Start where you are.
Have you ever been looking for that ‘perfect opportunity?’ Well, guess what? It will never happen. The opportunities to serve are the ones you will choose to engage in. YOU, will make them happen.
Don’t complicate it. Here are things that will NOT happen:
- You will never have enough money to do it right.
- You will never have enough time to do it right.
- You will never have the right weather to do it right.
- It will never be in the right place for you to do it right.
Face the facts… It will never be the perfect opportunity.
Use what you have.
In the book of Judges in the Bible, Samson slays 1000 Philistines. If he spent a lot of time looking for the perfect weapon to slay 1000 people, we may still be waiting on him today. He used what he had. What he had was the jawbone of a donkey.
Use what you have when serving. If all you can do is open a door, do it.
- If you can let that person pull in front of you, do it.
- If you can volunteer in the children’s department 1 weekend a month, do it.
- If you can, give a homeless person $1, do it.
- If you see a turtle crossing the road, pull over and move it.
Do what you can.
If for some reason you think these things don’t matter, think about it:
- That person you held the door for may have their hands full.
- The person you let pull in front of you may be late for their first date, and it could impact the rest of their life.
- That child you loved on could come from a broken home and that’s the most love they had in a while.
- That $1 you gave to a homeless person could be the difference on they getting a meal or not.
- Moving the turtle could actually save its life…
Small gestures can have BIG results, but if you do not put it into practice you will never make something happen. Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. It will make a difference.
In the movie Date With Tad Hamilton, Pete, the main character, is telling the villain, Tad Hamilton, that Rosalie, whom Pete is in love with, “Do you know she has six smiles? One when something really makes her laugh. One when she’s making plans. One when she is laughing out of politeness. One when she is uncomfortable. One when she is making fun of herself. And one when… she’s talking about her friends.”
Do you know how many you have?
I like to be cheesy. My wife says I have a goofy smile, then a real smile. The goofy one comes out when I am taking pictures that I want to be seen. I make a HUGE grin, and it makes my cheeks rise and my eyes get big. Almost like I am kind of psychotic. Noell, my wife, says when I am with my kids I have the “I am proud of you smile.” It’s the one when I am thinking great thoughts and do not know anyone is looking.
How many people do you know with a great driver’s license photo? No one, really. I have been told that I have a great face for radio before, so I figured that if I can’t get a good pic if I tried, I would go a different route. One of the things I have learned is that people can act pretty goofy to get some Chick-fil-A, so occasionally I use this to my benefit. When I was at the tag agency and I wanted to do my cheesy smile, they said no. I asked why, and they said they are not allowed to do that, because when they see me when I get pulled over, it needs to look like me (they saw my Mustang, and I guess assumed this happens a bunch). I asked if it’s against the law, and they didn’t know. I said what if I promise that when anyone that is looking at my drivers license I agree to make that cheesy grin, PLUS I will give everyone in the tag office a FREE Chick-fil-A sandwich coupon. She kind of chuckled and said are you serious, and I said yes. So, we made it happen. She agreed. (little did she know I had some coupons with me to do that regardless because we just rolled out our spicy chicken sandwich and its one of the best ways to promote the product)
So if you ever deal with TSA on a regular basis, the people that check you in at the airport, they tend to be some of the most unfriendly people I have ever met. I sometimes wonder if they were all hired from the “I Had Lemon Juice for Breakfast” club. EVERY time I am at the airport they barely make eye contact with the person, they are staring down with a light inspecting your license and ticket making check marks on various parts of the ticket. They get to mine, get my ticket, shine the little blue light on the drivers license, then they do a double take on the license picture and look up at me probably thinking it is a joke. So I mimic the big goofy smile. They generally laugh and say “I needed that,” or “This is great.” Sometimes I get an occasional, “This is the best picture ever.”
Your smile can literally change someone’s day. Look for opportunities to use it.
Are you looking for that “perfect opportunity?”
Well guess what? It will never happen. The opportunities that will come for serving are the ones you will choose to engage in. YOU will make them happen.
Start where you are.
In Jim Stovall’s book The Millionaire Map he quoted General George Patton as saying “A good plan violently executed today is better than a perfect plan next week.”
Too often we look for the perfect plan. It may never exist, and while you are waiting for it, you will miss a ton of opportunities to serve.
Go simple.
- Hold the doors open for people when you’re going into big buildings. Young men, are you looking to get some attention? This will get you that. It’s a lost art. I train my boys to always do that, of course sometimes you get stuck in that position when the crowds are heavy, but you understand my point.
- When you’re getting up for a meal, take someone’s empty dishes that are around you.
- If you’re getting yourself a drink, and there is others around you, ask if you can get them anything.
Help someone move.
I have a friend of mine that will NEVER ask anyone to help him move. I asked him why one day and he says, “Well because I don’t want to help anyone else move their house.” No one wants to ask, because generally no one wants to help. Moving stinks, so if you are looking for a way to serve, this is always a great one.
You don’t have to make a big deal of it. Here is a story I love.
The starfish story.
One day, a man was walking along the beach, enjoying the morning sun and cool breeze from the ocean. Suddenly, far off in the distance, he saw what looked like someone dancing. But as he drew closer, the man noticed that it was a little girl picking up starfish from the shore and tossing them back into the ocean. As he approached the girl, he paused for a moment, kind of puzzled, then asked, “Young lady – why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?”
She replied, “Well, the sun is up, and the tide is going out. If I leave these starfish on the beach, the sun will dry them up and they will die.”
The man said “But there are thousands of starfish washed up all along this beach for miles! You can’t possibly make a difference!”
The young girl thought for a moment, then slowly leaned over, and carefully picked up another starfish from the sand. And with the starfish in hand, she turned to the man and gently said “You may be right, but it’ll make a difference to this one!” And with that, she reached back and threw the starfish as far as she could back into the ocean.
In review, we’ve talked about your WHY, your WHO, and your WHAT. I want you to grasp tightly to the reasons WHY you are doing something. If you have a WHY, then the work isn’t just work – it has purpose! Also, you can’t be all you can be alone – you need some WHO’s in your life to teach you, support you, and help you! Also, you need to know exactly WHAT it is you want or you will just be chasing the wind!
Today, let’s talk about your WHEN. I often hear people say, “When we have enough money, we’ll get married.” I’ve got news for them – that hardly ever happens! Why would you let your net-worth affect the date you begin spending your life with the one you love? I also hear, “I’ll start my diet on Monday – after I eat this cheeseburger.” Tomorrow never comes and you’re just wasting time. If you could get exactly what you want, why would you put it off? You’re robbing yourself of time with what you want!
Your WHEN happens when you decide to take the first step. It’s not when you stand on the scale and hit your goal weight! It’s when you make a decision to change. It’s not when you pay the last debt payment! It’s when you cut up the cards and start paying more than the minimum payment. The length of the journey is not what is important – it’s the journey itself. The size of the step isn’t important, either. It’s simply taking one – one single step that begins a new direction, bringing you closer to where you eventually want to be! This can be with any goal; diet, business, relationship, or spiritual goal!
Too many times we are waiting for the right time, or the right place, or the right economy, or something else to begin our journey. Does what you want depend on external situations? If so, change your mind about that! Here are a few facts for you to consider:
- Proctor & Gamble was started during the Panic of 1837, the greatest economic decline since the birth of the country! Proctor & Gamble’s revenue in 2013 was $84.17 Billion.
- The three founding companies that merged in 1911 to form IBM, all were founded during the Long Depression of 1873-1896.
- General Electric was born during the Panic of 1873 which shut down the NYSE for days! The Panic didn’t stop the company who in 2013 had revenues of $146 Billion Dollars. Not bad, huh?
- General Motors was founded after the Panic of 1907, which caused major runs in which many financial institutions did not survive.
- FedEx was founded during the Oil Crisis of 1973. Really? A delivery company founded during a fuel crisis? Whoulda thunk?
My point is to stop making excuses and start taking steps. Your WHEN is today! You don’t have to know the whole plan! You don’t even have to know half the plan. You just need to know the dream or goal in your heart, and then find the next right thing to do. Your Journey begins with a single step.
In continuing with my last two blogs, perhaps some of you aren’t even at the point that you know WHAT it is that you want to do or achieve. When we don’t quite know WHAT it is that we want, it can be quite hard to get it! Think of your life as a journey, and you have a GPS (or as Herman Cain calls it, Guiding Principles of Success). WHAT do you need to know? Well, the first WHAT is your current coordinates!
We all want to go somewhere, but if you don’t know where to start, how can you take the first step? I always tell people who join my Simply Lose It™ bootcamp to weigh in before beginning to get a starting point! Otherwise, you could be making progress towards your goal and not even know it! We need small victories to continue to motivate us toward our goal! Otherwise, we just might quit when we feel defeated. We also may even be sabotaging our success and moving backwards! How would you even know if you never acquired your current coordinates?
Second, you need to know your destination. If you use your GPS without placing your ending coordinates as the destination, you simply have something that shows you where you currently are; not where you are going. To make progress in your Journey, you must have your WHAT, or a specific goal in mind. How you get there may go left, right, even a few steps back at times, but you should be continually making progress. The speed isn’t always important, and sometimes you have to stop to smell the roses, but making some sort of progress is important! So the second WHAT you need is your goal.
The third WHAT you need is a plan. It may be a complex plan, or just a simple plan! But there must be a plan. I see many people that want something, but they have no idea how to get there, and that’s okay, but you need to figure that out before you embark on your journey. Otherwise, you may be going in the wrong direction, or even creating things you’ll need to fix or change later. Once, my dad asked me to dig the grass out of an area in the yard and level it for our new above ground pool. There was a trailer I was going to put the dirt in, so I just began to dig. I threw the dirt towards the trailer, and when I was finished, about a third of the dirt actually made it in the trailer. Then I had to do twice the work to finish the job! Why didn’t I take the time and devise the plan to get the dirt in the trailer the first time? This is what you may be doing by not pausing to devise a plan – a business, weight-loss, marriage, or savings plan. Find help if you need it, get the information you need, and devise a plan!
The fourth WHAT you need is the courage and motivation you’ll need to stay the course. It may look like you aren’t making progress at times, but if you know where you began, know where you are going, have a plan, and take periodic spot checks to assure you are on course, you’ll find the faith that every step you are taking is making a difference! Some days you’ll find it harder than others to get moving, but always remember that WHY we talked about a few weeks ago and that should keep you motivated. Sometimes the next step you need to take will be a little scary, but again, remember that WHY and also call on your WHOs to keep you motivated, accountable, and to help you continue along the journey!
So WHAT are your starting coordinates, WHAT are your ending coordinates, WHAT is your plan, and WHAT will keep you motivated and give you courage to make it happen? With these, you’ll soon be closer than you ever dreamed to WHAT you really want!
In The Journey Training, we believe that goal setting is important. In each class we help people set goals and find action steps to take to begin. If you’ve been having trouble moving forward, join the next Threshold class and begin your Journey now!
