PRINCIPLE 1 PREDETERMINED AND NOT A PREFERENCE
“There is room for everyone at the top.”
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overnment leaders wanted to build a highway that would come right through a little town. In the highway’s path was a Buddhist temple, a most sacred place. The government spent so much money on the highway that it could not change the routing of it, so the authorities decided to relocate the temple to a beautiful place on a hill.They brought in archaeologists, architects, other specialists, and workers, and they began to dismantle this temple, stone by stone, so they could later replicate the original. In the middle of the old temple was its most precious object— a huge statue of Buddha. The people had come there to worship every day for centuries.
The workers brought in a crane to lift the Buddha. They put the big fastening chains around it and prayed, “Don’t let anything happen to this Buddha”; for they, too, had come here most of their lives to worship before this massive clay Buddha.
As they lifted the Buddha above the ground, suddenly the arm fell off. Everybody began to weep, and then the other arm broke, and then the ear fell off, and it was too late to stop. By
the time they moved it over to the new location, most of the clay had fallen away.
The workers were so depressed, and the government was afraid the people would rebel against it. The whole village stood around the Buddha as the clay continued to fall to the ground. Suddenly, the people saw something they never knew existed— there appeared under all that clay a pure gold Buddha statue. Their ancestors had hidden it under clay so thieves would not steal the pure gold one.
The Buddha could not shine until somebody moved it. It had been in the wrong spot.
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eaders are born when people discover their gift and find their place. They must first discover what is inside, underneath the clay. In the same way, leaders have to discover what is inside them to connect with their spot. When you connect with your spot, your gift comes alive.When you feel your arm fall off as you continue to read about servant leadership, do not panic. When you feel the identity that you love so much come apart, let it go. When your old concepts begin to crack, let them.
Every human has a place in the universe of humanity. The universe has a place for your gift. Nevertheless, if you are like the average person, you probably have lived most of your life in a job that is not right for you, placing you in constant stress and conflict with who you are.
Each of us must find our spot. Only you can occupy your spot, and no one need be jealous of anyone else’s spot. Our spot is the place we are supposed to be, being who we simply are by nature.
When we are not ourselves, we experience stress. When we are not where we should be— physically, emotionally, spiritually— we experience stress. The Creator did not build humans to live with stress, and much of the stress we experience results from being in the wrong spot. Most human illness and disease is a result of stress, the “fight or flight”
hormones that get out of control.
The hormone adrenaline exists to give us bursts of energy that we need temporarily to cope with danger— to run from a lion or engage in hand-to-hand combat with the invading tribe, for instance. We have all heard stories of petite mothers lifting cars off babies in the heat of crisis— a feat attributed to adrenaline.
Danger is usually a short-term situation, but when a situation is chronic— wrong job, wrong marriage, wrong habit
— the body becomes stuck in crisis mode. It keeps pumping up the adrenaline over the long haul, like gunning the accelerator and keeping the brake on. Even a pleasurable activity that the body reads as stress— driving a race car or playing computer games— can pump up our adrenaline. Some people seem to seek out stress, drama, and constant crisis to maintain the rush, for the thrill of it. Whatever the cause, the body, mind, and emotions do not handle long-term stress well. This eventually takes its toll on the heart and other systems of the body.
Many people become stuck in this stress mode. Unhappy with their jobs, they produce adrenaline because stress activates their “flight” instinct. Maybe they need the money and feel they have to stay on the job, living every day under stress. Conflict with the boss may trigger the body to “fight”—
even when the mind knows that is out of the question in the civilized setting of the workplace— in the corporate
boardroom, or during labor negotiations.
These frustrated workers cannot wait to get home, because for them home is like freedom from prison— the prison of stress. You want to leave your job, but you have to stay there because of a thing called salary. That means you live your whole day under stress.
Or maybe your situation is just the opposite. You love your work and practically live at the office to escape a bad home environment. You work long hours to avoid a nagging spouse or bad children or overbearing parents.
By the word spot, I mean your place in the universe of humanity. About 6.7 billion people live in the world today, and God has designed a spot for each of us, including one just for you. The average person dies never finding that spot, doing something they were not born to do. This is why their lives are miserable and why they are frustrated.
Stress is pressure placed on your life— your body, your soul, and your spirit— that you were not designed to handle.
Premature death is a product of people being out of their spot in life, because stress kills.