Build your following on a firm foundation

A foundation is the lowest load-bearing part of a building, typically below ground level. That definition suggests support is a necessary factor in carrying weight.

Establishing criteria to undergird your relationships is foundational. Trustworthiness, dependability, loyalty, sincerity. These qualities will build your following, and they will support it whether you apply them in business, family, or socially. 

Build your following to stand up to strong winds

Round the bend and there it is: the horse barn that has stood for nearly a hundred years on the property where my mother grew up. Seeing it evoked a sense of tradition and security, of closeness to the land and community with the people who built it.

Barns, in a bygone era perhaps, were intimately connected with the families who built them and with the communities that surrounded them. So discovering this structure that has stood through decades of rainstorms, and snowstorms, winds, and every other type of torment made the past present.

In my imagination, that ancient barn represented a whole way of life. Whether or not it was built to withstand, it did. There is value in building a following that will stand the test of time. When the winds blow it will not fall.

From the days when Thomas Jefferson envisioned the new republic as a nation dependent on citizen farmers for its stability and its freedom, the family farm has been a vital image in the American consciousness. His vision suggests stability that rests on the shoulders of tradition. 

Build your following to leave a mark

Psalm 103:16  has this alert: . . . for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more.