Growth must be intentional— nobody improves by accident.
If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we are not really living. Growth demands a temporary surrender of security. It may mean a giving up of familiar but limiting patterns, safe but unrewarding work, values no longer believed in, relationships that have lost their meaning. As Dostoevsky put it, “taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what most people fear most.” The real fear should be the opposite course.
“How have you changed . . . lately? In the last week, let’s say? Or the last month? The last year? Can you be very specific?”
Napoleon Hill said, “It’s not what you are going to do, but it’s what you are doing now that counts.” Many unsuccessful people have what I call “someday sickness” because they could do some things to bring value to their lives right now. But they put them off and say they’ll do them someday . Their motto is “One of these days.” But as the old English proverb says, “One of these days means none of these days.” The best way to ensure success is to start growing today.
“Man’s mind, once stretched by new ideas, never regains its original dimensions.”
Growth today is an investment for tomorrow.
“The greatest enemy of tomorrow’s success is today’s success.”
Thinking that you have “arrived” when you accomplish a goal has the same effect as believing you know it all. It takes away your desire to learn.
“a winner knows how much he still has to learn, even when he is considered an expert by others; a loser wants to be considered an expert by others before he has learned enough to know how little he knows.”
successful people get ahead during the time other people waste.”
“It’s been my observation that most successful people get ahead during the time other people waste.”
That’s one reason I carry books and magazines with me whenever I travel. During the downtimes, such as waiting for a connection in an airport, I can go through a stack of magazines, reading and cutting out articles. Or I can skim through a book, learning the major concepts and pulling out quotes I’ll be able to use later. And when I’m in town, I maximize my learning time by continually listening to instructive tapes in the car.
Learning something every day is the essence of being a continual learner.
The key to a life of continual learning and improvement lies in developing a specific plan for growth and following through with it. I recommend a plan that requires an hour a day, five days a week. I use that as the pattern because of a statement by Earl Nightingale, which says, “If a person will spend one hour a day on the same subject for five years, that person will be an expert on that subject.” Isn’t that an incredible promise? It shows how far we are capable of going when we have the discipline to make growth our daily practice. When I teach leadership conferences, I recommend the following growth plan to participants: MONDAY: Spend one hour with a devotional to develop your spiritual life. TUESDAY: Spend one hour listening to a leadership podcast or audio lesson. WEDNESDAY: Spend one hour filing quotes and reflecting on the content of Tuesday’s tape. THURSDAY: Spend one hour reading a book on leadership. FRIDAY: Spend half the hour reading the book and the other half filing and reflecting. As you develop your plan for growth, start by identifying the three to five areas in which you desire to grow. Then look for useful materials—books, magazines, audiotapes, videos—and incorporate them into your plan.
“There has not yet been a person in our history who led a life of ease whose name is worth remembering.”
Jim Rohn urged, “Don’t let your learning lead to knowledge. Let your learning lead to action.” The bottom line when it comes to personal development is action. If your life doesn’t begin to change as a result of what you’re learning, you’re experiencing one of these problems: You’re not giving your growth plan enough time and attention; you’re focusing too much time on the wrong areas; or you’re not applying what you learn.
I do that by asking myself these questions anytime I learn something new: Where can I use it? When can I use it? Who else needs to know it? These questions take my focus off simply acquiring knowledge and put it onto applying what I learn to my life. Try using them. I think they’ll do the same for you.
“It is never too late to be what you might have become.”
Something in human nature tempts us to stay where we’re comfortable. We try to find a plateau, a resting place, where we have comfortable stress and adequate finances. Where we have comfortable associations with people, without the intimidation of meeting new people and entering strange situations.
Aturkey was chatting with a bull. “I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree,” sighed the turkey, “but I haven’t got the energy.” “Well,” replied the bull, “why don’t you nibble on some of my droppings? They’re packed with nutrients.” The turkey pecked at a lump of dung and found that it actually gave him enough strength to reach the lowest branch of the tree. The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch. Finally after a fourth night, there he was proudly perched at the top of the tree. But he was promptly spotted by a hunter, who shot him down out of the tree. The moral of the story: BS might get you to the top, but it won’t keep you there.
my life began changing when I stopped setting goals for where I wanted to be and started setting the course for who I wanted to be. I have discovered for others and me that the key to personal development is being more growth oriented than goal oriented.
If you had an interest in cooking, with whom would you rather spend an hour—Mario Batali (chef, cookbook author, owner of Babbo Ristorante e Enoteca and other restaurants in New York City, and host of two shows on the Food Network) or your neighbor who loves to cook and actually does it “every once in a while”? Or if you were a leadership student, as I am, would you rather spend that hour with the president of the United States or with the person who runs the local convenience store? It’s no contest. Why? Because you respect most and can learn best from the person with great competence and experience.
Competence is a key to credibility, and credibility is the key to influencing others. If people respect you, they will listen to you.
If you were to plant fruit and nut trees in your yard, when could you expect to start harvesting from them? Would you be surprised to learn that you had to wait years—three to seven years for fruit, five to fifteen years for nuts? If you want a tree to produce, first you have to let it grow. The more the tree has grown and has created strong roots that can sustain it, the more it can produce. The more it can produce, the greater its value.
In fact, it’s said that a tree keeps growing as long as it is living. I would love to live in such a way that the same could be said for me—“he kept growing until the day he died.”
If you look back at a job you did years ago, and you don’t think you could do it better now, then you’re not improving in that area of your life.
“It is the capacity to develop and improve their skills that distinguishes leaders from followers.”1 If you’re not moving forward as a learner, then you are moving backward as a leader.
“The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.”
One leader I interviewed for this book told me that when he was in his first job, his boss would sit him down after he made a mistake and talk it through with him. Every time before he left one of those meetings, his boss asked, “Did you learn something from this?” and he would ask him to explain. At the time, this young leader thought his boss was being pretty tough on him. But as he progressed through his career, he discovered that many of his successes could be traced back to practices he adopted as a result of those talks. It made a huge positive impact on him because it kept making him better.
Once you reach a degree of proficiency in your craft, then one of the best things you can do for yourself is talk your craft with others on the same and higher levels than you. Many people do this naturally. Guitarists talk about guitars. Parents talk about raising children. Golfers talk about golf. They do so because it’s enjoyable, it fuels their passion, it teaches them new skills and insights, and it prepares them to take action.