Thank God it’s Friday!!! It’s the penultimate Friday in the month of June & very soon we will be embracing Q3 of 2019!! Wow the year is running away so far. I hope you are doing great & making some progress no matter how small.

I’ve been watching a lot of football ( soccer) lately with the UEFA Nations League won by Portugal, the FIFA U20 World Cup that just finished in Poland ( And Ukraine came tops as champions) as well as the ongoing FIFA Women’s World Cup competition in France with Nigeria & Cameroon qualifying out of the group stages into the round of 16 & looking forward to the CAF Africa Cup of Nations competition starting today in Egypt. My mind has centered around various teams for a couple of weeks, hence the inspiration for this post.

Let me highlight a couple of points my Mentor ( John C. Maxwell ) always makes when he’s talking about this topic:

One is too small a number to achieve greatness

I’ve checked all through life & this truth holds true. You cant achieve greatness as an individual, you need people around you, working with you to get to that realm of greatness. This is the way God has made things to function in this world – everything that works in life is connected.

No matter the type of sports that is played on earth, there is always a team, from golf to javelin to ice hockey to Formula 1, nobody does it alone. There are coaches, psychologists, nutritionists, physiotherapists, trainers, admin,protocol & security personnel who all work to ensure the common goal is achieved for the athlete & the same applies to relationships, marriages, corporate organizations, businesses & life in general.

The earlier you realize that you need people around you to achieve your goals & objectives in life, the better for you. I love another thing that John says when comparing Success & Significance. He says Success is arriving at your planned destination alone, Significance is arriving there with a bunch of people that you’ve connected to & inspired to join in your quest.

Personally, I’ve received individual awards & accolades over the years in my career, but the one I enjoy the most is a team award & today I love to work with teams to achieve greatness & significance. Dont be alone, Ecc 4:10 (MSG) says “It’s better to have a partner than go it alone. Share the work” share the wealth. And if one falls down, the other helps, But if there’s no one to help, tough!

Some people pride themselves in saying they are self-made, but when you have a deeper look at it, it’s not true. Someone somewhere helped, gave a leg-up or a boost along the way, so always strive to recognize those people & things that helped you along the way, it might not be positive, it might be a hard or difficult situation, but at the end Rom 8:28 (AMPC) “All things work together and are [fitting into a plan] for good“.

Teamwork makes the dream work

” Teamwork makes the dream work, but a vision becomes a nightmare when the leader has a big dream and a bad team” —- John C. Maxwell

It’s really great to have a team, but what is more important is to have a working team. In most cases you will see just a group of individual stars & not a team. There is this all time debate about who is the greatest football player of our time – Messi or Ronaldo? I drift towards Ronaldo because he has achieve a lot with different teams over the years not just at the club level but even in the national team, Messi has only been at FC Barcelona & really struggling at the national level.

The goal is more important than the role. Members must be willing to subordinate their roles and personal agendas to support the team vision. By seeing the big picture, effectively communicating the vision to the team, providing the needed resources, and hiring the right players, leaders can create a more unified & working team

As I was ruminating on these things, I stumbled on a post by another mentor of mine – SKIP PRICHARD on How to create a powerhouse team & he broke it down into 4 points with the mnemonic code T.E.A.M.

Powerhouse is defined as “a team having great energy, strength, and potential for success.” To build a powerhouse, there are four pillars:

• Transform
• Empower
• Achieve
• Motivate

There are a lot of points to unpack on this topic, but allow me drop the anchor here & pick it up next week as inspired, however the series on Cultivating A Growth Mindset will still continue in parallel & I have some exciting news to share in the coming days.

Are you going through life alone?

Do you have a team?

Are you a team player?

This is my snippet…….. I AM SHALOMESQ