ToDay with E.G: MAKE IT HAPPEN! Part 4

This is the fourth installment of our personal leadership growth lesson. This week I have essentially focused on Stephen R. Covey book - The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Next week we will focus on Maxwell approach on Leadership.

In 2007, I was reading the book - Why We Want You To Be Rich - Co-written by Billionaire Donald Trump and Millionaire Robert Kiyosaki. Robert Kiyosaki is well known for his New York Time bestselling book - Rich Dad, Poor Dad. In the 2007 book I was reading, Robert made an interesting commentary about proactivity that I've never been able to shake off my mind. To do that he used the word 'focus' as an acronym for that. For those who have had an introductory class on leadership or managing goals, you know how some words are used to give a different meaning as acronyms. For example the word 'smart' is used to mean: S.M.A.R.T - specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely.

I just love to do that with my names. As an example, Eric - Excellence, Resourcefulness, Initiative and Competitiveness. Cute hein!?

Anyway, Mr. Kiyosaki conveyed the idea that in our pursuit of growth either in Business or personal we should be focus. Meaning by that: F.O.C.U.S - Follow One Course of Action Until Success. Hence I am inviting you in this month to be focus as you work on your personal growth. Character growth. Take your victories one by one.

Below is a series of advises that will help you keep going and even more remind you that public victory can become more than a one time event once we have lived or are living a lifestyle of private victories.

I sometime wonder, why do some people think that they can consistently live the extraordinary Christian life, when they can't consistently live the ordinary Christian life. Consistency in the small things are what give us the boldness to take on bigger challenges. The biblical character was a very pro-active person. David in the privacy of his youthful life, fought lions and Bears. No one witnessed those victories. He won them silently. He won them unnoticed. The New York Time wasn't there reporting the amazing feat. T.B.N wasn't broadcasting that live to Churches across the land. Nevertheless that is how and where he found confidence in his kingly anointing and thereafter was not afraid to step up on the death field against the ferociously trained Philistine warrior - Goliath. David knew he could take the giant terminator even when no one seemed to believe it. David had a secret. His private life. You can't cheat there. If you are victorious there, you know without a shadow of a doubt that you have been victorious. The inner life, the inner integrity, the private practice come first! Then the spectacle can follow!

"It means more than merely taking initiative. It means that as human beings, we are responsible for our own lives. Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions. We can subordinate feelings to values. We have the initiative and the responsibility to make things happen. Look at the word responsibility -- "response-ability" -- the ability to choose your response. Highly proactive people recognize that responsibility. They do not blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. Their behavior is a product of their own conscious choice, based on values, rather than a product of their conditions, based on feelings.

Taking initiative does not mean being pushy, obnoxious, or aggressive. It does mean recognizing our responsibility to make things happen. Over the years, I have frequently counseled people who wanted better jobs to show more initiative-- to take interest and aptitude tests, to study the industry, even the specific problems the organizations they are interested in are facing, and then to develop an effective presentation showing how their abilities can help solve the organization's problem. It's called "solution selling," and is a key paradigm in business success. The response is usually agreement -- most people can see how powerfully such an approach would affect their opportunities for employment or advancement. But many of them fail to take the necessary steps, the initiative, to make it happen.

At the very heart of our Circle of Influence is our ability to make and keep commitments and promises. The commitments we make to ourselves and to others, and our integrity to those commitments, is the essence and clearest manifestation of our proactivity. It is also the essence of our growth. Through our human endowments of self-awareness and conscience, we become conscious of areas of weakness, areas for improvement, areas of talent that could be developed, areas that need to be changed or eliminated from our lives. Then, as we recognize and use our imagination and independent will to act on that awareness -- making promises, setting goals, and being true to them -- we build the strength of character, the being, that makes possible every other positive thing in our lives. It is here that we find two ways to put ourselves in control of our lives immediately. We can make a promise -- and keep it. Or we can set a goal -- and work to achieve it. As we make and keep commitments, even small commitments, we begin to establish an inner integrity that gives us the awareness of self-control and the courage and strength to accept more of the
responsibility for our own lives.

By making and keeping promises to ourselves and others, little by little, our honor becomes greater than our moods. The power to make and keep commitments to ourselves is the essence of developing the basic habits of effectiveness. I would challenge you to test the principle of proactivity for 30 days. Simply try it and see what happens. For 30 days work only in your Circle of Influence. Make small commitments and keep them. Be a light, not a judge. Be a model, not a critic. Be part of the solution, not part of the problem. Knowing that we are responsible -- "response-able" -- is fundamental to effectiveness."

Always remember this issue of the circles. The circle of influence is the part of the circle of concern you can do something about, hence focus on it! The other part of your circle of concerns that you can't influence, that you can't change anything about, should be left alone unless you have learned to see the invisible and have learned to do the impossible. Some things in life cannot just be changed at our current level of maturity, be it financially, emotionally, spiritually or else. It can sadden us but there is not much we can do about it. We
have to remember Jesus' advise and stop worrying. Stop worrying about what you can't just change yet - the time will probably come when you'll be able to make those significant quantum changes. Until then, focus on what can be done and do them well and don't sabotage your growth by your past memories of failure or your surrounding and environmental failure. As Tony Robbins said, 'your biography is not your destiny'. Your past history is not your future, and this can be really true if you stop living your past, and start making small steps improvement, private victories after private victories toward the intended future. Take small commitments and keep them and You might just be surprised by joy!

I gave a rather simple example last time for small and private spiritual victories. You may know that you need to know God but you also feel overwhelmed by the prospect of reading the whole Bible. You know that in reading the whole Bible yo will end up learning to know Him in a deeper way, but the task is just too challenging for you. Hence you feel you'll never be able to know him nor understand him. But I have a suggestion for you. Why don't you just decide to learn about God book after book? Just say, I want to learn about God as He is revealed in the Book of Matthew. It is better than not knowing Him at all! I guess this is a reasonable approach. Then take the commitment to read the book of Matthew every day for a month! The book has 28 chapters. By reading at least one chapter per day, by the end of this month you might be at the end of the book of Matthew. This small victory in keeping such a small commitment might give you even more audacity, boldness and courage to take on the next challenge if you liked the previous experience. I've also started like that too -- and I have been changed since!

May the Lord grant you a great weekend in Jesus name!