The Sunday News
Itai Chipunza
MOST people who are successful in their fields are very highly-motivated people. If you ask many of them they will tell you it is very important to develop a high degree of self-motivation. This means what motivates you should be within you. The reason is fairly simple, if what motivates you is outside you, then you can easily be swayed from belief to disbelief in your vision. But if your instrument of motivation is one within you, then regardless of how tough the industry gets, you know what you are aiming for and it will not cause you to stop firing and full strength.
The major difference with each person becomes the source of that inner motivational fire. For some it is a tough childhood. Others it is the fear of lack and for most people it is their former jobs or their present one. This motivates them to keep going. There is nothing wrong with being motivated by your job, as long as you do not violate the respect for the gatekeeper. Who is the gatekeeper one may ask. A gatekeeper is one who holds a position of influence in any industry. For writers these are media editors, for business people these are suppliers, for politicians these are high ranking Government officials and leaders. A gatekeeper is whoever is ahead of you in any industry and holds a position of influence in that particular area. Very often we are drunk on our vision’s success and violate this important principle.
I have seen people resign angrily from jobs and utter insulting words to influential people. People violate the gatekeepers principle by their actions towards these powerful people. This has never ended well. Most recently I saw a man resign from their job, but in the process of resignation said a lot of unnecessary things to the company MD. Little did he know that the company that had promised him a job was owned by a close friend of the MD he had created enmity with. Nehemiah understood this principle.
Nehemiah 2 verse 7
Furthermore I said to the king, “if it pleases the king, let letters be given to me for the governors beyond the river that they must permit me to pass through till I come to Judah.
The back story of this passage is when Nehemiah requested to go to Judah to rebuild the decaying Jerusalem. In this act we see two things that show his understanding of the power of gatekeepers. The first being that he knew he needed the kings blessing to be able to accomplish the task ahead of him. Although the king was not travelling with him, he had the power to make easy the journey of Nehemiah. If he permitted the task to be done, it meant easy access to supplies for the journey and all the necessary funding. In today’s world, this means if you resign properly for the organisation you work for, it makes the journey ahead of you easier. Regardless of what has happened to you in that company, it is important that you exit it in peace.
The leaders in that business could be crucial to your success or failure in the near future simply because they are people in positions of power. If would be a sad situation if you were a step away from getting a contract that would change your business and you miss it because a man you insulted years ago has given a negative view of who you are. It would be so sad if they refuse to vouch for you because you stole from them while you worked under them.
The second thing we see is that Nehemiah knew that most gatekeepers are connected through friendship and it could unlock favours easily. Most people of power hardly meet together because they are usually busy people. But they know one another. So a letter or phone call from one gatekeeper to another is all it may take to save the day. You may have been struggling to get a particular thing done but the moment you talked to this gatekeeper, he simply made a phone call and the deal was sealed for you. Nehemiah requests for letters from the king because he knows it simply takes communication from one gatekeeper to the next to give you safe passage to your vision. It takes a phone call from your former boss to any institution to get you the tender you have been going after. If there is anything you must do from today onwards is to respect the gatekeeper. If possible an apology to those you wronged would go a long way in fixing the relationship. Pride may be telling you otherwise but humility is key at this point. Believe me, it may be your ticket to your next pay cheque.
Be blessed.
