What a Difference a Year Makes

I am so proud of Ephraim Ferreira for serenading all the leaders and award recipients who attended the Tampa KMMA Blackbelt Leadership ceremony this weekend.  Congratulations to him for being recognized with the Leadership Excellence Award.  Keep playing and leading, son.  We love you!

As we left this event in 2023, I told Ephraim to consider playing at the ceremony next year.  He responded, “Absolutely, not! I don’t want to play in front of everyone.” Fast forward to 2024, we enter the building, and he walks straight to the piano, sits down, and begins to play unprompted, unscripted, and unrehearsed. He plays his prelude as guests arrive for the next 30 minutes.

Isn’t that just like life?  There is a time and season for everything under the sun.  At the right time opportunities come, doors close, and people mature.  If someone told me, Ephraim would play a mini concert on his own initiative I would have laughed and said, “We’ll see.”  This weekend I saw his next level of passion for playing piano.

When something resonates, people do not have to be compelled to do, they simply become who they are meant to be.  What a difference a year makes!

As leaders, we invest in others and sometimes the return on that investment is slow to manifest any reward, but we must have patience and continue to water and sow seeds of encouragement.  One day, they may walk into their divine appointment unprompted, unscripted, and unrehearsed because you believed in them.