What’s In It For Them?

“What’s in it for me?” This is the response that we sometimes get when we ask for other people’s help. Of course, those who are close to us may do things for us for nothing, but in today’s reward-driven environment, people almost always ask if the potential benefit is worth the effort that they are about to put in. In business and at work, asking the WIIFM question has become acceptable. Asking this question has become the mark of the savvy professional. I agree. In running an enterprise or in performing our jobs, it is always important to find out what we stand to gain before we commit our resources to any task.

Even well known authors of business and motivational books, advocate some form of selfishness. They maintain that to be able to help others, we must help ourselves first. Aboard planes, one of the things the attendant tells you (or gestures to you) during the flight safety reminders is that you should secure your own oxygen supply first before attempting to help others.

Let’s reframe this popular thought. How about thinking “What’s in it for them?” How will people benefit from interacting with you? Are things easier for people now that they’ve received your output? Will they be grateful for having met you, or will they regret the day they met you (or hired you, or dealt with your company)? Did you create value during your interaction? Will things be clearer after they read your report, or was it only an exercise of compliance? Will they walk away from this transaction blessed or cursed?

- Carlos Castellon

Your Influence Matters

Do you want to make a positive impact on the lives of others but you think that you are not influential enough? Wherever you are in your company’s organization chart, there are colleagues, customers and even superiors who look up to you and have confidence in you.

You have more power than you think. You are a leader, regardless of your rank – your influence matters.

On 9 November 2006, we invite you to join us in Your Influence Matters. A talk meant to help us recognize that even in our current positions and assignments, we can work on leaving a legacy, which is far more important than any position or possession.

Conducting the talk is Mr. BJ Sebastian, currently the Director of Corporate Planning for JG Summit Holdings. One of the faculty members of the Asian Theological Seminary’s MBA program, he also holds the following credentials:

Master in Business Management, Asian Institute of Management, Manila; Master in Divinity (Candidate), Asian Theological Seminary; Bachelor of Arts in Economics, University of the Philippines

• Corporate Planning Director, JG Summit Holdings, Inc.
• Pastor, Paranaque Bible Christian Church
• Former chief corporate strategist, PSI technologies
• Former chief planning officer, RFM Corporation
• Past Director of planning, Department of Trade and Industries
  

This will be at the Easton Center For Management Studies at the AIC Gold Tower, Emerald Avenue, Ortigas Center, Pasig City.

Donor passes are available in Php 250, 500 and 1,000.

Hope to see you there.
For inquiries call +632.413.5706, +63917.811.5017, or send us an email at cccastellon@gmail.com.

Your Journey To Success

How do you define success? These days the answer seems obvious. Success means accumulating wealth, acquiring status and being famous. Still to others, you’re the ultimate success if you’ve garnered the most number of possessions (some call them toys).

But there are some who believe that success means leaving behind a legacy worth more than material things. Being successful means leaving your mark by shaping the lives of the next generation. To do this means leading them to the right path and teaching them to recognize what is truly right.

And in order to be effective it is necessary to recognize your true calling and to discover your gifts.

Last 5 October 2006, Lifebridge, Inc. presented “The Success Journey” at the Ortigas Foundation last 5 October 2006. Eduardo Fuentebella, Jr., a life coach and the marketing manager of the highly successful Planet Infinity, the only 24-hour gym in the Philippines, delivered the talk.

Guests from Mitsubishi Electric/Int’l Elevator and Equipment, The Body Shop, Every Home For Christ, International School of Theology-Asia (ISOT-Asia), Western Union Philippines, Getz Pharma, Manila Bulletin and Eli Lilly Philippines attended the talk.

The success journey is about listening and discovering your calling, your “sweet spot”. It is about finding out what excites you and how to use this in the service of the Lord.

Coming up on 9 November 2006: Your Influence Matters, a talk to inspire you and to motivate you. A call to action. Whatever rank you have, whatever your position may be you have more influence than you think. Wherever you are in the organization chart, there are people who have confidence in you and believe in what you can achieve. Your leadership matters to them.

The featured speaker will be Mr. BJ Sebastian, Corporate Planning Director of JG Summit Holdings, Inc. This will be at the Easton Center For Management Studies at the AIC Gold Tower, Emerald Avenue, Ortigas, Quezon City. Hope to see you there.

For inquiries call +632.413.5706, +63917.811.5017, or send us an email at cccastellon@gmail.com.

 

Being Free

Being free means liberated from bondage, from slavery. These days, freedom can also mean a host of other things. Being free can also mean having access to talent and to privileges such as material resources and technology. Being able to move and dwell within certain circles is also freedom. We can also count financial independence and the ability to structure our own time as freedom. Following Christ releases us from rituals and ceremonies that can weigh us down and prevent us from advancing God’s work.

Lord, we thank you for these modern amenities, which were not available to us before. Nowadays, we live in an age of ever increasng choices. Teach us to use these to glorify You and to advance Your purposes here on earth.

May these allow us to reach out to a greater number of people. This we pray for in Christ’s name. Amen.

You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.

- Galatians 2:13

Coming soon: Left Behind – the video game (?)

After the book and video series. Can the game be far behind? I thought it was just a gag when I saw the review on TV.

Lifebridgers, what do you think. Is this taking it too far?

Here’s the description in one of the gaming sites:

Based on the renown series of Christian-faith novels about the aftermath of the Rapture and the lives left behind in the ensuing turmoil after those who are saved by their faith in God are gone. Left Behind: Eternal Forces will put players in command of the apocalyptic battles raging in the streets of New York City between the angelic Tribulation Forces and the demonic Global Community Peacekeepers during the End of Days. Gamers will participate in events from the Left Behind book series in single player mode and battle to capture territory from other players in the multi-player online game mode.

Here’s the link to the screenshots:
http://www.vgpro.com/games/pc/left_behind_eternal_forces

Excellence Replaces Competition by Howard Butt, Jr.

From a talk called “Competition and Servant Leadership” delivered on July 30, 1999, at the Laity Lodge Leadership Retreat in Leakey, Texas

Excellence comes from the Father. “Be therefore perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect” (Matt 5:48). We will never be perfect. But as we strain toward higher and higher standards, we can do excellent work.I learned years ago in the grocery business that the replacement for competitiveness in Christian life is excellence. Instead of trying to beat down the competition, I try to be the very best that I can be. I believe that is the way to fullness and satisfaction in organizational life—to allow excellence to replace our competitiveness.

Ask yourself, In what ways do I struggle with competitiveness in my workplace? How can I replace my competitiveness with excellence?

Your Influence Matters by Todd Lake

Every person has influence: fathers and moms influence their kids; managers influence their employees; church leaders influence their members. The danger is when we mistake influence for power. True, people in authority can often force compliance. But that is coercion, not influence. Influence is a gentler undertaking. Cynics who call it “manipulation” are wrong, because real influence grows only in the soil of love. And love is as unrelated to the cool detachment of manipulation as it is to the raw use of power.

Jesus had at his disposal all the power in the universe. As the world turned against Him and His kingdom, He asked His followers, “Do you think I cannot appeal to my Father, and He would not at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?” Of course Jesus could issue that appeal, but the following story helps explain why He never would.

A hardened reporter once asked a pastor if there were any way God could change the world into a better place. The pastor said, “Yes, a supernatural way and a natural way.” The reporter wanted no nonsense about the supernatural, so he asked, “What’s the natural way?” The pastor said, “God could send legions of angels to force everyone to do what God wants done.” The flummoxed reporter then asked, “What’s the supernatural way?” The pastor gently replied, “We could let God change our hearts.”

To influence others is to let God work in us to change our hearts and work through us to change the hearts of others. This process requires us to rely on the fruits of the Spirit and not on our position or title, be it coach or mom or supervisor. One’s rank may gain a hearing, but the fruits of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control—can change lives. We influence others by showing a life lived radically differently. Abraham Lincoln was once asked by a friend why he continued to be kind and thoughtful to a fellow politician who was a sworn enemy. Lincoln replied, “If I can win him as a friend, I get rid of my enemy just as surely as if I had destroyed him.”

People mired in the petty, transitory things of this world are hungry for bigger dreams and for a god bigger than their own self-interest. They were created with “eternity in their hearts.” They sense that they were “fearfully and wonderfully made.” Even if they cannot articulate it, they know deep down that they have been made “in the image of God” for something greater than they know now. If we are seeking God and wanting to serve others, simply by our seeking God, those in our circle of influence may be drawn to the exciting possibility of serving as “co-laborers with God” in the high calling of our daily work.

Copyright © 2001 – 2006 H. E. Butt Foundation. All rights reserved.

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