WHY ARE YOU ARGUING WITH LOT

A BUSINESS SEMINAR

WHY ARE YOU ARGUEING WITH LOT

It is a Saturday morning and I am at it again one of my special hobbies gardening. My brother’s five-year-old daughter is sitting by the edge of the vegetable bed moving along following my progress and talking childhood non-senesce. I am engaging her at her level in an effort to develop her speech and then she said something that really caught my attention.

She said you know there is this little girl in my class her name is Pallesa. And I said o-o-o-oh so tell me more about Pallesa, then she said I hate her with passion, then I said no-no baby you cannot say that, God does not like children who hate other children, she took a deep breath, looked me straight in the eye, and said ‘I hope God hates her too.’

This bothered me a lot and left me wondering what could make a five year old hate another five year old in such a profound way. It was years later when I decided to get in business that God reveled to me what was hidden in that narration of my brother’s daughter. After years of hard work and sacrifice, a business deal went wrong. With the little bible knowledge I had, I had to confront God with only one question, why?

In the middle of that confusion, a very soft voice said to me, but son, WHY ARE YOU AGUEING WITH LOT? I said God I do not understand, and He said read The Word, so I went into the bible and for the first time in life started looking for Lot. The story of Lot serves us one of the greatest lessons in life and indeed in business

It goes on something like this, he was a son of Abram’s brother whom Abram took under his wings, and because Lot was living under the shadow of greatness he become great. They both become so rich such that the land there were living in was no longer able to sustain them both. The life’s lesson is that birds of a feather flock together; the business lesson however is that if you aligned with greatness you will become great.

For this reason, this is precisely why we need great knowledgeable mentorship or shadowing in business who among other virtues posses morals, values and a character. The sprite of a leader operates in everything his voice presides over, that is why in the bible God commanded Soul to smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

Soul did not listen, destroy the Amalek he did but he spared and captured the best of what the Amalek possessed on account that he was going to give sacrifice to God. God was very angry at Soul, because the implication was such that the dirty sprite of the Amalekites was going to slowly take root among his people. You cannot build anything good on a pile of rubbish. If you take a close look at all domestic animals and their owner, they behave more or less the same, which means the sprite that operates in the possessor is the same sprite in the animals.

So the sprite of Lot started to manifest in his headman, they fought Abram’s headman over grazing land. Abram said to Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray between you, and me and between my herdsmen and your herdsmen; for we are brethren. Is not the whole land before us? Separate yourself, I pray you, from me: if you will take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if you will go to the right hand, then I will go to the left.

Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere, before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, as you come unto Zoar. Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east: and they separated themselves the one from the other.

In business some people are driven by passion, some are driven by greed and some by profit, what I have learnt in all my business endeavors is to never entertain strife. Where it has become apparent that either we do not share the same business objectives, for me you go to the left or right but one way or the other you have to choose.  Businesses that are built on the pain of other people never last; we ought to know that sound ethics build credibility, install confidence, and respect thus enhancing the business’s competitive edge.

Lot never realized that his strides in business and indeed in life were attributed to his mentor, driven by greed he choose the land that looked the best in his own eyes. It is not all that glitters that is gold, as the story continues to unfold, Lot became a captive together with his whole household and again it was Abram his mentor who came to his rescue. This shows that you can buy everything else but you cannot put value to good mentorship. Abram did not ask for anything in return, instead when God wanted to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah it was him again who negotiated that Lot be saved.

The area that Lot chose for himself was so wicked that one night he had male visitors.’ Man of the city both young and old come to his house demanding that where are your male visitors, we want to make love to them. Lot had to come out in defense and say you will not do such thing, you rather take my two virgin daughters and do as you please only to these man do nothing for they have come under the roof of my house.

To cut the long story short Lot ended up running away, living in mountain, in a curve, an alcoholic sleeping with his own daughters and making them pregnant. After reading the story of Lot I swore that I will never argue with Lot again.