THE BLIND SIDE

I had the opportunity to facilitate a seminar on Vision and Leadership at the weekend, and at some point someone asked me, what to do if our circumstances are the things that have hindered us.  Specifically, he wanted to know how our background, financial and birth wise can affect our dreams especially if they are both negatives.

I watched the movie Blind Side yesterday for the very first time, and it is a movie my entire family is going to have to see over and over until all the lessons therein are gleaned.

It has been a while since I saw a movie for entertainment and end up receiving an education in the process.  Starring Sandra Bullock, Quinton Aaron and Tim Mcgraw, this movie chronicles the life of Michael Oher, real life professional football player from homelessness to literally, the stars.

Good story, but it was not only a movie with great storyline and acting, it opened my eyes more to what I have been saying all along, there is a part of each one of us, that is meant to propel us to the pinnacle of success from within.   For Michael Oher, it was his defensive instincts. Everything he had faced and gone through in life, made him extremely defensive. He tells the story of how his mother used to tell him to close his eyes when something bad was happening and tell him to open his eyes later, after the event with the words ‘the world is a good place.’  So despite the rough life and the move from one foster home to the other, Michael was just a child waiting for an enabling environment to blossom.

My mindset therefore, is that no matter what happens to us, we cannot live an excuse ridden life; we should just get up and do our best.  But more importantly, I must admit that there was no way Michael would have been able to overcome his issues without Leigh Anne (Sandra) and her family’s nurture and love.

Every one of us has a dream within us, every one of us has the amazing capacity to surprise and blindside everyone, even ourselves with the measure of success we can achieve.  It just takes a few things as I saw in this movie:

1. Our experiences good or bad
2. Someone willing to believe in us to give us a chance
3. Our own willingness to believe in ourselves
4. The teachable spirit as exhibited by Michael
5. Determination, and mutual love and respect within the ranks.

All in all, my conclusion is that we all can make it, because God has put some surprise element within us that if we will allow ourselves the enabling environment and the faith that it can happen there is no telling how far we will go.  Michael’s Leigh Anne found him, your own is waiting too, in the wings, make that connection and you will be amazed how far you will go!  There is also a Leigh Anne in each of us too, our Michaels are waiting.  If we will give them the chance of day, the bottom line will be that each one of us makes it. 

I remember Leigh Anne’s friend saying Leigh Anne was changing Micheal’s life and she replies ‘No, he is changing me.’ We need each other, and a dream will take collaboration.  If we will find our Michaels and Leigh Annes, making it just becomes a matter of time, NeverTheLess.

You will make it, I promise

Love,

Sistar B

Do it Afraid!

It was in the middle of a really interesting conversation, we were all smiles and everything was bright and sunny.  All of a sudden I sensed that my part of the room was becoming dark, dreary and it seemed to me that I was gradually sinking into a very black hole and hard as I tried to stay afloat, so I could continue to participate in the conversation, I failed woefully.

Suddenly, it seemed that life was being sucked out of me and I couldn’t tell for how long I struggled to breathe as well as struggle to disguise what I was facing.  But it didn’t work. Someone had observed that I was suddenly quiet and questions started to fly. What was wrong with me?

How I could I tell them that my thoughts strayed to the latest project I was working on, and all that I could see were the challenges and all that could go wrong?  Just how would I make them understand that it had nothing to do with them, but that, as bold as I look and carry on, I am sometimes crippled with fear from within?

Two months later, we were gathered again, having a really great conversation and reminiscing on the success of that project and how faithful God was in pulling it off!  I was beaming with smiles from one ear to the other! I started to say “I knew God was always going to come through,” and then I heard the inner voice ask, “Really? Did you?”

Isn’t it wonderful how with benefit of hindsight we can always tell that our dreams and aspirations will work out if we just take each step with faith in our hearts?  But how come just when we need the faith the most, what we do is wallow in fear?  

Well, I cannot claim to have all the answers, but one thing I can definitely tell you is that based on my experience, fear is not going to move out of your life and projects simply because you want it to.  Fear is always going to be a part of the things we do, especially if they have any weight and if they will add any kind of value at all.  That is why my counsel will be that we should arise and do it despite the fear that we feel.

When you get to the other part of the divide, you will find that what you feared will happen didn’t happen after all.  But the next time, you will still fear the exact same thing.  People say to me that he that fears has no faith, and I reply and say that he that fears and still goes ahead is full of faith.

I have yet another big project ahead of me, bigger than anything I have ever done and I can see and sense fear moving in already. I still break out in sweat and sometimes I still feel like I am sinking into that dark hole all over again.  I wish I can make that stop, but I cannot seem to be able to pull that off, so I have settled for going ahead in spite and despite the fear that I feel, knowing that in not too long a time, victory will be declared in my favour.

Whatever it is that you have to face today, do not seek not to have to fear, but instead please keep pushing even in the face of fear.  I know you will make it, NeverTheLess.

Hugs

Sistar B

Working your Dream: The Abraham Model

Welcome, it is another week and another opportunity to push your dream a litter further than before.   On the last post I spoke about stepping out of your comfort zone.  The essence of that post was to make us understand that until we get out of the mindset of ‘it has to be easy for me to do’, it is impossible to make a difference.  Consequently, what I am doing my best to put across with Nevertheless is that our determination to make a difference should be the motivation for us stepping out and staying out until we achieve our God given purpose.

Today, I will like to take us to what I will call the ‘Throne Room Perspective’ on working and living a dream.  Our text will be taken from Hebrews 11:8, join me to see a few lessons I gleaned from it last week.

 

 

1. Abraham was called by God.  The dream that makes a difference is not the dream we dredge up for ourselves.  From experience I can tell that the stuff I have been able to remain with and pushed over the last fifteen years of my life are those things God gave me to do.  No, he didn’t thunder from heaven to give me instructions, but they have been the things that have given me the most joy and caused me the most anxiety and pain.  Despite all that has happened I have stuck with them.  Abraham had to have heard God for him to have stuck for all the years he did as he awaited the manifestation of God’s promise for his life.
2. Even though he was called to go to land he knew not, Abraham obeyed!  He obeyed without knowing what it was that he was getting into, he obeyed even when he didn’t know what he might be required to deal with.  For your dream, it shouldn’t be any different, whether you understand the process or not, it is important for you to take the first step.  Again, from my personal experience, I have come to find that with each step that I take, somehow, the next step becomes clearer.  One thing is clear though, had I been given a blow by blow account of the things that will unfold, I would never have stepped out.  Stepping out without knowing is usually a declaration of trust in the one who has called.  If you answer the call to pursue your dream today, irrespective of how much you don’t know, it is important that you start with what you do know and can do. Obey!
3. In Hebrews 11:8, we are told that Abraham was called by God to go to a land he didn’t know but which God wanted to give him for an inheritance.   Everything that you dream about in a good life is embedded within the dream in your heart.  Your inheritance is hidden inside your dream; the more you work it out the closer you will get to your inheritance.  Sitting on the couch and day dreaming is exactly that, as long as you are not working your dream, there is no inheritance to receive.
4. The fullness of the manifestation of this inheritance wasn’t even going to manifest until Abraham’s seed!  However, Abraham kept working!  To enjoy the fullness that is within your dream, time and process are key elements.  Time and process help to get us ready to take hold of that which has been given to us.  Our character is polished and refined so that when we do receive the inheritance, we are ready to administer it well.
5. Embedded within Abraham’s call was a blessing for many generations.  Your dream also holds a blessing for many generations.  What is happening is that what God wants to use in blessing generations, He has committed into your hands.  Your dream therefore isn’t about you, and for that reason, working it out is extremely important.  Imagine the generations that are waiting just so you can manifest the blessing God has promised them!
6. Abraham believed without worrying.  Sometimes I still lapse into forgetting this principle.  My mind wants to comprehend the steps and process them before I move.  But Abraham didn’t know, neither did he worry.  Working a dream takes courage.  It is like stepping out in the dark sometimes, but if we all understand that the dream isn’t ours but was put there by another greater than us, then surely, we will know that He will be there to guide us to working it out.

All I am saying is that, a dream is put in our hearts by God and we must trust him to help us actualize it.  Faith is not something only those who believe in God do; faith is the very foundation of living.  As you step out today, I do know that you will make it, NeverTheLess.  God bless you.

Sistar B

Step out of your Comfort Zone!

The journey of my life is getting more exciting by the day, and it is because I stepped up and decided that comfort zones will not work for me anymore.  Lately, I have had the opportunity of relating with people from various walks of life who seem to understand that a life lived with the mindset of making a difference is the best life that there can be. (Shout out to my JMT family).

The funny thing is that these men and women are, as I said, from different parts of the world and most of them not what you will call super rich, but they have somehow found common ground in the fact that they all recognize the need to make a difference with their lives.

What I am trying to pass across is the fact that there are very few things that are acceptable universally, but the drive to make a difference just so happens to be something the entire world believes in and agrees with irrespective of language, skin color, age and social status.  We all seem to agree that the life that is worth living is a life that makes a difference.

It therefore, in my mind, becomes a crime against humanity for a man or woman to live and never ask “What is it that I am able to do for mankind?” But just as I daily see people running around and striving to make a difference, I also see on a daily basis those who just sleep, wake up and day dream about how they will become rich and begin to solve problems while not making the effort to give from the little that they are able to harness right now.

It is my opinion that why we tend to act like that is the mere fact that we are in our comfort zones and we just hate to shift from that zone.  The sad thing about having this mindset is that it also limits us from greatness.  Greatness never comes and shall never come to the man who refuses to move out of his comfort zone. Greatness comes to those who step out most of the time not knowing what they will get, but stepping out anyway.

Recently, as part of my certification program as a John Maxwell Coach, Speaker and Trainer, we had the opportunity of a call on ‘The Myth of Risk’ by Paul Martinelli, and something he said did get to me, and though I am not quoting him directly, he was basically saying that some of the stuff we have been told are not safe, we will have to try for ourselves and question their validity. It is proven that when we take the time to question the validity of some beliefs that have been passed on to us, we find that they were either baseless, or formed out of the personal experiences of those who hold them.

They therefore say to us something like ‘better safe than sorry.’  But if we will step out of our comfort zones, we may not be safe, but we will definitely not be sorry.  Because for whatever reason we step out, we are bound to learn some useful lessons.

A life of value is a fulfilling life, and a fulfilling life will only come to those who step out.  As a man/woman who will make a difference, today is the day you must step out and up to the responsibility of change.  Your life will only be as great as the difference that you make.

Every where you turn, there is something or someone begging for change.  Comfort zones work for those who don’t want more, but the fact that you are reading this, tells me that you want more.  So just get up and go.  Is there a chance that you will not get it right the first time? Yes there is.  But at least you can then say, I know how not to do it.  Life will get better I know, but you must be the one, to choose what it will become for you. 

You have what it takes and if you step up you will make it NeverTheLess.

Hugs

Sistar B