Wednesday, March 10, 2010

I'm Working on It

Sometimes life does not go as planned.

In my case, life usually does not go as planned – and that is really hard. I like to know what comes next, I like to be prepared, I like to think ahead, I like to be able to tell others what the next step will be.

Needless to say, this current part of life is quite a challenge. Jobless and unaware of what comes next, I got stuck in place. I got stuck doing nothing.

But I think I am making progress. I am letting go of fears.
Or, I should say that I am working on letting go of fears.

I am abandoning this little voice that tells me that I am not good enough and I am embracing the big voices that tell me that I have what it takes to be successful. This success I speak of has nothing to do with money; instead I speak of the kind of success that makes your heart joyful – because you are doing what you are passionate about.

While sharing a little bit about all these thoughts and emotions with a friend, he asked me to read a couple of pages out of the book 9 Things You Simply Must Do. Here is what I read:

“Recently I was talking to a friend, Tony Thomopoulos, who became president of ABC Television. The story of how his career got started is a great example of how to be an active participant in the events that shape one’s life.

He began in the proverbial mailroom. Think of that; right out of school and stuck in the basement of a big conglomerate. But his signing on as a mail clerk was an intentional move. He chose the mailroom over other more interesting positions because he knew that delivering mail throughout the company would put him is contact with every department. He would meet all the people in the company, know what they did, understand all the jobs, and then be better equipped to work his way up.

He then set a goal to be involved in a certain division by a certain date. He did not limit himself to some narrow description of a job, but agreed with himself to take any position available just to get in that division. To show how actively he was thinking about the ‘my move’ strategy, he promised himself that if he had not made it into that division by his goal date he would leave the company and seek his career elsewhere. The heat was on for him to be active – pressure imposed by no one other than himself.

Through delivering the mail, he met employees in human resources and learned of one weird opportunity coming up in his targeted division. Someone was needed to take over a position for just two weeks while an employee was on vacation. The hours, 4:30 to 8:30 in the morning, were such that he could take the temporary position and still keep his regular job.

He knew nothing about the work he would be doing in the temporary position, but that didn’t stop him. He spent the weekend researching how he could do the best job possible in the short two weeks that he would be in that division. He arrived each morning at 3:30, an hour early, to prepare for his tasks. He also studied his boss, learning his needs and the things that would make his job easier. He found ways to benefit his boss instead of just trying to make himself look good. He truly served his boss. He added value.

After two weeks, the boss was so impressed with how prepared Tony was and the job he was doing that he hired him away from the mailroom. My friend was now in the division of the company that he desired. From there he was picked up by the upper management, and the ball started rolling that placed him in the president’s chair a handful of years later.

Luck? Providence? Certainly. As Tony said, “I can see that God was involved in every step.” But it was the same God who gave us the parable of the talents. That story tells us that God’s system requires a successful person to behave exactly as my friend Tony did.

Did you ever notice that to get to the Promised Land the Jewish people had to travel, fight wars, and cross a river? God provides for the birds of the air (Mathew 6:26), but have you ever seen one that did not leave the nest when it grew able to fly? Does God drop mosquitoes into the birds nest? Not hardly. He provides bugs for the flying birds that go out and seek them.

Dig up your dream, but then ask yourself, What do I need to do now? How can I improve my lot? What do I need to do to get where I want to be? What skills do I need to develop? What fears do I need to get past? Who do I need to meet? How can I invest my talents? Those questions address steps toward proactive initiative, which God’s system demands of those who expect success. Then he asks you to ask him for his provision to open doors and make opportunities for that initiative to be exercised. We must pray, he says, and we must also act.”

Upon reading these paragraphs I wanted to be Tony. I wanted to be motivated like him and I wanted to have the perseverance and strength to do what he did.

So, that is what I am working on.

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