THE 15 INVALUABLE LAWS OF GROWTH

The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth, is a New York Times best seller and is an outstanding must-have resource that I recommend you add to your library for reaching your full potential.

As the title of the book suggests, there are 15 chapters, covering 15 fundamental laws of growth.

In this brief introduction, we will cover two of the laws.

  1. The Law of Pain
  2. The Law of the rubber band

If I had to ask a crowded auditorium how many believe they have reached their full potential in life or business, I am pretty sure not a single hand would go up. Why? Because we all believe we have room to grow. I know I have room to grow. Do you want to be a better person tomorrow than you are today? Growing yourself daily is the only guarantee that you will be better than you were the day before. The Law of Pain tells us that we will all experience “growing pains”; life lessons requiring some form of pain management. How we handle these painful moments affects our growth. And the Law of the Rubber Band explains that in order for you to grow to your full potential, you have to stretch beyond your current comfort zone.

But before I start, I want to share a personal story with you. When I was a young man in the early 1980’s, I started a business distributing industrial hoses. I had been working for a manufacturer, and I had become the top technical sales person. I was using methods never before used by other sales people, and my numbers were excellent. A friend proposed financing my efforts, and I found myself the owner of a small hose company. A year after starting out I attracted the attention of another hose distributor, and agreed to sell him a minority stake in the business. My new partner was a senior and well respected member of the business community, and I learned a lot from him. Seven years on, I was going through a difficult time in my personal life, and I made a decision which had a huge negative impact on my life. I broke two cardinal rules; I made a big decision while under emotional stress and turmoil, and I chose an easy short term solution instead of tough longer term one with infinitely more future potential.

I sold the business, for an attractive sum of money, but not remotely its future value. Why? Because I now realise that I was not willing to go through the growth required (changing some of my lifestyle behaviour) to take the business to the next level (perhaps a minor listing on the JSE). That decision haunted me for many years as I struggled to replicate the success. Nevertheless, here I am, so many years later, much richer for the journey since then.

Let’s begin…

The Law of Pain says that the good management of bad experiences leads to great growth and is necessary to grow. This law is a tough pill to swallow because pain is something we naturally wish to avoid. In fact, most people spend their lives trying to avoid pain. But this law is about teaching you and me how to turn our bad experiences into positive steps leading to our success. John quotes John McDonnell in his chapter on the Law of Pain, saying, “Every problem introduces a person to himself.” The bottom line with this law is that everyone has bad experiences. We can’t avoid them. Some of us run from them…some do whatever little bit they can to deal with them, and others embrace them. No matter what, still we can’t avoid them. The last in that group, those who embrace failures, they are the people, the leaders, who choose to learn from difficult and very challenging experiences.

We all have bad experiences. You’ve heard the saying that “life is filled with ups and downs.” The problem is most of us just wish for “ups and ups!” We do everything in our power to avoid bad situations, yet they will always find us. It’s hard taking it “one day at a time,” when you feel like “the day” just attacked you all at once. And it’s true that no one likes bad experiences. But if you learn to manage your bad experiences well, then you get something good out of them ; plus you have great “war stories” to tell. So many people take the ‘should have, would have, or could have’ path when dealing with bad experiences.

Consider some of the types of pain we face.
The Pain of Incompetence: “I SHOULD have seen that coming.”
The Pain of Financial Loss: “If I COULD only get that back.”
The Pain of Not Being Number One: “I WOULD be at the top if it wasn’t for________.”
The Pain of Indecision: “If only I had DONE it then.” And so on.

We know that very few people actively or intentionally take positive experiences from bad experiences. Many people become bitter from having bad experiences over and over. Few people become better. I want to help you find ways to become better. There is always something positive to take away, but you may not see it at the time of the experience. When you live your life with a positive life stance, you find that the good will become better, and the bad will not be as bad as it seemed in the moment. One way is to embrace and develop our creativity. Neale Donald Walsh says, “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” Use the gift of a bad experience to open your mind and challenge yourself to use your own brilliant creativity. Embrace the value of your bad experiences. You have a choice. You can look at your bad life experiences and be set back from them, or learn from them. Its’ been said that in life there are winners and there are losers. Aside of the final score in a sporting event, I would say, for leaders, there are winners and there are learners. One of the biggest pushes we get going forward from bad experiences is making good changes after learning from bad experiences. A bend in the road is not the end of the road…unless you forget to make the turn. What happens to us is rarely the end of the road. However, many of us focus on our feelings about what has happened to us rather than focus on the thoughts and actions that will lead us in a better direction.

The next time you are faced with a bad experience, remind yourself that you are on the cusp of change. Check your emotions and use them to be a catalyst for change and growth, not for them to paralyze you. Now let me give just one more thing to think about related to the Law of Pain directly connected to leadership. In other words, how do we lead from the Law of Pain and how do you apply this law specifically to your life? There are several questions you can explore, but in this Introduction, let me give you a few to think about.

How do you deal with pain? Do you do anything and everything possible to avoid pain at all? Or do you endure it since you know you have to get through it some way or another? Or do you work to embrace it and remain positive despite having bad experiences? We all know some people who one of these, right?
Thinking about where you are on the spectrum of how you view bad experiences can guide you in taking great advantage of growing from such pain. We know that getting an understanding of what has happened and recognizing the emotions you have because of these experiences, is the start to creating a positive action going forward. There can be numerous pathways going forward. Here are a few things you can do:

  • Get input from others.
  • Understand your emotions.
  • Identify a specific desired change you want to have.
  • Think about what positive change you can influence either in yourself and/or in others.

Above all, remember that personal growth requires action. If you haven’t been ACTING when a bad experience happens, then you’re simply avoiding reality, and living in denial. Personal growth requires action. It’s as simple, and as difficult, as that. Don’t let another painful experience go by without learning and growing from it.

The Law of the Rubber Band

The thesis for this law is: “Growth Stops When You Lose the Tension between where you are and where you could be” If I were to ask the question: “Do you want to grow?” How would you respond? I believe it would be a resounding yes, I want to grow! But the truth of the matter is that for most of us, we avoid any form of pressure because we don’t want to feel uncomfortable. You see, we have been taught that comfort is a place to be desired and strived for. May I introduce a new thought?

All living things grow and that growth requires stretching. John says: “True life begins at the end of our comfort zone and we arrive there by stretching.
Think about some of ways a rubber band can be used. Please notice that rubber bands are ONLY useful when they are stretched. You would not be where you are and who you are today without some form of tension or stretching having taken place. For many, the thought is, when I graduate from high school or university, I have arrived and I can now stop being stretched. I think “the truth is that we should continue growing throughout our lives”. But with growth comes discomfort and initially pain. What we felt in school and college was the tension to do enough to get that diploma. It can easily be described as the tension between where you were and where you wanted to be. So, what did you do?

Did you do more than required of you, or did you do just enough to get by? Perhaps some of you are like me; all I wanted to do was get out of school because my thought was, once I get out of school and obtain the minimum of tertiary education, I will not have to feel all this pressure. For some, they even ask themselves: “Where and when will I use all this stuff anyway?”

OK, I’ll admit that was pretty short-sighted thinking which caused me to meander quite a lot through many years of my life.
However, as one of my personal mantras goes, “it’s never too late for a new beginning”. Better still is a quote from poet Carl Bard (also in the book) which says:
“Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, my friend,
Anyone can start from now and make a new ending”.

And another one of my favourite quotes of all time is:
“God’s gift to us is potential, and our gift to God is developing it.”

So how do we do that? It’s quite simple; by getting out of our comfort zone. By continually stretching, not only physically, but emotionally, intellectually, and even spiritually. John gives us seven benefits to tension that I would like to share with you.

Here’s a quick overview:

  1. Few people ever want to be stretched – it is literally like saying to your employer, I know I am over qualified but I promise to only use half of my ability. Most people use only a fraction of their ability and rarely if ever try to reach their full potential. David Godine claims that only 32% of the US population (potentially even less in SA) has ever been in a bookstore. Why is this statistic so alarming? Because we are not willing to read, to learn, and grow. When was the last time you learned something new for the first time?
  2. Settling for the status-quo – Most people are satisfied to settle into the comfort zone of life falling into familiar patterns and habits they have learned from those around them. Being in the comfort zone may feel good and feel safe but it will lead to mediocrity and ultimately dissatisfaction. It takes real courage to push yourself outside of your comfort zone. No one remembers average people.
  3. Stretching is an inside job – The real process of growth begins with your thoughts. Those thoughts then become words and the words become actions. James Allen says: “You cannot travel within and stand still without.” If you think about it, all life except mankind grows to its full potential. It’s only mankind that circumvents the process. For example: How tall will a tree grow? A tree doesn’t decide to stop growing; it continues growing all its life. This inside job is an internal measurement that allows you to evaluate where you are against what you are capable of.
  4. Stretching always requires change – Change is always a challenge because it propels us out of a place of comfort. Here are a couple of real truths I would like to share with you. You can’t improve and avoid change at the same time! We must stop looking over our shoulder at what was and start focusing on what could be. I find it interesting that you usually will not find a successful person who isn’t restless in some way. And to quote George Elliot, “It is never too late to be what you might have been.” If you are still satisfied with what you did five years ago, then you are not growing
  5. Stretching sets you apart from others – Have you noticed that people seem to have become satisfied with mediocrity? This is about a personal concession to be less than your best. I find it so interesting that excellence seems to be further and further away from the accepted norms of society. Successful people set themselves apart from the crowd by going over and above what others do. As you stretch and get better you will be able to affect and infect others who will follow your lead and everyone will become better as a result.
  6. Stretching can become a lifestyle – When you stop stretching you stop growing and perhaps even stop in other ways too. John Maxwell says “I for one am going to continue stretching and growing as long as I’m on the planet. There is no place for me personally to stop and rest on my laurels because all living things continue growing and it only happens by being stretched.” Make stretching yourself a daily routine.
  7. Stretching gives you a shot at significance – You see, if you are going to grow yourself you must first know yourself. What is the gap between good and great? Could it be that our ability to close that gap is directly related to our willingness to be stretched? Who are you having a positive impact on today? Who is it that you have intentionally invested in today that is making a difference in them and you? John has said: “I want to make a difference, doing something that makes a difference, at a time that makes a difference, with people who make a difference.” People who are committed to stretching themselves will make a difference.

The real bottom line question in the Law of the Rubber Band is … are you always looking for a better way to do what you already do? If you are, then you need to know ahead of time that it will stretch you out of your comfort zone and propel you into your desired future. The Law of the Rubber Band may be my favourite law because as I live it out, I am never the same and I get better.

As you deal with your day to day situations, whether in business or in your personal life, you are going to have several painful experiences. How you choose to deal with those determines how you positively (or negatively) impact your circumstances and influence those around you. What I am saying is: when life gives you lemons, remember the tension of the rubber band and use those lemons to make lemonade.

We have briefly touched on two of John’s 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth. Imagine doing a deeper dive into these Laws in a group setting. What would happen to you if you and your organization took a deeper dive into these Laws? What would that do for your personal growth? I hope reading this added value to you today. Thank you for your attentiveness and thank you for your time.

As I told you at the beginning, personal growth and development has made a huge difference in my life and continues to do so. I am in danger of being called a personal growth junkie. I love personal growth and development, and I think that you will be too, once you’ve started seeing a difference by applying what I have shared with you here today.