WHO ARE YOU?

Discovering who you are is important but success lies in defining who you are. Don’t let others do it for you. On a very basic level, if you are right on the inside then you will be alright on the outside. Self awareness allows us to know what we are good at and what we are not. If you don’t know why you are doing what you are doing, then you shouldn’t be doing it at all.

“You can’t give out what you don’t have– You can’t give away 12 oranges if you do not have 12 oranges – first you have to get the oranges then give them out” (Wayne Dyer). The point is you can’t give compassion if you are not compassionate, you can’t tell what is the right thing to do if you don’t know what is right. And on a deeper level, you can’t give the gifts of who you are if you have not defined what your gifts are.

Roger McGrath (Professor at Queens University of Charlotte) told us in one class, that being a good person first starts on a subconscious level, you have to already have decided what the difference between good and bad is so that when you are faced with situations where you have to make a tough choice, you are already prepared. He said you must practice being good just as sportsman/woman practices their sport. He said, on your first job – don’t rush to buy a BMW, save your money so that you have the freedom to leave if you don’t agree with what is being done within your organization. When you purchase that BMW and you have the payments, you have been compromised.. (no offense to BMW - Great car!)


Bill Berry (Professor at Queens University of Charlotte) said to us, lead with compassion and common sense. If something is too complex for you to understand, question it! Be compassionate to those that are different from you and don’t lose sleep over people that are nasty to you – they are simply not worth it. The problem is with them and not you.

Finally from my father, William Umbima, don’t waste time trying to impress others. Believe me when I tell you that when they go home they don’t talk about how impressive you are unless you really are. Don’t be concerned with the glory and fame, be concerned with doing the best you can at whatever you are doing. Martin Luther King said, “If a man is called to be a street-sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street-sweeper who did his job well." - Those people were not looking for glory and fame, they were just doing their job well...