More freedoms come to those that are willing to take on more responsibilities, provided leadership skills are developed and systems are implemented. By Gary Shotton #000192
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Freedom
By Gary Shotton
Hello, my name is Gary Shotton, and I’m here in the country of Uganda in the town of Kampala, and we just having a wonderful time here, but here at the little park, that’s very peaceful, free recording, and today we’re going to talk about freedom. And with freedom comes responsibility. And I’m gonna apply that to business in several ways. But first of all, we all understand that sometimes freedom is hard to come by but some people sabotage themselves and try not to actually become free. And example that is someone that’s in prison and, and they’re not willing to take the responsibility of being out and choose to stay by be re committing another crime a second time and, and you know, that’s, that’s a difficult thing. And again, freedom comes with responsibility. Take the nation of Israel. At one point, Moses was leading the nation out of captivity, and you would think they would be happy to be free from their captors. And at one point, it wasn’t going so well and the people just came up against Moses and said, Man, I wish we could go back to slavery in our former situation, rather than be free. Why? Because they didn’t want to take the responsibility of fending for themselves or getting at lay said we at least have food where we’re at.
Freedom in a job, you know, sometimes we don’t want to move out of a job. This could apply to some of you. I’m not criticizing but just the fear of taking on the responsibility of bringing home a steady income for the family. revenue for the family. That’s a fear and that lack of taking on that responsibility, limits or stops the freedom that you’d have if you had a new job. Well, in the business world, we can see that same hat thing happening again and again. Number one, I personally was employed. I had a great job, I had good income. I had the company vehicle to drive. I was one of the higher paid individuals in this company. I’d worked there nine and a half years but you know, I wasn’t born to work for someone else that does that just applies to me in some cases, but others listening to this know what I’m talking about. And I had to take on the responsibility of moving to another city in another state. Starting over if you want to say taking on the risk, but you know, the mainly I had to take on the responsibility because with moving man I had to find a new job or come up with income. I had to be able to become responsible for my family in an entirely new situation. I had that happen again to me. When I’m in my Bible school, that’s where I’ll be why moved and and the next thing that happened was I couldn’t find a job and and I started my my moving and storage company. It really didn’t start that way. It became a necessity. I needed cash, I needed income. I needed to have a steady pay in some regard or in more than adding average steady pay. I couldn’t actually get a job that would make the difference. And so I used a borrowed horse straighter and started with that behind my car. And wow. It gave me freedom though by owning my own company for the first time. I had freedom to do what I want to do when I wanted to do now in many ways that was also limited because I was very tied to that business. Also, I learned later how to even be freer. And so I had to take on the responsibility of owning a company. And after 17 years, I had another phase in my life. I had the situation where that phase had come to end and I wanted the freedom to change to basically sell that business. And in selling that business. I had to take on a new responsibility as changing career, a change in approach to change in life. And it worked though I gained competence from the times I had before I could review the times I did before with God’s help. I was always able to define what I needed to do to make it work and and each step to be honest with you each step was like a progression in life where at each step I gain more responsibility, and yet I had more freedom and without having the responsibility. I don’t think the freedom would come with that. While six more years went by and after I sold that Moving and Storage business and I chose by my will to purchase an existing business, a machine shop and at that time it had 41 employees and we grew it to 65 pretty quickly. And you know, but I had to have a choice to take on that responsibility to take on the responsibility of this new company, this new group of workers and we had 65 employees now I’ve had that 11 years now, but you know by taking on that responsibility, and putting together the systems and processes that are inside a vibrant, active, ongoing growing company, I’m here for 20 days, 20 days, I’ve checked in one time with our company at this point and we’re about two thirds the way through those 20 days, and it’s going fine I got a text that reporting that things are fine. And you know, I knew though it’d be fine, but boy, I had to take on some responsibility of doing what I’m here doing now I’m doing what I’m doing. recording these videos. Were just in a in a mall in Kampala, Africa, and we ran across the most amazing testimonies of this young lady at age 18 started a jewelry business and now she’s 28 years old and she’s looking to have a store with her jewelry, a great testimony. But you know, I had to step out and take on the responsibility of coming here, paying the cost paying the expenses, but you know, I’m freed up. I’m telling you, I have a sense of freedom to absolutely do anything and everything I could choose to do according to God’s will and it will work. I have freedom because I have consistently taken on more responsibility.
The truth is as an employer, we’re looking for people that will take on responsibility. If you’re stuck in a job, just a small advice, become this problem solver. You’re the one that needs to take on responsibility for something and as you take on responsibility, at least your pay would over time increase most likely. But if you take on that responsibility, then you’re going to find that even in a job that you’re going to be promoted, you’re going to have income if that company doesn’t recognize it, somebody else will. So I do believe that with freedom, that freedom does come when we’re willing to take on responsibility and do the job well. Well thank you for being a part of IBV talks inspiring better business, we wish as best we wish for each and every one of you to succeed in business with God’s help. And we’re certainly here in Africa enjoying in three different countries, teachings like this and we just appreciate you watching. Thank you
