A thought by John C. Maxwell from his
book, Beyond Talent (p. 80).
HarperCollins Leadership. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com
to buy the book.)
That thought will make a major difference in our lives.
Here is what John says, “There’s a story about a
couple who bought a new piece of property upon which they intended to establish
a farm. It was good land, and they could hardly wait to move there and get
started. As they made plans for the move one night, they began to argue about
what to do first. The wife wanted to build the house first. After all, once
they moved, the new property would be their home. The husband, who had grown up
working on a farm, wanted to build the barn first to house their animals. They
went back and forth for a while until the man finally said, ‘Look, we have to
build the barn first—because the barn will build the house, and the garage, the
silo, the kids’ swing set, and everything else!’ When you focus on your
priorities and put first things first, everything else is more likely to fall
into place.”
John goes on, “Anthony Campolo,
professor emeritus of sociology at Eastern University in Pennsylvania, says,
‘What you commit yourself to will
change what you are and make you into a completely different person. Let me
repeat that. Not the past but the future conditions you, because what you
commit yourself to become determines what you are—more than anything that ever
happened to you yesterday or the day before. Therefore, I ask you a very simple
question: What are your commitments? Where are you going? What are you going to
be? You show me somebody who hasn’t decided, and I’ll show you somebody who has
no identity, no personality, no direction.
John then says, “Focusing on
weaknesses instead of strengths is like having a handful of coins—a few made of
pure gold and the rest of tarnished copper—and setting aside the gold coins to
spend all your time cleaning and shining the copper ones in the hopes of making
them look more valuable. No matter how long you spend on them, they will never
be worth what the gold ones are. Go with your greatest assets; don’t waste your
time.”
So, don’t you see how it is a very good, practical and profitable idea to start shining that which makes the greatest difference?
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