Maximum influence

Ever wonder why when one reached middle aged or old aged, alot of them got retrenched or out of job? Ever wonder why some having great job opportunities while others are working hard trying to keep their current one?My Pastor once preached before, “High potential + close proximity + clear communication = max influence”, he was talking about how we should bear good testimony for Christ and how we should be His witnesses.

I pondered at that statement for a long while. This not only applies to our reaching out for Christ, but it applies to our daily responsibilities as well.

Many professional workers are always…too professional. They always tell me in brief, “It doesn’t matter if you offend anyone, as long as you done your job well, nobody can do anything to you” BEEP! WRONG ANSWER!

I grew to realise that in our career, what is more important is not how good you done your job or how “professional” you are, but it is all about working as a team, building good peer relationship or being that understanding supervisor/boss. You can have all the talents/skillsets you want, at the end of the day, if you do not have “close proximity” with your colleagues/boss and maintain “clear communication” with your colleagues/boss, you WILL NOT have “max influence” in your workplace.

For those who do not understand this, when they reached a certain older age, insecurity tends to step in, thinking that the younger generation will surpass them. So instead of building relationship and maintaining “close proximity”, they tends to just concentrate on “doing their job well”. In the end? they are always the first one on the retrenchment list. Afterall, humans are just humans. As much as we like to think that in working environment, people will definitely act professionally, we cannot deny that there is always an element of emotion and human feeling involved in every decision making.

“But my department never involved the other department, why should I talk to them? I just do my part”.

“I am already so busy, where to find time to chat with others?”

“Lunch with my peers? I always lunch in, nobody to disturb me during my 1 hour breaktime”

“They never understand the amount of work I need to do, and I don’t think they need to know”

We hear this all the time. Grow up, it is time to learn how to build relationships. Working is never all about working, it is about facing your colleagues daily, it is about lunching with your boss or peer from different departments, it is about..working “relationship”.

Why do you think certain people without much talents always get promoted first? Why do you think the high-flyers always seems to be closer towards their boss? Why do you think the top salesman always out meeting his customers instead of finishing up his admin works late in the night?

I’m not saying that we totally ignore working hard, don’t get me wrong. But understanding that importance of building teamwork and relationship will balance up your equation of success.

Similarly, if today you are a leader of your organisation or ministry, ask yourself, How is your relationship with your peer leaders? Do you have good relationship with them? What about the teamwork with them? Are you just a “one-man-island” kind of leader? How much are you in their lives? How much are they in your life? Or are you just “doing your job” as a leader towards your own people under your care?
“Those who win souls are wise..” so said the Word of God.

Let us look at this again, “High Potential + Close Proximity + Clear communication = Maximum influence”

Do you want to have maximum influence in things that you do? Because if you do and you understand what I said, I’m sure you are going to do so well this year.

Are you being “street-smart”?

When somebody said that you are streetwise or street smart, what does it actually mean?

One of the definition defined as follows :
– having the shrewd resourcefulness needed to survive in an urban environment

There are many situations where there is no direct solution to a problem, or there is no direct path to get to where you want. In such situations, one was told to be “street smart” and know how to “workaround” for a solution or know how to get around for a way out.

Many had told me before, “You just got to find the loop hole”. To many, it seems like you are creatively wise and smart. To be able to obtain much knowledge in order to “survive” in this tough society.

“This is a dog-eat-dog society, you got to learn how to be street smart”

But, is being street-smart depending too much on your own strength? Doesn’t street-smart seems as though you can do this on your own entirely? For your own survival? Then where does God and His grace comes into picture? Which part do you insert in that faith and hope for the best?

I give an example.

My father just had a stroke couple of weeks ago and we admitted him into NUH hospital. Thank God that it is not a major stroke but next month, we need to send him for heart check as advised by the doctor. I had alot of bad experiences with the nurses and doctors there during this period and I later heard that NUH has many student doctors around and perhaps not a place that specialised in stroke.

Many came to me and told me about that. Some suggested me to seek for 2nd opinion, some suggested me to go to a specialist, some insisted that I go to this particular doctor in NUH and insisted that he looked after my father.

All meant well and they all are properly being “street-smart” and know how to make a survival out of this.

I asked myself, what if I don’t know all these? What if I don’t have that experience in order to be “street-smart”?

To me, God heals and He will take care of my father. I choose to believe that even if my father ended up in a bad hospital, God is more than able to heal him and turn the situation around. Perhaps this is what I called depending on God’s strength.

How many times have we told Him that we need to depend on His strength but always tries to “fight” our ways for survival?

How many times we told ourselves we don’t want to lean on our own strength but always trying to sniff out a workaround path ourselves?

If we don’t “feel” God’s blessings in a particular area, will we become “street-smart” and make a “blessed” path for ourselves?

Or will we pray and trust God that He will direct our path and be that light unto our feet?

I prayed that we will not be too “smart” ourselves and miss out God’s wonderful grace working in our life.

We need not have all the experiences and all the knowledge in life for survival but we have God and being a fool for Him will cause us to live a even more blessed and prosperous life than a surviving “street-smart” person.

Don’t you agree? 😉