An Inspirational Leader

Today was just awesome.

Barron Witherspoon who is our Asia Pacific Director (AAI) of the sales function is down in Syd with us for our QBP deployment. He's originally from Tennessee, US and have since moved around the world with his family for work. Currently he resides in Singapore.

Anyhow, the most amazing thing that I found about him was that he stood up infront of approx 60 of us to not talk about the business or any motivational speech at all but instead vulnerably spoke about him. His purpose, His beliefs, His values, His dream. It was awesome. He talked about his family as well as God!! Yes GOD!! in front of all of us!! You could really feel his passion and gosh I definitely caught his fire and so wanted to say 'Amen brother!'. He talked about his purpose of living and that is to glorify God while fulfilling the purpose of his life. He used bible verses to define his life's purpose statement (ie. 'And for me and my household, we will serve the Lord', 'The greatest of all is Love'). I really felt like it was a church service just listening to him during the half hour slot. The funniest moment of all was when he was explaining his 'dream' statement which talked about his desire to 'help one to fulfill their purpose even if it is an eternal one'. As a Christian, you know what that means, but for a non-Christian, they didn't. So the marketing Director of Aust basically put her hand up and asked 'what do you mean by an eternal one?' , which of course was a great 'home run' for any preacher! as it meant an opportunity to share more of God's word to them thnx to their inquisitiveness.

Barron is a type of guy that I really look up to as a role model. He's a man that has it all and it doesn't take long for you to see why. He's a very humble guy who brings all glory to God in everything that he does. His values are right. His attitude to life is right but most of all, his priorities are right. He always aim to serve others even though he's sooooo high up in the company! He's literally 2nd highest in the region of Asia Pacific! On top of that he has a wonderful family. He's a preacher to his church in Singapore International Baptist church. He's created a trust fund for a small university SE of US to sponsor poor but bright kids with scholarships and runs his family business with the Tenessee walking horse organisation back home in the States and on top of that, he's on his way to writing two Christian books about 'Cross-cultural worship'. He's also a very family oriented man. An inspirational leader in so many ways.

So the whole day today, everyone wanted a piece of him. Who doesn't? Finally, when dinner came, I was determined to send my heartfelt thanks for his openess to all of us as well as to commend him for standing up in front of so many non-Christians at WORK to 'preach' to them in the most subtle but also confronting way. To my surprise, God saved me a seat right next to him. What's more, the other lady from WA who sat to the left of him is also a Christian!! So the 3 of us literally chatted the whole night about GOD!! It was just awesome! Hope one day, I'll be in Singapore to see him preach at his church and this time, I'll surely be saying 'Amen!'