PNTV: The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth by John Maxwell (#274)

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to Philosopher's Notes TV. Today, another great book, the 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth. The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth by John C. Maxwell. Subtitle Live them and reach your potential. John Maxwell. We recently profiled his How Successful People Think. He's written dozens of books that have sold 24 million copies in 50 different languages. He's a great, inspiring, clear, simple, super practical writer. This book is packed with big ideas. Bunch of my favorites in this philosopher's Note and Let's look at five of my favorites now. So 15 invaluable laws of Growth. Growth is the essence of reaching our potential. He begins the book with the idea of potential. We all want to live at our highest potential. Now how do you do that? By growing as an individual. The only way we're ever going to actualize our potential is if we're committed intentionally to our own personal growth. He gives us those 15 laws on how to do it. Here's my first favorite big idea. He says when he first got into personal growth, he asked himself, he was kind of thinking like, how long is this going to take? And he realized, this is going to take my entire life. So rather than asking himself, how long is this going to take? He asked himself, how far can I go? How far can I go? How far can I take this versus how long is it going to take? Frame those two questions in your mind and, and whatever you have going on in your life, whether it's personal growth and you want to optimize your life, you might be asking yourself, how long is this going to take? Well, news flash, the rest of your life. So you can quit asking that question and start asking, how far can I go? It's a much more empowering frame. And if you have a project that you're working on, you can be asking yourself, how long is this going to take? Or you can say, how far can I take? This super powerful distinction that I find incredibly empowering and I think it's worth a journal exercise. Everyone's always asking for more journal exercises. This is a good one. How far can I go? What would you do if you knew you could not fail? What do you really want to do? If money wasn't an issue, what would you dream of doing? Think about that. Think about how far you can go. And then we want to connect that vision to reality. Dynamic tension between your ideal and current reality. How do you manage that dynamic tension that we always talk about? Baby steps. Action. Now, you can dream all you want, but you need to take action in order to bridge that gap, which will actually be the next big idea. But for now, do it now. John shares a story about. I think it was like 1974 or something. He attended an event with W. Clement Stone, the business tycoon who created an insurance business and then wrote self help stuff as well. Apparently he gave a presentation, the title of which was do it Now. And he said that he challenged people to start and end their days by saying do it now. 50 times. First thing you do when you wake up in the morning is you say to yourself, do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. 10 times. I'll spare you the 50, but you get the idea. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Condition yourself to what? Do it now. That's the only time we can take powerful action. We need to create a sense of urgency in our lives to do that which needs to get done, which creates a forward momentum and progress, which is the most powerful feeling that we can have as we pursue just how far we can go. John said he was in the audience of 8,000 people and it felt like W. Clement Stone was talking directly to him. He went home and did that six months straight. First thing in the morning, 50 do it nows. Last thing at night, 50 do it nows. It's a fun practice I've been playing around with for the last several days. Do it now. It reminds me of the tools. I talk about this in the note a little bit. The first tool. Bring it on. Where? Where we bring on all of the pain, all of the fear that might be inhibiting us. And we do it now. We tap into what they call the higher force of forward motion. There's something magical about taking action consistently, which leads us to the next big idea. One of the laws is the law of consistency. And Maxwell tells us that discipline is the bridge between your goals and your accomplishments. Here are your goals, here are your accomplishments. Discipline is the bridge that marries the two. And he says you need to walk that bridge every single day. And he has a great line, something along the lines of, if you want to change your life, you need to change something you do on a daily basis. You're going to get the same exact thing. If you keep on doing the same thing, you need to change something you do on a daily basis. And Then do it consistently over an extended period of time to benefit compound effect style. You mentioned Darren Hardy a number of times. Right. Small smart choices consistently applied over time equals radically different results. May not feel like a big deal in the moment when you choose to step forward into your highest self or back. But you compound those little decisions over time and you just bridged your goals and accomplishments or you didn't take that bridge and you won't achieve the things you aspire to achieve. Discipline is the bridge. Reminds me as well of Mark Devine, the Navy SEAL commander. When I interviewed him about his book Unbeatable Mind, he talked about the fact that Navy SEALs earn their Trident when they pass their training. The hardest training in the world. Military training in the world. Right. But then he says then they have to re earn it every single day. It's not like you just earn it and done. I'm a seal. You need to show up with discipline every single day so you can continue to bridge your goals and accomplishments. Keep that in mind. Law of consistency is essential to growth. The fourth big idea is the well. This is in a chapter on humility and gratitude and he talks about a Chinese proverb that says something along the lines of when you drink water from a well, you need to remember the people who dug the well. So when you're enjoying the water from a well, remember the people who labored to dig it. It's an awesome idea to stay humble and to stay grateful. As John says, there are no self made men or women. We are able to do what we do as a result of all the effort and all the sacrifices and all the contributions of people who came before us and, and who are in our lives today have made possible. So we need to practice that humility, that gratitude, to see the interconnectedness and take the time to appreciate all that we are blessed to have. I mentioned in the note Patricia Ryan Madsen, who wrote Improv Wisdom and one of my favorite ideas, Silent Gifts. She says, right now you're being silently blessed by so many things in your life as you watch this or listen to this or whatever. Who made the technology that's making this possible. There are human beings who dedicated their life force to make it possible for us to enjoy our lives. We're drinking the water from a well that many people have made for us and it behooves us to appreciate that as consistently as we possibly can. It's a big idea. The well, fifth big idea. We need to move from asking can I do this? Can I? To how can I And he actually steps in and says, there's another step. Some people say to themselves, I can't. When they approach a certain project, whether it's losing weight or saving money or starting a business or deepening a relationship or creating one or whatever, we might be locked in, I can't. Not helpful. You can. You may need to put in a lot more effort than you're used to putting in, but you can, right? So can I? Becomes the question that a lot of us get stuck on. And he says, shift that. Rather than ask yourself, can I? Which presupposes that you can't, and you're going to find evidence to support that. You can't ask, how can I? How can I do whatever? So if you are facing a creative challenge, think about that. Are you consciously or unconsciously asking yourself, can I do that? And if so, can you shift that to? Or how can you shift that to how can I do that? When I type this note, this quote into the note, I immediately applied it to a creative project I'm working on. As we approach the end of the year, I'm excited to do some stuff. And I'd been wondering, can I pull this off? I wanted to do something that I'm pretty excited about, and it's a challenge to do. But the question I was asking myself unconsciously was, can I do that? Then I shifted as I typed this out and I said, how can I do that? And what I saw was that if I want to do that, I'm going to need to make some trades, which is another big idea I talk about in the note. Trade offs. Everything has trades. If I'm going to achieve this thing that I want to achieve, then I'm going to need to stop doing certain other things and free up some time so I can execute this particular strategy. How can I? How can you do that? Which you aspire to do? Much more powerful question than can I? Remember the well, as you enjoy your life in every single regard, when you're driving down the road, Someone built those roads, someone built your car. Everything involved in the process is truly astonishing. If we slow down long enough to think about it. Discipline is our bridge between our goals and our accomplishments. We need to cross it every single day. The law of consistency. Do it now, do it now. Do it now, do it now, do it now, do it now, do it now. Times 50, times AM and PM. Create a sense of urgency in your life. How far can you go? Astonishingly far, is the answer to that question. With the daily discipline to do the little things consistently compounded over time. Extraordinary results. That is a super quick look at the 15 invaluable laws of growth. John Maxwell thank you. If you enjoyed, I think you'll love the book and I look forward to sharing more. Have another awesome day. See you. Hi, this is Brian. I hope you enjoyed that PNTV episode. A lot of people don't know all the stuff I do beyond these free videos I share on YouTube. So I thought I'd do a quick video to give you an overview of our membership program that you can get access to and get a ton of other stuff. So here's a quick look. 10 bucks a month Just join the Optimal Living Membership Program. You get Instant Access to 250 Philosopher's Notes on some of the best Optimal Living books out there. 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