Fred Harteis who founded Biznet Productions shares from his heart things that help you growth as a individual.  One of Fred's mentors is John Maxwell.

GROWING STRONG
By Dr. John C. Maxwell

I have a simple notebook that I carry with me all the time. My "Traveling Companion," as I call it, is divided into several sections—a compartment for things I'm thinking about right now, a place for items I'm trying to apply to my life right now, and a spot for insights I keep going back to because they are so life-changing for me.

I take my Traveling Companion everywhere because I never know when I am going to come across a bit of information that I might want to contemplate, analyze or memorize. It might be a newspaper clipping, a magazine article or notes I've taken during a meeting. Once, I even filed a particularly meaningful poem from a funeral bulletin in my notebook because I wanted to read it every day for a month and memorize it.

My Traveling Companion helps me stay organized, but it also serves another important purpose: It keeps me growing. By filing material in my notebook, I continue to stretch. I continue to learn. I continue to apply. It never stops.

Why is this so important? Because leadership is about growing. In fact, as authors Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus once wrote, "It is the capacity to develop and improve their skills that distinguishes leaders from followers."

I'm passionate about my own growth, but I'm also committed to helping other leaders grow. I'd even go so far as to say that your personal growth is my personal mission. That's why I write this column. I want to see you grow. I want to see you develop. I want to see you reach your potential.

Much of my speaking and writing is devoted to the subject of personal development, and along the way, I've accumulated quite a collection of what I call "growth statements." Here are a few of my favorites.

 

  • "In order to do more, I've got to be more." People frequently ask me, "How can I do more?" The answer isn't complicated: You have to develop personal capacity before you can have personal accomplishments. So many times we want to do more before we become more, but that's backwards.
  • "If you don't grow, you go!" Yes, that's a little hardnosed. But in our highly competitive, ever-changing world, it's reality.
  • "It's one of the paradoxes of success that the things and the ways which got you there are seldom those things that keep you there." Charles Handy was right on the money with that comment. It dovetails nicely with Rick Warren's statement that the "greatest detriment to today's success" is "yesterday's success."
  • "Whatever you do today, do it better tomorrow." Need a vision statement for your personal growth plan? This quote by Robert Schuller is a great place to start.
  • "For everything you gain, you lose something." This applies to many areas of life, and personal development is no exception. What you leave behind when you grow is just as integral to the process as what you gain.
  • "You will never change your life until you change something you do daily." Contrary to popular belief, there's nothing mystical about changing your life. The best way to grow is to make changes in your daily behavior.

    With these growth statements fresh in your mind, let me leave you with four questions to help you evaluate how you're doing when it comes to personal development.

    1. When's the last time you did something for the first time? If you can't remember, make a concerted effort to try something new this week.

    2. What have you learned and applied this month? In other words, how are you growing? It might be something as simple as memorizing a poem that inspires you or as complicated as learning a new computer program that increases your efficiency at work.

    3. What do you do daily to facilitate your growth? I use my Traveling Companion to help me with this. You might want to try something similar, or you may have another system that works just as well. Whatever the case, the goal is continual improvement.

    4. Are you teaching others what you are learning? Leaders often mistakenly think that they have to learn something perfectly before they can pass it on to others. The fact of the matter is that, whether they realize it or not, all leaders transfer what they're learning to other people.

    My final challenge to you is this: Grow with your people. Don't present yourself as Mr. Know-it-all or Ms. Answer Woman. Go to your team and say, "Here's a great book I'm reading; let's read it together" or, "Here's a concept I'm trying to grab hold of, let's reach for it together." As rewarding as it is to grow personally, it's even better when you take the journey with others.