... Check your References
Some years ago a man used to pass by the shop that mostly sells clocks. In the shop's display was a big beautiful and expensive clock that was always there because people would just stop by the glass window and admire it. This man worked at a near by construction as a foreman; every morning the shop keeper would notice this man standing outside his shop looking at clock through the glass, one day the shop keeper stepped outside and asked why the man would he stop by the shop and looking at the clock everyday. The man answered sharply and said, "Every morning I pass here and stand by your shop to adjust my watch to be exactly the same time as your clock so that I sound the quitting bell at right time in the afternoon for workers to knock off because I'm a foreman in that construction company down the road."
The shopkeeper got a shock of his life and said to the man, "Now this is funny because I always adjust this clock to time when I here the construction bell, thinking its the right time."
Lesson Learnt:
Before you do anything in life, making crucial decisions or commit to anything that's going to impact your life, check your references.
Before you sign that loan contract, business contract, marriage certificate, employment contract, check your references.
Before you write what you think you have an authority to pen down, check your references
Before you speak about people and damage their characters with the power of your sharp tongue, check your references.
Before you start hating the brother or the sister, check your references.
Check your References even at work, at church , the organization you are so proud of; check if your leaders, managers and supervisors have you as their priority or they just see you as liability. Before you follow any pastor, leader or president of secular or religious institution, check your References. To these people you might be thinking you're the Special One, but when they talk about you in your absentia, you are just a bank that prints money and when you die, they will cry at funeral and say beautiful speeches but your family, your children will never see them again. Leaders must envision the future that you do not see, they must produce in you something that they do not have and they cannot even reach. If you cant do what your leader is doing, and he or she is not training you to get to their level, find a new leader. In fact a leader must produce leaders that are greater than he or she. See John 14:12. Leaders must have programs or solutions to challenges and problems that will salvage not only you but your children's children. Ask them what is your vision for me, my children, and children's children?
You are a priority, you have so much value to just be a follower of anyone without checking their references. These leaders might not have the same destiny you have in your mind; your spouse might not have the same destiny you possess in your mind; your partner in love and in business might not have the same destiny your Maker inscribed in your life fibre. These people drain you financially, socially, emotionally, and they will make you sick and die before your time; they will not get you where you are destined to be; the beast in you that you have not experienced yourself, will never be unleashed.
Check your references before its too late; one of these years or days you will hear words like, "The company is downsizing due to the lack of funds... and we are sorry that you are among those that we have to let go." You will not know what to do because you did not check your References. They are going to retire you because you are aging and that's inevitable. But when you check your references you will notice that your job demands 40hrs a week from you, in a nutshell you are selling them your time and they underpay you because time cannot be matched with any currency, it is valuable and of highest commodity. And you have to yourself 72hrs in that one week. The question is: what are you doing with the 72hrs? Here is a suggestion: do your job they employed you for within 40hrs and do your work in your 72hrs. Why? No job is safe, no matter how much they praise you or how much you earn; there is no job that is permanent. Anything can happen, if it does not , you are happening. Discover your work before they lay you off, you are nothing to them but an employee number, they can replace you next month but with the work you possess, no one can fire you, if they do, they will be sorry in less 5 years because, now you have all your time back to you in order for you to do your work. For true success, true peace and tranquillity, true joy and happiness, fulfillment can only be attained when we do our work and not our jobs. And your work is in you, you possess it, you were endowed with it. Do not be fooled by a high paying permanent government job; it is only your work that's permanent not your job.
Check your References before its too late!
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Written by: S.A. Ngcobo