Thermostat Vs Thermometer

"People Are Either Thermometers Or Thermostats. They Will Merely Reflect The Climate Around Them, Or They Will Set It. Leaders Develop Values And Principles To Live By And Set The Tone For Others." by Dr Tim Elmore.

How do we differentiate ourselves being a Thermometer or Thermostats?

How is it possible for us to set values for others, instead of following the crowd?

Why do most of us mirror back ourselves into the climate around us?

Most people around us are like "Thermometers", they tend to reflect the culture around them. They simply follow other people's footstep; buying things that others buy without seeing if they have the needs, saying things that others say and amazingly they maynot even aware of it. Following the fashion or trends neither did they think that if it suits them, and value things that others value which eventually they tend to lost their own identity.

Minority of us will decide to take life to the next level, according to the author, this group of people are known as the "Thermostats". They are the pacesetters, unlike the former, "Thermostats" will try to influence rather than allowing others to control them.

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Not long ago there are new memebers joining the "Thermometers" group. When the Lehman Brothers file for bankruptcy on Sept 15 2008, people were protesting outside the banks and on the street, demanding for compensation. The reason for these is because people are following the trends; no sense of own identity, zero knowledge of the financial institute and their products. Investment is all about risk & return, if you are not prepared please don't let yourself to be the "Thermometer". It may sound easy, but with all the temptation out there in the market, few of us could control ourselves. Maybe we should begin with our inner self.

The challenge here is how to move from being a "Thermometer" to a "Thermostat"

We have to be 'authentic' . We need to developed our own set of values & principles, directing us to the way of dos & don'ts.

Found in Dr Tim Elmore's Habitudes: A young girl and her dad visiting an amusement park one Saturday. They walked up to a booth where a man was guessing people's weight. A large, heavy-set man steeped up, and the employee attempted to guess his weight. Then, the hefty man steeped up on the scales only to find they had broken. The needle moved only slightly and the scale reported the man weight just twenty-five pounds. At that point, the little girl said to her dad: "Look dad! A hollow man." May this will never happen to us, when people examine our reliabilities and values.