Transcript

If you want to make the most of your life, then you want to grow.
A good book is a mirror that you can hold up to yourself. There are 10 laws of growth in this little book. The laws are like 10 mirrors that you can hold up to your own behaviour to see if it’s supporting your growth. It takes about an hour to read and you’ll be putting it to use for the rest of your life.

As I read this, I felt buried by an avalanche of ideas and revelations that I’m excited about.

Dan runs the Strategic Coach Program for entrepreneurs here in Toronto which means that he spends his days thinking and teaching personal growth. I call him Dan because that’s his name, but I don’t know him. It’s a small world though, my old roommate was a programmer for him and 3 of my clients were also Strategic Coach clients.

The first law is, you will grow if you always make your future WIDE bigger than your past SMALL
What does that mean?

Well, If you feel like your best years are behind you, it’s depressing. That happens to some Olympic gold medalists, astronauts, child actors. They reached the pinnacle in one area of life and feel that nothing can top it.
Imagine the best is yet to come.
Try this!

Imagine you and I are having a chat three years from today. What would have had to have happened in that time for you to be happy with your progress?
Then aim for that.

Reading this next law gave me goose bumps. It’s an idea I had never considered.

You will grow if you always make your learning greater than your experience SMall.
Alright, What does that mean
The smartest people are those who can transform even the smallest events into breakthroughs in thinking and action.

I feel like I did that with when I wrote my award winning book, The Rake. Reading that law was encouraging, a great pat on the back.

I bet you’ve also taken some small event and transformed it into a breakthrough in thinking. If you can think of one with an emotional impact, it will make you feel good.

You don’t have to write a book about it, but maybe you should. Let me know if you do.

The next law is if you want to grow make your learning greater than your experience. You can have years of experience and be no smarter for all the things you’ve done, seen and heard.

That sounds unbelievable, until you see it for yourself.
I had a client who complained his accountant didn’t know how to use Excel. He wondered how can someone with 20 years of experience not know that? To which I replied, he doesn’t have 20 years experience, he has 1 years experience 20 times over.
You don’t want to be that guy.

Another law is that you will grow if you always make your gratitude bigger than your success
Well, what does that mean?

Dan asserts that gratitude makes constant growth a given. That’s a new idea to me. The world responds to gratitude by making more of everything we appreciate available to us.
For example, pick someone in your life that you care about.
Then write all the things that you are grateful about them. You’ll end up with 10 items or more. Tell them what you appreciate about them, if you want to.

Imagine what it would be like if you did that with all the people that are important to you.

Another law is that you will grow if you always make your cooperation greater than your status
That’s a concept that’s built into agile software development methodologies, scrum in particular.
The idea is that it’s what you do as a team that matters more so than individual accomplishment and recognition.

Getting things done through cooperation is a threat to people who are more concerned about their perceived status.

Did you know that your mind can’t ignore a question?

The last law is that you will grow if you always make your questions, you’re what? Your questions bigger than your answers.
A great question can keep you thinking and growing for a lifetime.
Why am I here?
Where am I going?
How far can I go?
What do I stand for?

What is the matrix?

My thanks to Chris for suggesting today’s show. If you read this, BOOK I’d love to hear your thoughts on it.