Are you a source of inspiration?

Apr.08, 2007 in Deep Thought, General

I was taking a cab to the Patterns of Excellence program (I was starting the morning session today) when I got the chance to speak to a retired teacher. He was around his early 70s, sharp mental faculties and he started a conversation with me about why I was working at 7am on a Sunday morning!

So we got around talking about what I did and I of course, being the buddingÂ modeling expert I am, asked him about his past experience. He spent 20 years teaching and 15 years in the private sector. As I heard his story, it odd to know he was a teacher - after all, I’m an educator too. All through this, I began to wonder if what he did made him proud of himself. He was well-spoken, but was drivingÂ a taxi. Apparently, there’s a lot of ageism in Singapore too. In the last job interview he had, the person interviewing him spoke to him in Hokkien (typical bias toward old people). As a taxi driver, he doesn’t always have a ball of a time with passengers either. He cited an example of how someone complained about him being insulting when he did not want to take the passenger’s money because the passenger himself was so demanding and antagonizing. Anyway…

I also thought there must have been some part of this driver’s life that was a source of inspiration some how. Yet, a lot of that experience is hidden away… behind the wheel of a taxi. I suppose it’s a question we all need to ask ourselves. Who have we touched? What form of inspiration can we give to the rest of the world?

I doubt we will have an instinct to make a mark on the world. It probably happens in spite of ourselves, and we are often remembered for things that we may not think of being remembered by, but let’s not lose sight of the direction. As life goes on, 10 years as an NLP expert, there’s so much more to life than meets the eye. Don’t get fooled!