15 Invaluable Laws of Growth Summary

My mentor and favorite thought leader John C. Maxwell published a book titled “The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth” about a year ago.  It is a great playbook on how to be intentional about your own personal growth.  I pulled it back out and read it again, and I want to share the super short summary of the book.

1.  The Law of Intentionality

• Growth doesn’t just happen.  You must be intentional about your growth

2.  The Law of Awareness

• You must know yourself to grow yourself. The first step in change is awareness, then you can change.  Check out my blog titled “Are you competent”.  For additional insight on the phase of learning and growing.

3.  The Law of the Mirror

• You must see value in yourself to add value to yourself.  Don’t compare yourself to others and limit your own self talk that is negative.

4.  The Law of Reflection

• Learning to pause allows growth to catch up with you.  Peter Drucker says it like this:  “Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.”  I personally need to do more of this.

5.  The Law of Consistency

• Motivation gets you going–Discipline keeps you growing.  Develop the good habits that lead to success.  Just showing up is 80% of success.  Some people just don’t show up. You can beat them pretty easily by just being consistent in showing up.

6.  The Law of Environment

• Growth thrives in conducive surroundings.  Mark Cane says: “The first step toward success is taken when you refuse to be a captive of the environment you first find yourself in.”  Check out my blog titled “Are you in a Growth environment.”  If you are always at the head of the class you are in the wrong class.

7.  The Law of Design

• To maximize growth, develop strategies.  Jim Rohn says:  “If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you will fall into someone else’s plan.  And guess what they may have planned for you?  NOT much.”

8.  The Law of Pain

• Good management of bad experiences leads to great growth.  You must suffer pain to realize a gain.  No pain, No gain.  No investment, no ROI.

9.  The Law of the Ladder

• Character growth determines the height of your personal growth.  Doug Firebaugh says: “Achievement to most people is something you do…to the high achiever, it is something you are.”  Be great!

10.  The Law of the Rubber Band

• Growth stops when you lose the tension between where you are and where you could be.  W. Somerset Maugham says: “Only a mediocre person is always at his best.”  If you aren’t stretching yourself than you aren’t growing.  Don’t let the rubber band become limp.

11.  The Law of the Trade Offs

• You have to give up to grow up.  Eric Hoffer says:  “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 difference between where we are and where we want to be is created by the changes we are willing to make in our lives.  This is an area where I need to continue to grow.

12.  The Law of Curiosity

• Growth is stimulated by asking Why?  Ask more questions.  The old saying:  Those who can do will always have a job, and the people who know why, will always be their boss.

13.  The Law of Modeling

• It’s hard to improve when you have no one but yourself to follow.  Find a mentor and look for a coach.  You can’t learn from someone who hasn’t been there before.  Find the people who have been there and done that and ask them lots of questions.

14.  The Law of Expansion

• Growth always increases your capacity. Most experts believe we only use 10% of their potential.  Wow!  Scary and wonderful at the same time.  We all have the capacity to grow ourselves.

15.  The Law of Contribution

• Growing yourself enables you to grow others.  You can’t give what you don’t possess.  So first you must grow yourself to be able to grow others, the 14 other laws tell us how to grow ourselves.

There are a lot of little nuggets in the above text.  As the last law states, my hope through my blog and my book summaries is to make a contribution to someone else’s growth.

Brian Willett