Lessons from the locust(2)

updated: Monday 02.11.2009

Do not expect all members of your team to please you. The most important question is, ‘are they delivering the value for which they were recruited in the first place?’

The locust, no matter how tiny, only becomes vulnerable when it separates itself from the band. Isolation is the pastime of losers. Those who are not willing to share credit for success with others will also stand alone in their failure. Whatever your life assignment or present function is, you need the input of others to succeed. So, carefully build a network of relationships around the assignment and you will achieve success faster.

Lesson four
Locusts brook no half measures.
Locusts don’t stop until they get the job done. And they do a thorough job! They are faithful to their destructive agenda. When they invade a territory, not one blade of vegetation is left standing!

The major difference between excellence and mediocrity is that while excellence goes the extra mile to ensure that the job is not only done but that it is appropriately accomplished, mediocrity on the other hand, is willing to patch things up under the guise of ‘manageable.’ Many people, especially contractors and employees in this part of the world do shoddy jobs not so much because of inferior technology but because they do not take the pains to give attention to details. After the printer who handled my latest publication "LIVING INTENTIONALLY" had delivered the first batch for the book’s public presentation, I discovered a few "negligible" errors in the finished copies after the launch. When I did, I promptly recalled all the copies that had gone out as well as withdrew the entire delivered batch from further circulation even at great cost. Excellence is not known by the volume or quantity of work done but by the quality of the effort. This is why a man of excellence is always seen by mediocres as "difficult to work with."

Lesson five
Locusts are consistent.
Consistency is the signature tune of champions. Diligence is the hallmark of truly great people. My definition of diligence is "consistent, insistent and persistent application of effort in a given direction." Consistency is made possible by unbroken focus on the assignment or the destination.

Locusts are known for devastation. What are you known for? Greatness is attained by the doing of ONE thing consistently till you are known for it. You may be a man of many parts but be of ONE passion. The world plans and delivers your recognition and reward around that one thing it knows you for. Someone asked me recently what my discipline is and I promptly replied him, "My mouth is my meal-ticket"! Whatever else I do is ancillary to that!

Lesson six
Locusts have a sense of assignment
When locusts move, they leave no one in doubt that they have an assignment to carry out. Failure or success in life is a function of how the individual perceives and performs in his assigned task. Every person’s life is an assignment of God to creation. No one exists by chance. Success is the progressive internalization and realization of God’s purpose for an individual. To effectively checkmate a man, all you need is to take his original assignment away from him and give him something else to do. The drudgery and the frustration will ultimately kill him!

Why do many people gravitate from frustration to frustration even when they sometimes have an air of having achieved so much? No matter how successful at something else a man is, his life will still be empty until he can find his real assignment and wholly dedicate his life to it!

If you have not yet found what you love, do your level best to love what you have found. Wherever you find yourself, if there is a job to be done, don’t argue about who should do it. If it lies within your competence, do it. Every organization will be on the path of greatness if people would learn to do things without caring who got the credit.

Lesson seven
Little efforts do produce great results
No matter the enormity of an assignment, progress is made by taking bold, even if baby steps! No one climbs the ladder of success with his hands in his pocket. To do nothing because you cannot do much is to paralyse your potentials. Locusts chew on foliage. They cannot take big bites but they simply chew what they can and in no time, the job is done! Dreams are free. Massive, consistent, concentrated action is the price you pay for fulfillment. Roll up your sleeves. Get out of the house. Move against your worst fears. Start DOING something in the direction of your loftiest dreams. It’s your only guarantee of success!

Remember, the sky is not your limit, God is!