John MAXWELL

15THE
INVALUABLE
LAWS OF
GROWTH

LIVE THEM
AND REACH YOUR
POTENTIAL
 The law of intentionality
1 Growth doesn’t just happen
Life is now in session. Are you present?

• Do you have a plan for your personal growth? If you focus on goals, you may hit
goals-but that doesn’t guarantee growth. If you focus on growth, you will grow
and always hit goals. “People are anxious to improve their circumstances but are
unwilling to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound”.

 Growth gap traps: If you have dreams, goals, or aspirations, you need to grow
to achieve them. 8 misconceptions about growth may be holding you back from
being as intentional as you need to be:

 The assumption gap – “I assume that I will automatically grow”.

 The knowledge gap – “I don’t know how to grow”.
 The timing gap – “It’s not the right time to begin”.
 The mistake gap – “ I’m afraid of making mistakes”.
 The perfection gap – “ I have to find the best way before I start”.
 The inspiration gap – “ I don’t feel like doing it”.
 The comparison gap – “ Others are better than me”.
 The expectation gap – “ I thought it would be easier than this”: Preparation
(growth) + attitude + opportunity + action (doing something about it) = LUCK
 The law of intentionality
1 Growth doesn’t just happen
Life is now in session. Are you present?

 Making the transition:

 Ask the big question now:

o Where do you want to go in life?
o What direction do you want to go?
o What’s the farthest you can imagine going?
“To whomever much is give – much shall be required”. Give growing your best so
you can become your best.

 Do it now.
 Face the fear factor
 Change from accidental to intentional growth.

• Growth doesn’t just happen. You have to go for it!

 The law of awareness
2 You must know yourself to grow yourself
”No one can produce great things who is not thoroughly sincere in dealing with himself”

• To grow, you must know yourself: your strengths and weaknesses, your interests
and opportunities. To reach your potential, you must know where you want to go
and where you currently are. There are three kinds of people when it comes to
having direction in life:

 People who don’t know what they would like to do.

 People who know what they would like to do but don’t do it.
 People who know what they would like to do and do it.

• You have to know who you are to grow to your potential. But you have to grow
in order to know who you are. So what’s the solution? Explore yourself as you
explore growth. The way to start is to pay attention to your passions. Your passion
lead your growth. And your growth lead to your passion.
 The law of awareness
2 You must know yourself to grow yourself
”No one can produce great things who is not thoroughly sincere in dealing with himself”

• How to find your passion and purpose?

• “The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance”. Ten
questions to help you start working through that process:

 Do you like what you’re doing now?

 What would you like to do? There is a direct connection between finding your
passion and reaching your potential. When you tap into your passion, it gives you
the E&E factor: energy and excellence.

 Can you do what you would like to do?

 Do you know why you want to do what you would like to do?

 Do you know what to do so you can do what you want to do? It begins with:
 Awareness: What steps you need to take to go where you desire to go, to do
what you want to do.
 Action: It means taking initiatives.
 Accountability.
 Attraction: You start attracting like-minded people. If you want to be around
growing people, become a growing person. If you’re growing, you attract
others who are growing.
 The law of awareness
2 You must know yourself to grow yourself
”No one can produce great things who is not thoroughly sincere in dealing with himself”

• How to find your passion and purpose?

• “The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance”. Ten
questions to help you start working through that process:

 Do you know people who do what you’d like to do?

 Should you do what you’d like to do with them?
 Will you pay the price to do what you want to do? When it comes to barriers to
success, we are usually our own worst enemies.

 When can you start doing what you’d like to do? If you wait until you are
ready, maybe you never will start. Nobody ever got ready by waiting. You only get
ready by starting.

 What will it be like when you get to do what you’d like to do?
 The law of the mirror
3 You must see value in yourself to add value to yourself
” Personal development is the belief that you are worth the effort, time, and energy needed to
develop yourself”

• The main reason that let people fail to grow and reach their potential is low self-
esteem. They don’t believe in themselves. If you don’t realize that you have
genuine value and that you are worth investing in, then you will never put in the
time and effort needed to grow to your potential:

 Self-esteem is the single most significant key to a person’s behavior: If you

see you are worthless, then you won’t add value to yourself.

 Low self-esteem puts ceiling on your potential: People are never able to
outperform their self-image.

 The value we place on ourselves is usually the value others place on us: You
shouldn’t become too concerned about what others might think of you. You should
be more concerned about what you think of yourself. If you put a small value on
yourself, rest assured the world will not raise the price.
• If you want to become the person you have the potential to
be, you must believe you can!
 The law of the mirror
3 You must see value in yourself to add value to yourself
” Personal development is the belief that you are worth the effort, time, and energy needed to
develop yourself”

• Steps to build your Self image:

 Guard your self-talk: Every positive thing you can say to yourself will help.
 Stop comparing yourself to others: The only one you should compare yourself
to is you.

 Move beyond your limiting beliefs: It’s not what you are that holds you back;
it’s what you think you are not.

 Add value to others: It’s hard to feel bad about yourself when you’re doing
something good for someone else.

 Do the right thing, even if it’s the hard thing.

 Practice a small discipline daily in a specific area of your life.
 Celebrate small victories.
 Embrace a positive vision for your life based on what you value.
 Practice the one – word strategy.
 Take responsibility for your life.
 The law of reflection
4 Learn to pause allows growth to catch up with you
” Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more
effective action”.

• The power of pausing:

• Learning to pause allows growth to catch up with you. That’s the law of
reflection. How reflection and pause can help you to grow?

 Reflection turns experience into insight: Evaluated experience is the best

teacher.

 Everyone needs a time and place to pause: Pausing allows people to make sure
they are on the right track. After all. If someone is going down the wrong road, he
doesn’t need motivation to speed up. He needs to stop, reflect, and change course.
If we don’t take the time to pause and reflect, we can miss the significance of
important events. Reflection allows these experiences to move from being life
markers to life makers.

 Pausing with intention expands and enriches thinking.

 When to take time to pause, use you I’s: Investigation, incubation (listening
and learning), illumination, illustration.
 The law of reflection
4 Learn to pause allows growth to catch up with you
” Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more
effective action”.

• Personal awareness questions:

• “Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers”.
The best way to give you insight on the issue is to ask a series of questions and
answer them helping you to develop your personal awareness:

 What is my biggest asset?: E.g. Positive attitude.

 What is my biggest liability?
 What is my highest high?
 What is my lowest low?
 What is my most worthwhile emotion?
 What is my least worthwhile emotion?
 What is my best habit?
 What is my worst habit?
 What is most fulfilling to me?
 What do I prize most highly?

 Your goal in personal growth is reaching your potential. To do that, you

need to keep pausing, keep asking questions, and keep growing every day.
 The law of consistency
5 Motivation gets you going-Discipline keeps you growing
” The hallmark of excellence, the test of greatness, is consistency”.

• Often whatever motivation people received didn’t seem to last very long.
Motivation gets you going, but discipline keeps you growing. That’s the law of
consistency.

• To become more disciplined and consistent in your performance, you need to

become more discipline and consistent in your growth. How can you do that?

 Do you know what you need to improve?

 Do you know how you are supposed to improve? To grow, most people need
knowledge, experience, and coaching. How to improve yourself?
 Match your motivation to your personality type.
 Start with the simple stuff.
 Be patient.
 Value the process.

 Do you know why you want to keep improving?

 Do you know when you are supposed to improve? Discipline is the bridge
between goals and accomplishments, and that bridge must be crossed every day.
Over time that daily crossing becomes a habit. People do not decide their future;
they decide their habits and their habits decide their future.
 The law of environment
6 Growth thrives in conductive surrounding
” The first step toward success is taken when you refuse to be a captive of the environment
you first find yourself in”.

• Change depends on your choices:

• Growth = Change. When you change your attitude regarding a problem, you
open up many opportunities for growth. When it comes to environment, we need
to make the following six choices to put ourselves in a better place for growth:

 Assess your environment.

 Change yourself and your environment. Think about the right kind of growth
environment provide: Growth, purpose and people.

 Change who you spend your time with: We can divide people into the bottom,
middle, and top thirds, and they always have the same characteristics:
Top
Top third
third maintains
maintains aa positive
positive
attitude
attitude even
even in
in tough
tough times:
times: they
they
are
are leaders, influencers, and game-
leaders, influencers, and game-
changers.
changers.

Middle
Middle third:
third:
Circumstances
Circumstances dictates
dictates
their
their attitude
attitude

Bottom
Bottom third:
third: Nothing
Nothing is
is ever
ever
good
good for
for them.
them. They
They take
take energy
energy
and motivation
and motivation out
out of
of an
an
environment.
environment.
 The law of environment
6 Growth thrives in conductive surrounding
” The first step toward success is taken when you refuse to be a captive of the environment
you first find yourself in”.

• Change depends on your choices:

•When it comes to environment, we need to make the following six choices to put
ourselves in a better place for growth:

 Challenge yourself in your new environment.

 Focus on the moment.
 Move forward despite criticism : As you take action to change yourself and
your environment, you will almost certainly be criticized for it. “someone’s
opinion of you does not have to become your reality”. Before making a major
change, seek wise counsel if you can, but make your own decisions. You are
ultimately accountable for choices you make in your life.

• Never forget the law of environment: Growth thrives in

conductive surroundings. Strive to be in a positive
environment or change your environment and yourself.
 The law of design
7 To maximize growth, develop strategies
” If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And
guess what they may have planned for you? Not much”.

• To maximize growth, you must develop strategies. That’s the low of design.

•Life lessons:
 Life is very simple but keeping it that way is very difficult: As you develop
strategies for growth, keep them personal, repeatable, and transferrable.

 Designing your life is more important than designing your carrier.

 Life is not a dress rehearsal: “You only live once. But if you work it right,
once is enough”.

 In planning your life, multiply everything by two.

• To develop strategies, depend on systems:

• Most accomplishments in life come more easily if you approach them
strategically. By creating and using systems you accomplish something
strategically on a consistent basis. A system is a process for predictably achieving
a goal based on specific, orderly, repeatable principles and practices. Systems are
great tools for personal growth. Systems are deliberate, intentional, and practical.
 The law of design
7 To maximize growth, develop strategies
” If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And
guess what they may have planned for you? Not much”.

• Systems include:
 Effective systems take the big picture into account.
 Effective systems make use of priorities.
 Effective systems include measurement: “ measurement is the first step that
leads to control and eventually to improvement. If you can’t measure something,
you can’t understand it. If you can’t understand it, you can’t control it. If you can’t
control it, you can’t improve it”. Hawthorne effect: When people know their
work is measured, their productivity increased.

 Effective systems include application: It’s not enough just to plan. Both plan
and action must go together. The plan creates the track. The action provides the
traction.
 Effective systems employ organization.
 Effective systems promote consistency.

• “If you go to work on your goals, your goals will go to work on you. If you go
to work on your plan, your plan will go to work on you. Whatever good things
we build end up building us” That’s the law of design.
 The law of Pain
8 Good management of bad experiences leads to great growth
” Every problem introduces a person to himself”.

• What I know about bad experiences:

 Everyone has them: You have to deal with them. You can’t avoid them.
 No one likes them.
 Few people make bade experiences Positive experiences.

• Let your discomfort be a catalyst for your development. Growth is the

best possible outcome of any negative experience.
• How to turn your pain into gain:
 Choose a positive life stance.
 Embrace and develop your creativity.
 Embrace the value of bad experiences: Where there is no struggle, there is no
progress.

 Make good changes after learning from bad experiences: Allow your
emotions to be the catalyst for change, think through how to change to make sure
you are making good choices, and then take action.

 Take responsibility of your life.

 The law of Ladder
9 Character growth determines the height of your personal growth
” Achievements to most people is something you do…
to the high achiever, it is something you are”.

• The value of character

• Honesty is the core of good character, is the quality that most enhances or
damages personal reputation. People want to follow leaders of good character. But
before you or I work with any other person or follow any other leader, we have to
rely on OURSELVES everyday. If you cannot trust yourself, you won’t ever be
able to grow. Good character, with honesty and integrity is essential to success in
any area of life.

• Rungs on character ladder:

 Focus on being better on the inside than on the outside - Character matters.
 Follow the golden rule - People matter.
 Teach only what you believe – Passion matters.
 Value humility above all virtues – Perspective matters.
 Strive to finish well – Faithfulness matters: Be determined to keep building
character and living at the highest standard.

 If we desire to grow and reach our potential, we must pay more attention to
our character than to our success. It means maturing our soul.
 The law of Rubber band
10 Growth stops when you lose the tension between where you are and where
you want to be
” Only a mediocre person is always at his best”.

• “God’s gift to us: potential. Our gift to god: Developing it”. How? By getting
out of our comfort zone. By continually stretching – mentally, emotionally, and
spiritually. Life begins out of our comfort zone. We go there by stretching.

• The benefits of tension

• Rubber bands are useful only when they are stretched! That can be said of us:
 Few people want to stretch: We must be aware of the gap that stands between
us and our potential, and let the tension of that gap motivate us to keep striving to
become better.
 Settling for the status quo ultimately leads to dissatisfaction.
 Stretching always starts from the inside Out : Instead of wishing, wanting, and
waiting, people need to search inside themselves for reasons to start.
 Stretching always requires change: You can’t improve and avoid change at the
same time.
 Stretching sets you apart from others
 Stretching can become a lifestyle.
 Stretching gives you a shot of excellence.
Leave your comfort zone and stretch toward your capacity zone.
 The law of trade-Offs
11 You have to give up to grow up
” People will cling to an unsatisfactory way of life rather than change in order to get something
better for fear of getting something worse”.

• When you’re first starting out a career it’s not very hard to give up to grow up.
You are willing to give up everything for an opportunity because your
“everything” isn’t much of anything! But what about when you’ve started to earn
some things? Are you willing to give up those things for a chance at doing
something that will take you closer to your potential?

• That’s the way the law of trade-offs works: if you want to grow up to your
potential, you must be willing to give up some things you value.

• Trade-offs worth making:

 Are you willing to give up financial security today for potential tomorrow?
 Are you willing to give up immediate gratification for personal growth?
 Are you willing to give up the fast life for the good life?
 Are you willing to give up security for significance?
 Are you willing to give up addition for multiplication?
 The law of trade-Offs
11 You have to give up to grow up
” People will cling to an unsatisfactory way of life rather than change in order to get something
better for fear of getting something worse”.

• The truth about trade-offs

• Life has many intersections, opportunities to grow up or down. At these
intersections we make choices. We can add something to our life, subtract from it,
or exchange something we have for something we haven’t. How to use these
trade-offs for you advantage?

 Trade-offs are available to us throughout life.

 We must learn to see trade-offs as opportunities for growth: We don’t always
get what we want, we always get what we choose.

 Trade offs force us to make difficult personal changes.

 The loss of a trade-off is usually felt long before the gain.
 Most trade-offs can be made at any time.
 A few trade-offs come only once.
 The higher you climb, the tougher the trade-offs.
 Trade-offs never leave us the same.
 Some trade-offs are never worth the price. I
 The law of curiosity
12 Growth is stimulated by asking why?
” Some men see things as they are and ask why.
Others dream things that never were and ask why not.”

• Curiosity is the key to being a lifelong learner, and if you want to keep growing
and developing, you must keep on learning. Curiosity is the primary catalyst for
self-motivated learning. Curiosity helps a person to think and expand possibilities
beyond the ordinary. Asking why? Fires the imagination. It leads to discovery. It
open up options. It takes people beyond the ordinary and leads to extraordinary
living.

• How to cultivate curiosity?

 Believe you can be curious.
 Have a beginner’s mind-set.
 Make why your favorite word.
 Spend time with other curious people.
 Learn something new every day.
 Partake in the fruit of failure.
Stop looking for the right answer: There is more than one solution to a problem
 Get over yourself.
 Get out of the box.
 Enjoy your life.
 The law of modeling
13 It’s hard to improve when you have no one but yourself to follow
” The most important personal-growth phrase you will ever hear a good leader say to you is
“Follow me”.”

• Resources have little values unless you can pull from them the essentials you
need. It’s hard to improve when you have no one but yourself to follow. That’s the
law of modeling.

• Whom should you follow?

•You must be selective in who you choose as a mentor. Below are listed criteria to
determine the worthiness of a model for you to follow:

 A good mentor is a worthy example: We become like the people we admire and
the models we follow.

 A good mentor is available.

 A good mentor has proven experience.
 A good mentor possesses wisdom.
 A good mentor provides friendship and support
 A good mentor is a coach who makes a difference in people’s live: He is the
one who goes before and shows the way.
 The law of Expansion
14 Growth always increases your capacity
” There is no finish line”.

• When you think of limits, you create them. The only way to increase your
capacity internally is to change the way you approach personal growth. Learning
more information isn’t enough. You must change how you think and you must
change your actions.

• How to increase your thinking capacity?

 Stop thinking more work and start thinking what works?
 Stop thinking Can I? and start thinking how can I?
 Stop thinking one door and start thinking many doors.

• How to increase your capacity for action?

 Stop doing only those things you have done before and start doing those
things you could and should do.

 Stop doing what is expected and start doing more than is expected.
 Stop doing important things occasionally and start doing important things
daily.
 The law of Expansion
14 Growth always increases your capacity
” There is no finish line”.

“ Learning is discovering that something is possible”. The law of expansion is

about learning, growing, increasing our capacity. Law of expansion: Growth
always increases your capacity. You have the potential to keep making progress
until the day you die – if you have the right attitude about growth.
 The law of Contribution
15 Growing yourself enables you to grow others
” If you’re not doing something with your life, it doesn’t matter how long it is!”.

• If you live by the law of Contribution, you will have much to give other people,
because growing yourself enables you to grow others.

• Making the right contribution choices

• Giving of your time, expertise, and resources without expecting anything in
return is an unselfish act that makes the world a better place. We need more
givers. How to cultivate an attitude of contribution:
 Be grateful.
 Put people first.
 Don’t let stuff own you.
 Don’t let people own you.
 Define success as sowing, not reaping.
 Focus on self-development, not self-fulfillment.
 Keep growing and keep giving.

• Growing yourself enables you to grow others: this is the

law of contribution.
 The 15 invaluable laws of growth
15 Live them and reach your potential

1. The law of intentionality

2. The law of awareness
3. The law of mirror
4. The law of reflection
5. The law of consistency
6. The law of environment
7. The law of design
8. The law of pain
9. The law of ladder
10. The law of rubber band
11. The law of trade-offs
12. The law of curiosity
13. The law of modeling
14. The law of extension
15. The law of contribution