The Demand of the dream

• Tweet

• Tweet

I have a friend who owns a multimillion dollar company in Los Angeles. When I first met him I was amazed at how a person could take a simple idea and turn it into a business that was turning in for him over a million dollars every week! I asked him to share the secret of his success with me. He told a few things but one of the most profound things he told me was that he never hires a person who has not failed before. He said that most people come parading their strengths but that he is always on the lookout for their failures and weaknesses. When I asked him why he did this, he said, ‘life is full of ups and downs. We all go through turbulence from time to time. A person who has never failed before will not know how to handle turbulence and in their panic can derail the organization’!

Think of it. A person who has never been in an airplane is in for a great shock if they have not been told about the ‘bumps’ in the air! They are initially excited at the thought of flying but then when the plane hits turbulence and begins to sway and jerk from side to side they will not understand what is happening and this ignorance will lead to panic.

You will never know what is in you until a demand is made on it. That demand will come in the form of pressure. The true test of what a person is made of is found in pressure. It is found in how they handled failure and unfavorable outcomes. What comes out of a person in time of adversity is their true value. The greatest credentials of a great person are expressed in their victory over adversity.

If you want to know what people you consider to be friends think about you, wait. You will find out when you are going through turbulence. That is when the truth in their hearts concerning you will come out. There are people that you may think are friends today that are going to surprise you at one point or the other. When turbulence comes, they do everything to hasten your fall.

Pressure is a fact of life but the ability to speak the language of your destination in spite of your pressure is a proof of a truly strong character. Most people however speak the language of the pressure that they are experiencing. Pressure does not leave because you talk about it. Talking and crying about it only reinforces its position as the one in control of you. Never allow pressure to distract you from the main goal. Consistency under pressure is one of the most defining traits of a strong spirit.

While we acknowledge the pressure, we do not dwell on it. While we recognize its presence we do not celebrate or revel in it. Rather we must allow a picture of our destination to motivate us out of the pressure. A strong revelation of our destination will not only guide us through the pressure but will inspire solutions. Pressure is one side of a coin. The power of pressure over you is determined by your revelation of the other side of the coin. Opposition is the evidence of your strong position. Pressure comes to take you to a whole new level of your life.

Think of all the shoe sizes that you have gone through in your life. I particularly remember a pair of shoes that I once had as a boy that I really liked. There was only one problem. It was too big for me. My mother told me to keep it till later but my restless nature would not hear of such a thing. Instead I got paper and stuffed it inside so I could wear them. I felt very good with myself after this. Well, as the days and months went by I had to remove the paper that I used to stuff the shoe because now the shoes were my correct size. Before long, I began to feel a lot of discomfort wearing them. In fact, getting them on was a major struggle. What was once too big for me had now become a pressure point because I was growing. Pressure was the evidence of my growth! I was not going to deal with the pressure by talking about it or crying about it. The way to deal with the pressure was to get a bigger pair of shoes.  Friends, the key to dealing with pressure is to increase capacity!

There was a time in my life when I was so poor that the poor called me poor. Getting one hundred shillings at that time was a major point of pressure. Then came another time when that was no longer a point of pressure but then one thousand shillings became the point of pressure. Then a time came when it was ten thousand shillings. It has continued to grow. The question however is, what changed? What was the difference between the time when pressure was caused by one hundred shillings and the time when pressure was caused by ten thousand shillings? The difference was capacity.

The pressure you are going thorough today either personally of professionally is an indication that you need to increase capacity. Botched dreams are expressions of a mismatch between potential and capacity. If we do not build our capacity to match our potential, abortion is inevitable. Capacity is increased by education and motivation. Education comes from instruction, associations and experience. The definition of the word Motivation can be found from the word itself. Motivation means creating a motive for action. This comes from thinking. The greatest assignment of a motivational speaker is not to build hopes but to reveal possibilities which then give a motive for action.  If what you knew at the inception of pressure is all you know right now, then pressure has found a dwelling place in you. We must continually develop our minds to the point where we have the right perspective of pressure. We are not victims of events that happen in our lives. We are victims of our interpretations of the events that happen in our lives.

With this right perspective, you will then be able to speak the language of your destination and not the language of your pressure. We will speak victory in the midst of attack. We will speak hope in the midst of hopelessness. We will speak joy in the midst of sadness. We will speak faith in the midst of unbelief. We will speak abundance in the midst of lack. We will speak strength in the midst of weakness. We will call those things which be not as though they are. We believe, therefore we speak and by the fruit of our lips shall our bellies be satisfied.

Do have a satisfied weekend!

twitter@waleakinyemi