Motivation - Where is Greatness Found?

MOTIVATION –  Where is Greatness Found


By Nikki Viljoen of N Viljoen Consulting CC – January 2011

William Arthur Ward says “Greatness is not found in possessions, power, position or prestige.  It is discovered in goodness, humility, service and character.”

Well that should certainly shake things up a little, don’t you think?  There are all these powerful (well they think they are) people in the world who are so full of their own importance, puffed up and proud and according to this statement – they are not great at all!  That’s just really funny!

I guess that is why people like Nelson Mandela is one of the “greatest” men on the planet as opposed to, I don’t know – someone like George W Bush, who perhaps was one of the most powerful men on the planet (when his puppet masters pulled the strings you understand).

So who are the great leaders of the world today?  Sadly when I look around, I don’t really see any?  What I see are men who think that they are great, but who are destroying rather than building.  I see men who are concerned only with ‘what’s in it for them’ rather than for the greater good and I understand the ‘how’ and ‘why’ conspiracy theories spring up all over the place – because it’s all about the money, human kind be damned!

Then I look around and I see ordinary people, doing extra-ordinary things – making a difference one day at a time, one person at a time.  I see ordinary people who have become celebrities and have used that platform to make a difference, one day at a time, one person at a time. I see people who have very little, helping people who have even less, one day at a time, one person at a time and I understand that I am in the presence of greatness.

So where does this take us to, during the beginning of this New Year – to traditionally, the place and time when people start all over again, with new hopes, new determination and new resolve?  Who knows?

To borrow the line from Oprah Winfrey – “what I know for sure” though, is that there is hope, there is resolution and there is a change-a-coming and that we have the choice as individuals to be a part of that change or to sit back and reflect, in years to come on how we ‘missed the boat’.

I know what choice I am making – do you know what choices you are going to be making?

Nikki is an Internal Auditor and Business Administration Specialist who can be contacted on 083 702 8849 or nikki@viljoenconsulting.co.za or http://www.viljoenconsulting.co.za