Your Ceiling is Another’s Floor
5 Again there was war with the Philistines, and Elhanan the son of Jair killed Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.
6 Yet again there was war at Gath, where there was a man of great stature, with twenty-four fingers and toes, six on each hand and six on each foot; and he also was born to the giant.
7 So when he defied Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimea, David’s brother, killed him.
8 These were born to the giant in Gath, and they fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants.
1 Chronicles 20:5-8
David was known as the boy who killed Goliath. No one even dared to try and go up against the giants of Philistines then. The children of Israel were scared to death by the taunting of the Philistines, so much so that they decided to let a young lad armed with 5 stones in his hands go to war. Yup, grown men let a young kid war in their place. Nonetheless, David accomplished the task and brought down Goliath by God’s grace.
You would think such heroic acts must have ended with David. No one else would dare to face another giant in battle, right? If your brother could kill one, doesn’t mean you can, right? Apparently not. As we see it recorded in 1 Chronicles 20, David’s men and his brothers all got emboldened to face the foe who was considered invincible. They also obtained victory like David. Fascinating.
These days, we let another’s victory and success get to us. We think that oh, I could never be like Elon Musk and get to his level of success. Surely it takes a genius to get there, and I am no genius. I could never be like (insert name), it takes skill or opportunity or money etc, to get there. I could never be like my dad, my brother, my sister…
Despite what you may think, those who came before us, empower us. They aren’t your challengers, competitors nor rivals. Their success tells you that you can do it too. Their stories should inspire you to do the same, if not better than them. David’s Goliath became an example of what God can do through a mere boy and his success is not for his brothers and men to envy or be jealous of. It is telling them that “I did it and so can you.”
As a father, I can tell you that my hopes for my kids is to surpass what I do in life. My journey, life experiences and ceiling are to be their floor. I do not hope for them to get dismayed at what I’ve accomplished. I do not hope for them to waste their life thinking I can never be as good as dad. I hope for them to think that “my dad did it but I can do better.”
As a leader at my job, I can also tell you that I wish that those working for and with me, get to enjoy the same level of success that I had. Not nearly enough is being done to ensure that the leader gets the appropriate recognition and reward because in the corporate environment, it has been a dog-eat-dog world. If a peer or someone under you becomes better than you, they get promoted while you get nothing. Worse, they might take your job. So we try our best to keep the best to ourselves. We try our best to suppress another’s capability so that we can save the rewards for ourselves.
But that has to change. The metrics of rewarding someone should be altered. If a leader leads well, he or she ought to be rewarded. If someone performs exceedingly well, he or she ought to be rewarded too. If leaders stopped leading and only cared about their own “KPI”, the team and the company go nowhere. If everyone started caring about each other’s performance at their job, then there will be more than one person doing yours.
Is your ceiling someone else’s floor? Or is your ceiling capping someone else’s ceiling?
