How to Stay Sharp

I’ve been a bit out of circulation for the past 4 days. It’s been a hectic one for me, I’ve been co-facilitating and co-learning a great deal at the Holidays and Cash Leadership Academy 100 level. It’s a really mixed class with an age range of 24-60yrs of age. We are all from different walks of life with different experiences and backgrounds. The class content, energy and opportunities to learn are rich. It’s been a great 4 days and we have 6 more intensive days to go. The training has forced me to go beyond knowing to doing, to utilize what I had kept as knowledge, and in so doing I’m becoming better. It’s funny, but I don’t think I have put myself under the kind of pressure I’m putting myself through now, in a while, it’s so demanding yet so refreshing.

My mind casts back to those days gone, years past when I was under constant pressure. Pressure to teach another the content of a course, pressure to stand in front of a fellowship and share the Word. The pressure of accountability to live right because many other lives depended on yours. The pressure of praying from 12 midnight till 3am regularly without fail, the pressure of studying the scriptures and not just reading it. The pressure of always having a fresh word. I once in a while get asked, how do you stay so sharp and current, how do you stay so knowledgeable? The answer, is quite simple.

1. Understand that life is not meant to be lived selfishly.

The moment your life is for you and about you, you are headed for a mediocre existence. Those whose lives make meaning regularly make sacrifices for others.  What makes a man successful is how many others he’s able to help become successful. Once you analyze your life and it’s progress for the sake of your progress or your family’s progress, you will not be great! If you don’t have a sensing of others depending on you, you can’t be functioning at your peak.

2. Continue to be a role model.

It’s amazing how many people others looked up to back in school that are not worth looking up to now?  The brother was a prayer secretary then, in fact he was the president of the fellowship. He seemed to do all the right things then, and almost had a patent on revelation. School becomes history, and the demand of the people that kept him studying and working at his peak ceased. His environment changed, and he can now afford first to drink malt while his colleagues drink beer, he progresses to drink beer while they smoke, and he only dances with the ladies while they sleep with them. When they take them home, he still is conservative by ensuring it only happens when he’s on field work. Gradually an absence of people who look up to him, makes his life reduce to it’s lowest common denominator. Nothing develops you more than surrounding yourself regularly with people who expect the best from you, and silently hold you accountable to great standards.

3. Regularly give out.

If you regularly share and teach what you know, you’ll stand the risk of one day sounding like a broken record if you do not pursue new knowledge. Emptying your cup regularly forces you to regularly refill it. Find an avenue to give, don’t bottle up all your knowledge find a place to share. Test your ideas, voice your perspective, share what you know! When you empty yourself, you’ll be driven to refill. To stay knowledgeable give the little you have, and make sure you always have more to give.

4. Challenge your friends to challenge you.

It’s iron that sharpens iron. If your friends and colleagues don’t step up, they’ll ultimately dull you. Push yourselves to be sharp. Drive yourselves based on acquisition of knowledge, drive yourselves based on positive values. Don’t walk with people heading in another direction, walk with people whose appetites are for achievement and greatness. Let the thought that you are surrounded by brighter people push you to know more, do more and be more!

5. Don’t stop.

Where you are today is a function of seeds you sowed 10yrs ago. 10yrs from now, you’ll be a function of the seeds you are sowing today. Don’t stop today otherwise tomorrow may be compromised. Keep sowing, keep pushing, keep giving, today is yesterday’s harvest, and the harvest ahead is the seed of today. Don’t stop!