By Robert Clements
Precise, Coloured and Detailed..!
As I see the stupid rebuilt flyover in Andheri, Mumbai, which is six feet higher than one of the arms leading to Juhu, and hear the ridicule the government has to face over it, I am also reminded of the time a few years ago when air-conditioned local trains were going to be introduced.
The day arrived, the showpiece train was put on the tracks and must have even started on its trial run, when the engine driver must have brought the train to a screeching halt screaming, “The train is too tall, it won’t pass under that bridge!”
Yes the train built was 4.335 metres tall, whereas the bridges were as low as 4.27 metres! Not one bridge, not two, but most of the bridges on the route!
How could they have made such a terrible mistake?
Simple; in the haste of trying to fulfill a dream, they forgot to be precise with detail – the detail of doing their research.
Today, India is all alive with the idea of starting start-ups. But from what I’ve heard more than ninety percent of these start-ups fail. They fail because they have not spent time and a little money to go into the details of their idea.
All of us feel any new idea is a brilliant idea. I am sure the team which designed the air-conditioned train in Chennai, thought that having a taller train with more height for the passengers was the best thing they could do. “Mumbai people need more air, more head room!” must have been how they would have whispered to each other as the train was built. “Mumbai commuters will thank us!” they must have said, and today because of the lack of research, because they have to start from the drawing board again, the people of Mumbai are angry.
How simple it would have been for a team of engineers to have checked the train route, measured the height of the old British built bridges and built a prototype of the correct measurements.
Research is often simple, but quite painstaking. Because it is laborious and a bit slow, and because we are impatient trying to fulfill a dream, we tend to bypass it. That’s like attempting suicide!
There may be many of you with fantasies of a new venture, a brilliant idea for a startup, but before doing anything, painstakingly go into details, find out whether it will work on a big scale, where it will work, and whether people are ready for your idea.
If any of you plan to start a new business, are filled with excitement over a brand- new dream. If any of you see yourself as the next Bill Gates, don’t build a train that won’t go under bridges, just do your research first, go into intricate details, otherwise like the Andheri flyover that has caused the present government much embarrassment, you may become, like them, the laughing stock of the world!Something that saddens me no end, is how speakers, writers, preachers and so-called life coaches try to get by without in-depth knowledge and with just superficial rhetoric. Either it’s because of lack of facts, spreading ourselves thin with engagements or relying too much on voice and delivery to fool audiences and participants.
As I study the scriptures, I find that God to the contrary is a God of detail. Just look at the way He explains the physical features of the Tabernacle, in which He wants the traveling Israelites to worship Him in. “Make a curtain of blue, purple and scarlet yarn and finely twisted linen, with cherubim woven into it by a skilled worker. Hang it with gold hooks on four posts of acacia wood overlaid with gold and standing on four silver bases.
“Make the tabernacle with ten curtains of finely twisted linen and blue, purple and scarlet yarn, with cherubim woven into them by a skilled worker. All the curtains are to be the same size—twenty-eight cubits long and four cubits wide. Join five of the curtains together, and do the same with the other five. Make loops of blue material along the edge of the end curtain in one set, and do the same with the end curtain in the other set. Make fifty loops on one curtain and fifty loops on the end curtain of the other set, with the loops opposite each other.’
And that’s just the beginning, as God gives detailed and precise instructions of every square inch and cubic feet of the tabernacle.
Study how He does not leave the coming of Jesus to chance, but there are actually 574 verses in the Old Testament that somehow point to or describe or reference the coming Messiah. And all the prophecies were fulfilled, why? So that you and I can know without a shadow of a doubt who Jesus is.
And then let’s look at the boring genealogy or the ‘begats’ that line both the Old and New Testament, showing a very thorough God, painstakingly fitting each Biblical character into his historical slot to give absolute authenticity and legitimacy to the events.
How do you and I preach or teach or speak? Do we cut and paste sermons, use voice and fancy gestures, or do we who have been made in the image of God, use those same powers to dig deep, think deep and construct fortified unbeatable talk or articles?
God loved colour too, “Make a curtain of blue, purple and scarlet yarn and finely twisted linen, with cherubim woven into it by a skilled worker. Hang it with gold hooks on four posts of acacia wood overlaid with gold and standing on four silver bases.’
Start creating powerful talk, far reaching, exhaustive and comprehensive writing, with precise details, all founded on well researched facts.
And don’t forget, the blue, the purple, the scarlet and gold; colours that enrich the words you say or write!
You want to do well in life, be precise, coloured and detailed…!
The Author conducts an Online Writers and Speakers Course. For more details send a thumbs-up to him on WhatsApp 9892572883 or [email protected]