L3

Z for Zeal

8:37:00 PM

With $50 in his pocket, Dustin Hoffman headed to New York, hoping to find work as an actor. Inexperienced and unknown, Hoffman struggled to find employment. Acting gigs were not paying his bills, so he worked an assortment of odd jobs to stay afloat, including typing for the Yellow Pages, stringing together Hawaiian leis, and checking coats at a local theater.

Undaunted by sparse opportunities, Hoffman clung to his passion. He took whatever acting jobs would come his way, always hoping to be discovered. Each time he acted, even in humble roles, he added to his experience and fanned the flame of his passion.

Hoffman’s passion stayed sharp because of the company he kept. Two of his best friends were fellow “starving artists,” also trying to make a break as actors. Their names? Gene Hackman and Robert Duvall. Together, Hoffman, Duvall, and Hackman supported one another, validated each other’s dreams, and shared the ups and downs of life as aspiring actors.

Acting was the common passion that all three of them shared. As a result, their relationship grew much stronger. Despite the struggles they had to go through, it was their zeal for acting that kept them together and kept them going forward. People often tend to distance themselves when they don’t share a common passion.

Z-Zeal

Take any two people who share a strong relationship with each other and you will find that both of them share a common passion; something that they are both zealous about. It is often what cements that relationship.

Everyone has a dream; something that they are passionate about; something that drives them from within. The truth is that some pursue it whilst others give it up. In order for us to develop a strong relationship with any one, the key is in finding what their dreams/passions are and being able to relate to it. When we find it, we enter their heart. The more we help them pursue their dreams and visions, the deeper we take the relationship.

You can know a lot about a person and still not understand him. More information isn’t always the answer. To really understand people, you must know what they want, and that requires you to go beyond the head and consider the heart.

Take Away Principle: In order for us to develop a strong relationship with anyone, the key is in finding what their dreams/passions are and being able to relate to it. The more we help them pursue their dreams and visions, the deeper we take the relationship.

Tips on finding a person’s zeal:

1. Accept that people are different and may not share the same passions as we do.

2. Ask good questions. What makes them happy? What makes them sad? What gets them excited?

3. Don't make assumptions about people based on their background, profession, race, or gender.

4. Be genuinely interested in them and support them if you relate to their passions.

A-Z Challenge

Y for You

9:07:00 PM

In this entire series, we’ve been looking at various values that one ought to possess in order to build strong lasting relationships with people. Now, we must remember that just by practicing these values may not help in building strong relationships with everyone. But it will help us understand and connect with others better and as a result understand ourselves.

What’s important is not how other people relate to us, what’s important is how we relate to others. We can’t control other people’s actions and reactions but we can control ours. We can’t determine how they feel about us but we can determine how we feel about them. The most important person in any relationship is you.

Y-YOU

This is why it is very important to accept yourself for who you are. We cannot build strong relationships with others if we don’t have a strong relationship with ourselves. Every one of us has insecurities and issues that we wish we could change about ourselves. Sometimes we allow these insecurities/ issues to get the better of us and we feel insignificant and worthless in the eyes of others. Often times it undermines our ability to reach our highest potential.

Like any Marine, Scott Winkler travelled to Iraq knowing that danger was part of the equation. However, he never suspected to find it lurking in the back of a supply truck. While unloading a fifty-pound box, Scott’s leg became caught in a strap, and he collapsed to the sand, landing on his back with his torso grotesquely contorted and his knees facing the earth. Surgery could not repair the damage, leaving the young man paralyzed. Initially experiencing bouts of depression, Scott finally reached a place where he said, “Enough is enough.” Unwilling to stay on life’s sidelines, he began training for the Paralympics. Within two years, he held the world record in the adaptive shot put and took part in the Beijing Paralympic Games.

There was nothing Scott could do to change his condition. However he refused to let a tragic accident define him. He believed that he could still achieve despite his disability and that made him a success.

What is important is coming to terms with who we are. When we do that, we are able to focus on our strengths and develop them enabling us to become secure in ourselves.

Take Away Principle: We cannot build strong relationships with others until we’ve built a strong relationship with ourselves.

Tips on building yourself:

1. Understand that you are unique.

2. Increase your value by trying to fix those things which are within your power to change.

3. Do not allow circumstances or situations to define you.

4. Come to terms with your weaknesses.

5. Work on your strengths and develop them.

A-Z Challenge

X for Xerox

8:01:00 PM

A relationship is like a bridge that connects two people to each other. A bridge cannot exist if the points are not strong in themselves. All the previous 23 values we’ve been looking at how to build strong relationships with others. This post and the next is how we build ourselves. Building ourselves helps us in building strong relationships with others.

“For many years Monterey, a California coast town, was a pelican's paradise. As the fishermen cleaned their fish, they flung the offal to the pelicans. The birds grew fat, lazy, and contented. Eventually, however the offal was utilized, and there were no longer snacks for the pelicans. When the change came the pelicans made no effort to fish for themselves. They waited around and grew gaunt and thin. Many starved to death. They had forgotten how to fish for themselves. The problem was solved by importing new pelicans from the south, birds accustomed to foraging for themselves. They were placed among their starving cousins, and the newcomers immediately started catching fish. Before long, the hungry pelicans followed suit, and the famine was ended.” – Taken from Bits & Pieces, June 23, 1994, p. 17.

X-Xerox

Recently I got into conversation with someone who regularly read my blogs. They told me that the values that I have been writing are great but found some of them quite difficult to implement. I simply told them to find someone who does it well and Xerox it from them.

Irish writer and poet Oscar Wilde once said, “Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.”

Nothing worth knowing can be taught but it definitely can be caught. When we find people who excel in certain values in their lives and look and model them, overtime those values become a part of us.

If we were to evaluate every area of our lives, some of the best things we do today are as a result of learning it from someone who did it well. We build stronger relationships with others when we relate to those who are good at building relationships. When we identify the area that we are weak at and find and model someone who’s good at it; overtime we become good at it.

Too many people attribute their poor behavior to others around them: “I did it because I've seen him/her do it.” “If he/she can do and get away with it then why can't I?” “He/she did the same, you didn't tell them anything!” Sounds familiar? We have often said these as kids, haven't we?

In his book, “The Next Generation Leader”, Andy Stanley writes, “We have a tendency to measure ourselves against people around us. They become our point of reference.”

This is why we need someone who is good at the values we want to develop: so that our references are always worthy of emulating from.

Take Away Principle: If there are values that we find difficult to incorporate into our lives, we need to find someone who is good at it and model from them.

Tips on Xeroxing:

1. Identify those values that we find difficult to implement.

2. Find someone who does it well.

3. Ask them if they would take time to teach you.

4. Spend time with them watching and learning how and when they do it.

5. Emulate them and slowly make those values a part of you.

L3

Z for Zeal

Y for You

X for Xerox

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