Broken Mindset

I know full well, that I am blessed to have readers who are leaders and achievers in real life in their respective fields. What I want to share in this article is something we all ought to think about and hopefully practice.

During my high school days, collecting NBA trading cards was a fad, I was also able to jump into that hobby. Now, when everyone was busy collecting Michael Jordan and Shaquille O’Neal cards, I did’nt quite understand why I was so eager to look for Jason Kidd cards. I guess I was always fascinated of this one statistic in his records- it says “assists”. He was one of the top 5 triple-double players of all time in the NBA (normally you get this by scoring high in the number of points, rebounds and ASSISTS).

In the Wikipedia, assist in basketball context is  defined as:

… attributed to a player who passes the ball to a teammate in a way that leads to a score by field goal, meaning that he or she was “assisting” in the basket.

I don’t know about you, but I look up to people who simply gets the ball out of their hands and passes it to another player to score the goal for the team. Don’t get me wrong, I think scoring high is very essential but I admire people who, excels in the art of passing.

In the corporate world, we all have become achievers at some point- in big ways and small. In those achievements and “field-goals”, praises come right after. Praises may come from colleagues, from superiors and even from people you don’t know who appreciated you and praised you for what you did.

I don’t think praises are something to be eluded. I think they’re good ego boosters. Pat-on-the backs, specially those done at the right time, are great! The thing is, the praises should not stop and end in you.  We ought to pass the praise to people who, in one way or another have “assisted” us in those achievements.

I believe the key here is that, we ought to check our motivation:

Are we driven to achieve by the fact that we want praises to be for us and end in us?

Before you say “of course not” to this very simple question- think deep- really deep and examine your hearts. Do you feel obliged to really pass the praise to others ASAP? Or do you bask in the glory of the moment and after the hype dies down you give a small thumbs  up (done in private) as courtesy to the people who assisted you?

“Reward employees while the sweat’s still on their brow.” said H. Ross Perot a successful American businessman.

Praises ought to be passed on to these people who worked in the background and it ought to be passed ASAP, don’t wait. In fact, pass it on while people are still looking. Make it last a lifetime, write it down if you may.

“What takes you only a few minutes to write may be something that inspires another person for decades”
- John Maxwell

Your value as a person will never go down as you pass the credit to others- in fact it will reveal your security or your insecurity if otherwise.

It is really not hard for everyone to do this, if we realize one thing: That any achievement you will ever attain will never be out of your own efforts alone. In the same way in every achievement we have in our personal lives, we ought to give God all the glory for it. In Psalms we can find this:

Not to us, LORD, not to us
but to your name be the glory,
because of your love and faithfulness. [Psalms 115:1, NIV]

Always remember that every ability for us to produce wealth and all our skills in general (Deuteronomy 8:18; Daniel 1:17; Exodus 35:30-31) comes from Him  He alone gives and takes away (Job 1:21)- so before we have our egos all blown up and receive all the praise, remember to deflect it all back to The Source and to the people who were behind you.

To God always and always be the glory.

 

This post was inspired by 25 Ways To Win With People by John Maxwell and Les Parrott

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assist, glory, Jason Kidd, pass, praise, Psalms 115:1