Investing in yourself

One of my core values is to be a life-long learner.  That is the reason I pursued a master's and doctoral degree at an age when many people are thinking about retirement.  It is also the reason I try to read so many books and blogs.  I cannot understand why so many high school and college graduates never read a book once they graduate from school and why so many people are not interested in personal growth.  We have been told for years that the average person uses only about 10 percent of his or her abilities.  What could change in a person's life if he or she decided to tap into some of that remaining 90 percent?  Most of us will go to great lengths to plan a one-week vacation and yet many will spend virtually no time developing a plan for personal growth.

Investing in ourselves is the one investment that can not be taken from us.  Financial investments can be lost overnight if the market changes or if someone cheats us through some fraudulent act.  We can spend years at a job only to see it moved to another country or eliminated because of technology or a takeover from another company.  Virtually everything that people try to accumulate can be gone in moments, but the one thing that can never be taken from us is any investment we've made in ourselves.

If you are a minister reading this post there are so many things that one can learn about ministry.  I would love to have the opportunity to relive the twenty years I spent as the pastor at Hebron Baptist Church with the knowledge I have now about ministry that I did not have back when I was the pastor there.  My ministry would look so much different, and I know it would have a positive impact on the life and ministry of the church.  If you are a leader in any organization, there is so much new information on leadership that if you are not growing personally your organization is operating far short of its capacity.  Even if you are not currently a leader, an investment in yourself is the way that you can create and enjoy a better life for yourself and your family.

In my opinion, one of the most important books John Maxwell has written recently is The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential.  Again, this is only my opinion, but I believe out of all the books he has written (and I have most of them) this is his second most important book only behind The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You (10th Anniversary Edition).  The reason I feel so strongly about his book on the 15 laws of growth is because he describes so clearly what one must do in order to grow as an individual.

One of the laws he discusses is the Law of the Rubber Band.  He notes that rubber bands are useful only when they are stretched.  Pursuing personal growth will always stretch us, but it is only when we are stretched that we become useful.  Too many of us are satisfied with the status quo.  We are satisfied with being average.  In the chapter Maxwell provides a description of average, and one of the items in that description says, ""Average is the top of the bottom, the best of the worst, the bottom of the top, the worst of the best.  Which of these are you?"  Looking at it this way, average doesn't seem so great after all, does it?

Yet, we shy away from being stretched.  Our churches claim they want to grow, but they don't want to be stretched.  Businesses talk about wanting to grow, but they are often averse to doing anything that might stretch them and take them away from their comfort zone.  As leaders, we should want to be growing if we want to lead growing organizations, but many of us avoid anything that would stretch us.  We won't take a class or read a book or meet with a mentor or do anything that might be uncomfortable even if it would promote personal growth.

This is the second time I've read this book, and I found new insights that I had missed in my first reading.  I made several new highlights in the book during my second reading.  For any leader serious about wanting to grow I think this is a must read.  At the very least it will give you some specific areas in which each of us should grow and some direction for how growth can occur in those areas.  As leaders, we must invest in ourselves if we want to effectively lead our churches and other organizations.