 What kind of person are you? Are you dependable; are you a leader, are you one that people can turn to in times of trouble? In thinking about this, I’ve been dwelling on what it means to press into something.
Imagine you have some play dough on the table and you take your thumb, and press into it. What happens? Does it all flatten out? Not at all. Only the part you press into compacts under your thumb. The rest of it seems to wrap itself around your thumb, leaving you with a big lump of play dough where your thumb should be. Consider a child that is hurt, or needs the security of a hug when they are in trouble. They don’t just hug you, they squeeze you like they are trying to get as much of you as possible to surround them. Those are the hugs that make me melt, especially when it is one of my kids. The photo above was taken by a friend of ours at a time when my youngest son was playing and was in one of those moods where he just wanted to be close. This photo sits on my desk at work as a reminder of two things, both equally important. The love of my kids, but also the fact that as their father, I am supposed to be one that they can press into when they need comfort, or security or wisdom. Everyone is a leader in some form or another, whether they are at home, in the workplace, at church, or wherever, there is always someone that will look to us as a leader and as leaders we need to be the kinds of people that can be a strength to others, and a support when they need comfort, direction, or even the wisdom of someone else to talk to. Everyone needs someone that they can press into, but let’s keep in mind, that as leaders, we also need to be those kinds of people that are a support to others who look up to us. Have a great week, Adrian
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I regularly write quotes on Facebook. They are not just vague time wasting comments, but comments that are intended to provoke thought and inspiration in people. One of the recent quotes was “You are very influential. You can influence yourself to succeed or fail.” After writing that quote I got to thinking. How influential are we really. Who do we need to influence? I read an article in a book by John Maxwell recently that I have listed below: “A Middle-Eastern mystic said, ‘I was a revolutionary when I was young and all my prayer to God was: ‘Lord, give me the energy to change the world.’ As I approached middle age and realised that my life was half gone without changing a single soul, I changed my prayer to: ‘Lord, give me the grace to change all those who come into contact with me, just my family a friends, and I shall be satisfied.’ Now that I am an old man and my days are numbered, I have begun to see how foolish I have been. My one prayer now is: ‘Lord, give me the grace to change myself.’ If I had prayed this right from the start, I would not have wasted my life.” (Maxwell 1993, p. 50) I wonder - what is your prayer? Who do you want to change? Our natural tendency is to want to change everyone around us, and the last person we want to change is usually ourselves. Why is that? I would say it is because change can be painful, and it requires work and even discomfort. When someone goes on a diet, or goes to the gym, sacrifices need to be made and work needs to be done to bring about the change desired. However, one the change has been achieved, we acknowledge the sacrifice was worth it. I’ll reinforce the quote from earlier. “You are very influential. You can influence yourself to succeed or fail.” Which direction will your change take…? 
In life we often motivated by two things - pain and pleasure. Everything we do is either out of our desire to gain pleasure or our need to avoid pain. We will actually do more to avoid pain than we will to gain pleasure.
Why is it that some people aggressively pursue their dream and others do not? The answer is simple. Often people know that succeeding would benefit them, but they fail to follow through because they associate more pain to doing what is needed than missing out on the opportunity. For most people, the fear of loss, is greater to them than their desire gain. To others, the pleasure of success is what they are aiming for, but it can be the actual pain of failure that drives them to succeed. Anthony Robbins states, “The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that, you’re in control of your life. If you don’t, life controls you.” |
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