Love must be real

Image Credits: https://quotefancy.com/quote/10472/Mother-Teresa

I believe that it is just a word until someone comes along and gives it meaning.

Love is easy to say but hard to live out or practice. We are very quick to tell someone we love them, but unless we give meaning to the word by actually practicing it, all we say is nothing. Love is a doing word; it's an action. We have to express it through our presence and actions. 

Love is a command from God. Not an option. Not something relative. It is the only way we can experience the Kingdom of God on earth. Whichever way you look at it, it’s a must, no option. For us to enjoy and be of significance in this world, we have to love. No way out.

We all have different ways we appreciate to be loved. Ways we desire to be loved. Unfortunately, this is not only one way, but even those around us also want to be loved their way. They have the things they wish could be done to them, so they experience love. The battle with perfect love is then to Love the way those around us want us to love them and also to be loved the way we want to be loved. The struggle goes even further when deep in our hearts we know how we want to love others but it's either not being appreciated, or we are not able to give it as we wish. We fall short.

Image Credits: https://blog.thewellnessuniverse.com/the-power-of-words/
 

Words are powerful, and some who understand the power behind what they confess have used it for their benefit in many ways. But merely using words with no equivalent action, might not carry the much weight. Someone whose words accompany his actions is more trustworthy than the one whose words and actions don't match. For God so loved the world that he gave. He didn't stop at just letting us know that he loves us, he went ahead and made the ultimate sacrifice, he gave. In fact, those of us who have people we love, the action part is not an excuse. Giving is the ultimate expression of love. Whether it’s time, resources, information, affection it shows that we are committed to acting in the long term best interest of the person on the receiving end. Just merely having good intentions towards someone is not love. 

The world does not need more love; it needs more lovers. It needs more people who will do unto others as they would be done unto. People who will act in the long term best interest of those around them. People who will let those around them experience the Kingdom of God. The kingdom of Love. A kingdom where love reigns. Where love is the language, and it's the philosophy — a kingdom where love is the norm and is the way of life.

What if we loved each other a little bit more? What if we all committed to being lovers? What if love was abundant in our hearts that we went around spreading it? What if the motivation of all we did was love? What if the world was full of lovely human beings who are lovable? What if we gave of ourselves to the idea of love and its meaning?

Image Credits: http://www.momsalute.com

In AYLF, one of the things we emphasize always is love. This is clear in all our five core values which are: Friendships, Community of Compassion, Reconciliation, faithfulness, and integrity. These values are inspired by a desire to see love become our DNA.

I don't know about you, but my struggle is to love in this fallen world. I have made a commitment to that. Sometimes I fall short. But my commitment remains, that I will be a creature of love. So help me God.

                                
If this resonates with you, go ahead to evaluate how you love. Then look for a small community of friends who you can do this together with. Being accountable to a few and practicing with a few. It's about building a community of friends to share each other's journey of love.  You have to be deeply committed to each other and desire to see each other grow in this journey. You have to create support, encouragement and accountability platform for each other. The community has to be as small as possible so that there is active engagement by all involved.

Find a community around you and see if these conversations make sense to you.

Passion

Image Credits: https://www.pktfuel.com/the-power-of-passion/

I believe people with a passion can change the world for the better.

Passion breeds commitment. Commitment is very crucial for any journey. 80% percent of success in any process is by showing up. You can’t keep showing up unless you have some level of commitment in what you are engaged in. A course that is focused on making the world a better place need commitment because it's not going to be easy and pleasant. The journey will be full of moments you are not even sure what you are doing. You might question yourself and even feel like finding something else to do, something tangible that you can easily explain to people. During those times, it’s the passion you have for what you do that will keep you fresh and going. Without any inner drive, you won’t even wake up to face your world.

Passion is the inner drive. That which we can’t fully explain but those around us can see it in our words, non-verbal and actions. External forces might not be sufficient to keep you on that road of a better world, but passion will. You may not be sure what your passion is, what you feel strongly and emotionally attached to. Something that makes you come alive when you start talking about it: you can talk a whole day and will feel energized on that. Given a chance and if there were no pressures of life, you would engage in that thing till God decides otherwise.

Image Credit: https://lonewolfmag.com/when-opportunity-knocks/

I'm a passionate man. My passion is around people and leadership. I gravitate towards developing young leaders. I believe leadership is everything and it’s a state of mind. I believe young people still have an appetite for new ideas. They are not jaded and full of cynicism. They still believe in a better future and are somewhat committed to it. I believe you can teach a young dog new trick or bend the reed when it’s still young. This passion was not always the case, but when I discovered it, and an opportunity came to engage, I jumped right in and I have kept on digging deeper in this. Am grateful to people who believe in me to help me develop this passion. Actually, in my case, the opportunity came first then I discovered my passion was in that opportunity. So as they say, I passionately engaged in that opportunity, and I discovered my life journey. To some people, it might be the other way round. Just be careful not to sit around waiting for your passion or be dragged into things just for the sake of money, fame and other material things that are here today and tomorrow are gone. 

An opportunity to engage in building my passion came as a failure in one area of my life. Something I had believed was what my life would be about, becoming an engineer. I failed, and I couldn’t believe it. It took God and friends to help me go through the process of forgiving myself for failing. Something about me; I get bothered so much about what people say and think about me. So when I failed, it was all over my face how people would respond to that. God being a loving father that He is, brought my way a friend whom I wish I could get a chance to meet again so we can celebrate what God has done and is still doing. He helped me appreciate the fact that I have to forgive myself and that God might be having other ideas about my life. I clung onto that and remained open-minded. Months later, I called a Reverend I had met for something I was following up on. It turns out; this would be the opportunity God would use to direct my life in a way I had never imagined. I had never given the idea of leadership much thought by then. The Reverend, threw me on the deep end and I had to raise up to the occasion. From this, came the Africa Youth Leadership Forum, AYLF Kenya Chapter www.aylfkenya.org and now a new addition to my ever budding passion for leadership development is GiANT Worldwide www.giantworldwide.com. Am also a life, leadership and growth Coach.                      

I believe my passion for leadership has sparked something in people’s lives, especially young leaders through AYLF. AYLF might not in itself change the world, maybe it will. But I see people come through AYLF who go out there to do great things. Others discover their passions through AYLF or are able to build it through AYLF. Whatever the case, the world will be a better place if we nurture a breed of leaders who will be worth following. 

Have you discovered your passion yet? Is there any opportunity God could be bringing your way so He can reveal to you what this thing is? What feedback do you receive from those close to you about what could be your passion? What is the one thing you could do for free and never bother whether you are compensated? What makes you come alive? What gives you satisfaction at the end of the day? What is this thing that your heart is totally sold out to? It could be anything from your career, vocation, hobby, to desires. Take time to intentionally find it.

If this resonates with you, seek to discover your passion. Look for a small community of friends who you can do this together with. Being accountable to a few and practicing with a few. It’s about building a community of friends to share each other’s journey of discovering and living out your passions.  You have to be deeply committed to each other and desire to see each other grow in this journey. You have to create support, encouragement and accountability platform for each other. The community has to be a small as possible so that there is active engagement by all involved.

Find a community around you and see if these conversations make sense to you.

Image Credits: https://www.goodfreephotos.com

By

Gabriel Odhiambo Achayo.

Leadership, Life and Growth Coach, certified by Lifeforming Leadership Coach (www.lifeformingcoach.com)

Senior Consultant, GiANT Worldwide (www.giantworldwide.com)

Gabriel.achayo@giantworldwide.com

Country Coordinator, Africa Youth Leadership Forum, AYLF, Kenya

The 5 Voices

www. giantworldwide.com

In this article, I’d like to introduce you to something that might make you want more. I’d like to help you start a journey of self-awareness. A journey of discovering your Leadership Voice. All of us have natural leadership Voice and that which we struggle with. We would rather not engage in it, but probably due to the nature of our work or daily engagement, we find ourselves stuck in it. We end up drained and exhausted with a continuous wish that someone would rescue us from what we do every day.

Let me start by stating this, everyone speaks, but not everyone is heard. Every now and then, someone is communicating something, either verbally or non-verbally. They are either avoiding something or engaging in it. Unfortunately, because of our personal biases, self-preservation or perceptions, we tend to ignore those speaking to us. Either we don't recognize how they are communicating, or we don't like it.

According to GiANT Worldwide, a company that is committed to raising the standards of leadership by building leaders worth following; Leaders we want to follow not the ones we have to follow, there are 5 Leadership Voices. These Voice are; Nurturer, Creative, Connector, Guardian, and Pioneer. Don’t be quick to assume you know what these words mean and you start labeling people. You have to put into consideration the fact that our behavior is composed of Nature, Nurture and Choice. So don’t think since you know someone’s nature or nurture, you can now predict their response every time. We have been in situations when people did things that shocked us, and we were left wondering where did that come from.

www. giantworldwide.com

So here there are briefly. Nurturer is champions of people, relational harmony, and values. Nurturers have a fear of conflict and often won’t speak out, they can be very silent. Creatives are champions of future ideas, innovation, and organizational integrity. Creatives can struggle to communicate effectively and have idealist perfectionist tendencies. Guardians are champions of due diligence, resources, and efficient systems and processes. Guardians are risk-averse, can be negative and bring excessive critique. Connectors are champion of relational networks, internal collaboration, and effective communication. Connectors always interpret the challenge of their ideas as personal. Pioneer are champions of strategic vision, results, and problem-solving. Pioneers lack sensitivity, can be unwilling to listen, and perceived as arrogant.

I don't know what kind of ideas come to mind about your leadership voice as you read the above. If you were to rank them, what order would yours be? My Leadership Voice is Nurturer, Creative, Connector, Guardian and last one that I struggle with so much is Pioneer. My natural tendency is always to be a Nurturer. Occasionally I am a Creative, and this is when I have a lot of ideas running through my little head, and I start wondering who I need to talk to. Who needs to know about my idea and how I can collaborate with someone to make the idea work, this is due to my 3^rd Connector Voice. I bet this is also driven by the fact that due to my Nurturer tendencies, I always feel my idea is not good enough until I struggle to appreciate it.

If you are wondering what all these means and would like to take a test to know your voice order, use this link https://5voices.com/assessment/. 

In case you want to understand more about your voice and what it means, do reach out to me. It's important that you learn to appreciate your tendencies and your voice and also appreciate other people's voices, so you know how to work together with people. I want to give a clear disclaimer here that, you won't know your voice by just one single online test. You will need to engage in a brutal self-examination continually. Ask the closest people to you what they think are your tendencies and keep being on the journey of self-awareness. Don’t always imagine you can reach a point where you fully know yourself. But it’s important that you start the journey of knowing yourself so that you can lead yourself and those around you.

www. giantworldwide.com

If this resonates with you, seek to discover your Leadership Voice. Look for a small community of friends who you can learn to do this together with. Being accountable to a few and practicing with a few. It’s about building a community of friends to share each other’s journey of Self-Awareness.  You have to be deeply committed to each other and desire to see each other grow in this journey. You have to create support, encouragement and accountability platform for each other. The community has to be a small as possible so that there is active engagement by all involved.

Find a community around you and see if these conversations make sense to you.

Image Credits: http://www.businessmalawi.com

By

Gabriel Odhiambo Achayo.

Leadership, Life and Growth Coach, certified by Lifeforming Leadership Coach (www.lifeformingcoach.com)

Senior Consultant, GiANT Worldwide (www.giantworldwide.com)

Gabriel.achayo@giantworldwide.com

Country Coordinator, Africa Youth Leadership Forum, AYLF, Kenya