. ‘Then, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or I could choose to die. I chose to live.’

‘Weren’t you scared? Did you lose consciousness?’ I asked.

Jerry continued, ‘….the paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the ER and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read ‘he’s a dead man.’ I knew I needed to take action.’’

What did you do?’ I asked. ‘Well, there was a big burly nurse shouting questions at me,’ said Jerry. She asked if I was allergic to anything.

‘Yes,’ I replied. The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, ‘Bullets!’

Over their laughter, I told them, ‘I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.’

Jerry lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully. Attitude, after all, is everything.

Meditation: But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. – 1 Corinthians 15:10

You will succeed in Jesus Name!

Booster of Potential

Booster of potential…

Saul called David’s attention to the natural things. David called Saul’s attention to the supernatural things [paraphrased].
– 1 Samuel 17:33-37 

What we do not see are naturally bigger and more powerful than what we see. An oceanographer would tell you that the most populated part of the earth is the ocean. We don’t see this fact until we dive into the bottom of the sea. Do you know the buried part of an iceberg on the water is usually a hundred times bigger than the head we see above water?

Ask a structural engineer and he would tell you that the foundation of a building is stronger than the whole bricks piled on it. We do not see the foundation while we usually admire the obvious building. We are often attracted by the unimportant.

You cannot afford to be too conscious of your physical development at the expense of inner growth. How much of the money you spend goes into investing in your inner person? Those things you do not see about you are what defines you. In other words, they are what determine your realities. Those people who succeed paid greater attention to what is going on inside them than what is happening around them.

Inner growth is a choice. John C. Maxwell says, “Growth is optional. You can choose to grow or fight it. But know this: people unwilling to grow will never reach their potential.” Investing attention in inner growth is a decision that can really make a difference in a person’s life. Taking a step towards inner growth would include consistently doing the following:

• Commit to healthy thinking for at least 30 minutes daily
• Daily study of the Bible and meditation on its insights
• Regular reading of useful magazines, dailies, books, and literature in your career field.
• Improve the quality of your inner circle.
• Invest and attend meetings or conferences that focus on the kind of development you seek.
• Participate in social responsibility efforts (this helps you to contribute positively and it is a very vital nutrient to growing on the inside).
• Pray for divine help in your inner growth ambition.

This list may not be exhaustive, but they adequately represent a good starting point. They would not matter if you are not craving for quality inner life. No man ever feels successful by amassing only external successes. His fulfilment is in maturity, strength, and the wealth of his inner man.

You will succeed in Jesus Name!

Choose the Problem You Solve

 

None of us is meant to solve every problem. Learning to choose the problem to solve is the beginning of personal liberty.

- Babatunde Oladele

The Quality and Quantity of Punctuality

 

Inasmuch as I discourage and sanction late coming, I also do not pay bonus for punctuality. You can come early and achieve nothing. What I reward is the quality and quantity of your output in an 8-hour workday - Babatunde Oladele

How To Build A Winning Workforce

Here is a Daily Dew insight on what it takes to build a formidable and Winning Workforce in a workplace.

Now when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his three hundred and eighteen trained servants who were born in his own house, and went in pursuit as far as Dan. He divided his forces against them by night, and he and his servants attacked them and pursued them as far as Hobah, which is north of Damascus. So he brought back all the goods, and also brought back his brother Lot and his goods, as well as the women and the people. – Genesis 14:14-16

In the light of the passage above, we see how Abraham, with a paltry 318 servants in his household, went to war against and prevailed over four kings and their armies.

Now, what was the secret behind the defeat of four bigger bands by Abraham’s small army? The Bible says they were trained. In other words, Abraham invested in developing the capacity of his workforce; he trained them in the art of war, which was a prized skill at that time. So, he had a bunch of champions around him who could face any opposition with confidence.

Apart from that, he must have also drilled them in other essential life skills; the more reason he could commit to one of them the all-important responsibility of looking for a wife for his son in a remote land, where he couldn’t censor the choice of woman the servant would choose for his son (Genesis 24).

Thus, the key to building and maintaining a winning workforce is to invest in their personal and professional development by exposing them to training, coaching and mentoring sessions where their latent skills can be developed and their current skills honed for greater effectiveness.

That was the principle Abraham adopted, and the secret behind the routing of four great bands of warriors by his 318 men.

You will succeed in Jesus Name!

Making A Difference

 

Making a difference is not until you are able to touch people in their thousands or millions. By going out of your way to attend to a solitary person, you may just make an impression that will have a multiplier effect on a million people or last a thousand years.

- Babatunde Oladele

When You Have Many Things To Do

When you have a dozen different things to do, pick the most important one and stick with it until it’s complete. Then pick the second most important and do the same thing, until you’ve completed the list.

- Word for Today