BY PRIYA ALI
Who would you rather spend thirty minutes listening to. someone preaching or teaching? Are the people you are turning to for guidance, preaching or teaching? There are so many people out there these days posing in many ways as “coaches”, “mentors”, “advisors” and “self help experts”. While they are able to talk the talk, if you dig deeply enough you will find that some do not walk the walk.
People who preach know all the right things to say, they will sound extremely passionate, powerful and often positive with their words. They can inspire you to do greater, be greater, achieve greater. That said, when you look into their personal lives, often you will find that what they are preaching about is not reflected in their own lives. They may inspire you but they fall short when it comes to guiding you as they have yet to walk the path themselves.
People who teach are speaking to you from experience. They have already acquired the knowledge of the lesson or message. They have been through the trials and errors that come with mastering the skill and have implemented it into their own life.
They will have clear information on how to achieve something and will often demonstrate a clear passion for sharing their knowledge simply out of passion for the subject or the change it can promote. Those who preach are often affiliated with an income earning organization and selling their messages.
I often find it so interesting when I see people in the self-development industry in front of a room telling people what to do and how to think to obtain something that they themselves have yet to achieve. This tends to be more a reflection of their desire to feed their ego. Now are the preached messages worthless? Absolutely not, but they are energetically void because they are not coming from an energetic place of sharing knowledge and experience. They can come from the energy of wanting to be revered and followed.
To empower yourself, my advice is to do your homework. Whatever skill or message is being shared, check to see if that person has mastered it or implemented the theory into their own life. Have they been able to attain and sustain it long term. Are they able to do more than offer you a positive message in a flashy way? Is their story more than a story that they are preaching about and sharing, does it come with instructions on how you can implement it into your own life?
Someone whose purpose and desire is to teach, will come with a message that is clearly designed to impart knowledge, clarity, concrete tools and techniques to move you forward to the next level for you. The will be able to guide you along the path to achieve or succeed because in addition to talking the talk, they are walking the walk.
