The power of personal conviction

Oliver Mtukudzi or Strive Masiyiwa or Prophet Makandiwa go and say the same words in exactly the same fashion to 10 people at the same location, how many people will follow them?
The issue that I am trying to highlight is what attracts people to certain individuals?

What attracts people to you?
What attracts people to certain businesses?
What attracts people to certain preachers/churches?

Many people are tempted to bad mouth people or businesses that are more successful than them.
In our culture, success is always associated with (chikwambo) juju.
Is this how we should always view success? Does our society consider success as a blessing or curse?

Preachers likewise are quick to badmouth their more successful adversaries, who attract more people than them, by telling their few parishioners that the successful one is anti-Christ.
They spend valuable time trying to bring down more successful preachers instead of spreading the of God.
Likewise, less successful businessmen spend a lot of time trying to bring down more successful competitors using unorthodox means instead of learning how best they can produce quality goods or how best they can meet the needs and wants of their customers.

For weeks I tried to convince my six colleagues to go fishing with me.
I promised to supply all of them with fishing equipment and in addition I also offered them free transport, free lunch and refreshments.
A night before the expedition five chickened out and no substantial explanation was given for their last-minute withdrawal.
I failed to understand their behaviour until someone told me that I probably had nothing substantial to offer them.

My fishing lines, free transport and food were not what my colleagues considered to be worth sacrificing their day for. Maybe I wasn’t persuasive enough.
This explanation links followership to perceived benefits of doing so. People are not really worried about your actual identity but by what you can do for them.
People always want something from achievers because they don’t have it themselves but want to know how to have it. Most people who have what people are looking for have relatively high levels of personal conviction as well.

Conviction enables people to do what they would not ordinarily do. It can elevate you to a position, which you might have dreamt of.
Conviction is borne out of self-belief. It can grow as a result of one’s natural attributes (God-given gift) or out of experiencing success on certain events.
Conviction germinates and grows out of a “I CAN DO IT” seedbed that is housed in one’s mental attitude.

Conviction can be in borne or can develop even if you were born without personal drive.
Conviction is moving behavioural pattern. It can go up or down depending on the stimulus one is getting from the environment.
I will start by looking at conviction from a God-given gift point of view.

Jesus recruited his disciples in a amazing way. He identified professionals, gainful employed industrious fishermen and told them to quit their profession and follow him.
This was a huge sacrifice for Peter and his companions though people in this part of the world take it for granted because we do not belong to a fishing nation.
Commercial fishing in Israel was equivalent to commercial farming in Zimbabwe.

Imagine someone commanding some commercial farmers to leave their centre pivots, combine harvesters, tractors and livestock to follow them.
Abandoning one’s livelihood and starting afresh is synonymous with taking an uncalculated risk.
We are told that when Jesus commanded the disciples to become “fishers of men” Peter and the other disciples immediately left everything to follow him.

There are many reasons why Peter, James and John left their families and livelihood to follow Jesus.
One of the reasons is that they expected Jesus to fulfil their expectations. It could also be the authority Jesus represented which convinced those busy fishermen to quit their business.
In addition, it could be the conviction with which Jesus spoke with that made huge crowds to follow him wherever he went. The Bible tells us that people marvelled at Jesus as he spoke with authority.

The Bible describes Jesus as special teacher or scribe that was a cut above all the other teachers or scribes of his time.
In other words, he separated himself from the rest through his conviction, authority and courage to fulfil his mission.
Conviction is useless without courage, ambition and unwavering commitment to fulfilling set goals.

Deep conviction is the genesis of all achievements. Conviction draws another person to you.
Conviction is also said to force other living and non-living things to behave in a way that helps you find success.

Faith creates conviction.
Once you say “yes this can happen”, you then built a conviction that it can indeed happen.
Faith is the evidence of the things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.

A person needs to be sure of things he hopes for. Evidence of things not seen can be synonymous with a building plan.
A house is built twice (plan first and then construction). Building is the manifestation of your conviction. Building is the evidence of what you hope for.
Immense faith deepens a man’s conviction. Faith brings down the walls we erect to protect us from achieving.

In his encounter with the woman who had been passing blood for a number of years and had the conviction that by touching the hem of Jesus’ garment she could be saved, Jesus upon feeling that power has gone out of him asked who had touched him.

When the woman came forward Jesus said to her: “Your faith has made you well.” (Mark 6 v7)
Faith has the ability to deepen one’s conviction. What we continue to say to ourselves will deepen our faith.
Our words and what we believe in strengthens our conviction.

Faith starts in the mind. If you want to achieve something, you have to develop a certain way of thinking.
Great desire, determination, high energy levels and passion must accompany conviction.