📕𝘾𝙃10:(🐛𝙏𝙃𝙀15 𝙑Æ𝙇𝙐𝘼𝙉𝙇𝙀 𝙇𝘼𝙒 𝙤𝙛

P1 THE 15 INVALUABLE LAWS OF GROWTH “LIVE THEM AND REACH YOUR POTENTIAL” - JOHN C. MAXWELL- CHAPTER 10: The Law of the Rubber Band Growth Stops When You Lose the Tension Between Where You Are and Where You Could Be “Only a mediocre person is always at his best.” —W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM When I was a kid growing up, I loved sports and I was a pretty decent athlete. I discovered basketball in fourth grade, and it became my passion. I played it through high school. Like most kids in college, I was active and pretty fit. And in my twenties, I continued to play pick-up basketball games with friends and added golf to my routine. But as I went farther in my career and got into my thirties and forties, I didn’t exercise and take care of my health as I should have. I paid for that when I was fifty one and suffered a heart attack. Since that time, exercise has been a regular part of my routine. For many years I walked or ran on a treadmill. I’d sometimes run part of the golf course when playing with friends. About five years ago, I switched to swimming, attempting to put in an hour of exercise every day in the pool. More recently, I’ve begun doing Pilates with Margaret. These exercises focus primarily on building core muscle strength and flexibility. To achieve that flexibility, there is an emphasis on physical stretching. We’ve found it to be very beneficial and rewarding. I believe I’m currently in the best shape I’ve been in thirty-five years. A Series of Stretches. As I prepared to write this chapter, I was reminded of all the professional stretching I’ve had to do over the course of my career. One of my favorite quotes, which I collected as a teenager says, “God’s gift to us: potential. Our gift to God: developing it.” How do we do that? By getting out of our comfort zone. By continually stretching —not only physically but also mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Life begins at the end of our comfort zone. We go there by stretching. “God’s gift to us: potential. Our gift to God: developing it.” —Author unknown When I look back on the last forty years or so, I can see that much of the progress I’ve had in my career has come as the result of stretching experiences. Take a look at some of them that follow.

P2 Choosing My First Pastorate. I went to a church where no one knew my dad, who was a district superintendent. My start was slower than it undoubtedly would have been if I’d gone somewhere Dad could have helped me. As it was, I had to work harder than I might have otherwise. And I had to find myself and learn what I was really capable of. I believe this helped to define my career. I was determined to work hard and be creative in finding ways to lead people and grow my church. I learned so many leadership lessons in that first church. And I learned how to love people better.

P3 Focusing on Teaching Leadership. When I started talking about leadership in the midseventies, it was a topic other pastors were not talking about. There were people who criticized me for focusing on what they considered a “secular” message, though I have to say I find that peculiar, since the greatest leaders of all time can be found in the Bible: Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus, and Paul, just to name a few. Even forty years later, some continue to criticize me for it. So why did I keep teaching it? Because pastors are required to lead people, and in my day, they received no training in leadership, even though they must do it every day of their careers. Early on, I struggled as a leader. I knew others would too. I wanted to help them. By stretching through this experience, I was not only able to help many pastors, but I was able to discover the message that I believe I was born to teach.

P4 Learning to Communicate Internationally. I remember the first time I spoke using an interpreter. It was in Japan. The process was uncomfortable because I had to say a phrase or two, pause for what I said to be translated, and then say a bit more, pause again, and so on. And of course there are many cultural differences that need to be bridged. I found it difficult. After I had finished speaking, Margaret said that our daughter, Elizabeth, who was eight years old at the time, leaned over to her at one point and said, “Dad’s not very good, is he?” Even a child could tell that I was not connecting well with my audience. I enjoy communicating, and the easiest thing for me to do would have been to simply give up the idea of speaking to others outside of the United States. I had already learned how to communicate effectively in English. However, I saw this as an opportunity to stretch and grow—and maybe someday make a greater impact. It took me almost a decade to learn how to connect with people in other cultures while working with a translator, but it’s definitely been worth it. That groundwork made it possible for me to start EQUIP, which now trains leaders in 175 countries around the world.

P5 Crossing Over to a New Audience. After I had been teaching leadership to pastors for about ten years, I began to notice a trend. More and more businesspeople were attending my leadership conferences. I welcomed this, because I had been teaching leadership to laypeople as well as staff in my own church for years. But it didn’t prompt me to change what I was doing. Then one day, when I was meeting with my publisher, I learned that my books were being purchased more and more through secular retailers rather than religious ones. In fact, over the course of time, it had shifted so that two-thirds of the sales were through regular retail channels. I saw this as an incredible opportunity to reach many more people than I otherwise would. But there was a challenge. Could I connect and communicate with businesspeople? People expect one thing when they sit in a church to hear a message from a pastor. They expect something entirely different when they pay money to hear a speaker. I wasn’t sure whether I would be able to succeed. It was another stretching experience.

P6 Focusing on Building a Legacy. When I turned sixty, I was prepared to slow down. I had moved to a sunny, warm climate, which I loved. I was financially blessed. I had grandchildren, which is the most wonderful gift a person can have in this life. I would continue to write and speak, but not at the pace I had before. It was a season of harvest after decades of work. But then some opportunities presented themselves. My books were now with a new publisher. I was approached about starting a coaching company. And I had the chance to regain control of the training and development materials I had created over the previous decade. What would I do? It would mean stretching again, but I was willing to seize the opportunity—and accept the challenge. And I’m so glad I did. I have entered another season of sowing, instead of just harvesting. I believe it will allow me to help many more people than I would have if I’d simply slowed down.

P7 The Benefits of Tension. Many years ago, during one of the sessions I taught at a leadership conference, I put a rubber band on the table at the place of every attendee. Then I started the session by asking about all the ways people could think of for using them. At the end of the discussion time, I asked them if they could identify the one thing all of their uses had in common. Maybe you’ve already guessed what it was. Rubber bands are useful only when they are stretched! That can also be said of us. 1. Few People Want to Stretch. There’s a joke about a longtime handyman named Sam who was once offered a full-time job by a mill owner who was having problems with muskrats at the mill’s dam. The owner asked Sam to rid the mill of the pests and even provided a rifle for him to do the job. Sam was ecstatic because it was the first steady work with a regular paycheck that he’d ever gotten. One day, several months later, a friend came to visit Sam. He found him sitting on a grassy bank, the gun across his knees. “Hey, Sam. Whatcha doin’?” he asked. “My job, guarding the dam.” “From what?” “Muskrats.” His friend looked over at the dam, and just at that moment a muskrat appeared. “There’s one!” the friend exclaimed. “Shoot him!” Sam didn’t move. Meanwhile, the muskrat scurried away. “Why the heck didn’t you shoot him?” “Are you crazy?” replied Sam. “Do you think I want to lose my job?” You may think that joke is silly, but it’s much closer to the truth than we may like to admit. I say that because when I was in college, one of the jobs I had was at a local meat-packing plant. My job was to haul racks of meat to the refrigeration units and get orders for customers, but I was curious about the whole operation and wanted to understand how it worked. After I’d been there a couple of weeks, Pense, a worker who’d been there for many years, took me aside and said, “You ask too many questions. The less you know, the less you have to do.” His job was to kill cows at the plant. And that’s all he ever wanted to do. He was like the character in a Wall Street Journal cartoon I saw who told the personnel manager, “I know I’m overqualified, but I promise to use only half my ability.” Most people use only a small fraction of their ability and rarely strive to reach their full potential. There is no tension to grow in their lives, little desire to stretch. Sadly, a third of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives, and 42 percent of college graduates similarly never read a book after college.1 And publisher David Godine claims that only 32 percent of the U.S. population has ever been in a bookstore.2 I don’t know if people are aware of the gap between where they are and where they could be, but relatively few seem to be reading books to try to close it. Forty-two percent of college graduates never read a book after college. Too many people are willing to settle for average in life. Is that bad? Read this description written by Edmund Gaudet, and then you decide: “Average” is what the failures claim to be when their family and friends ask them why they are not more successful. “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? “Average” means being run-of-the-mill, mediocre, insignificant, an also-ran, a nonentity. Being “average” is the lazy person’s cop-out; it’s lacking the guts to take a stand in life; it’s living by default. Being “average” is to take up space for no purpose; to take the trip through life, but never to pay the fare; to return no interest for God’s investment in you. Being “average” is to pass one’s life away with time, rather than to pass one’s time away with life; it’s to kill time, rather than to work it to death. To be “average” is to be forgotten once you pass from this life. The successful are remembered for their contributions; the failures are remembered because they tried; but the “average,” the silent majority, is just forgotten. To be “average” is to commit the greatest crime one can against one’s self, humanity, and one’s God. The saddest epitaph is this: “Here lies Mr. and Ms. Average—here lies the remains of what might have been, except for their belief that they were only “average.” I cannot stand the idea of settling for average, can you? Nobody admires average. The best organizations don’t pay for average. Mediocrity is not worth shooting for. As novelist Arnold Bennett said, “The real tragedy is the tragedy of the man who never in his life braces himself for his one supreme effort, who never stretches to his full capacity, never stands up to his full stature.” We must be aware of the gap that stands between us and our potential, and let the tension of that gap motivate us to keep striving to become better.

p8 2. Settling for the Status Quo Ultimately Leads to Dissatisfaction. I believe most people are naturally tempted to settle into a comfort zone where they choose comfort over potential. They fall into familiar patterns and habits, doing the same things in the same ways with the same people at the same time and getting the same results. It’s true that being in your comfort zone may feel good, but it leads to mediocrity and, therefore, dissatisfaction. As psychologist Abraham Maslow asserted, “If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.” “If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.” —Abraham Maslow If you have ever settled for the status quo and then wondered why your life isn’t going the way you’d hoped, then you need to realize that you will only reach your potential if you have the courage to push yourself outside your comfort zone and break out of a mind-set of mediocrity. You must be willing to leave behind what feels familiar, safe, and secure. You must give up excuses and push forward. You must be willing to face the tension that comes from stretching toward your potential. That is the only way to avoid what poet John Greenleaf Whittier described when he wrote, “For all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: ‘It might have been.’ ”

P9 3. Stretching Always Starts from the Inside Out. When I was a teenager, my dad asked me to read As a Man Thinketh by James Allen. It had a profound impact on my life. It made me realize that reaching your potential started on the inside. Allen wrote, “Your circumstances may be uncongenial, but they shall not long remain so if you but perceive an ideal and strive to reach it. You cannot travel within and stand still without.” “You cannot travel within and stand still without.” —James Allen Most people have a dream. For some, it’s on the tip of their tongue, and for others, it’s buried deep in their hearts, but everyone has one. However, not very many people are pursuing it. When I teach on the subject of achieving a dream, and I ask the audience how many have a dream, nearly everyone raises his hand. When I ask, “How many are pursuing that dream?” fewer than half raise their hands. And when the question is, “How many are achieving their dream?” I see only a few scattered hands being raised. What is stopping them? For that matter, what is stopping you? The authors of Now Discover Your Strengths, Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton, cite Gallup polls indicating that most people don’t like their current jobs, yet they don’t make a change. What’s stopping them? Most Americans want to lose weight, but they don’t make the effort to do so. I run across people all the time who tell me that they want to write a book, but when I ask, “Have you started writing?” the answer is almost always no. Instead of wishing, wanting, and waiting, people need to search inside themselves for reasons to start. It’s wise to remember that our situation in life is mainly due to the choices we make and the actions we do—or fail to—take. The older we are, the more responsible we are for our situation. If you are merely average or if you are no closer to your dream this year than you were last year, you can choose to accept it, defend it, cover it up, and explain it away. Or you can choose to change it, grow from it, and forge a new path. Jim Rohn observed, “Every life form seems to strive to its maximum except human beings. How tall will a tree grow? As tall as it possibly can. Human beings, on the other hand, have been given the dignity of choice. You can choose to be all or you can choose to be less. Why not stretch up to the full measure of the challenge and see what all you can do?” Where do you find the internal impetus for stretching? Measure what you’re doing against what you’re capable of. Measure yourself against yourself. Make a contest of it. If you have no idea what you might be capable of, talk to people who care about you and believe in you. Don’t have any people in your life who fit that description? Then go look for some. Find a mentor who can help you see yourself for who you could be, not who you currently are. And then use that image to inspire you to start stretching. 

P10 4. Stretching Always Requires Change. At the beginning of this chapter I wrote about my five major professional stretching experiences. As I reflect upon these times in my life, I have to admit that it was a challenge to change. I didn’t like it. I like being comfortable and am always tempted to resist stretching. But growth doesn’t come from staying in your comfort zone. You can’t improve and avoid change at the same time. So how do I embrace change and kick myself out of my comfort zone? First of all, I stop looking over my shoulder. It’s difficult to focus on your past and change in the present. That’s why for years I had on my desk a little plaque that said, “Yesterday ended last night.” It helped me to focus on the present and work to improve what I could today. That’s important. Author and contributor to the Chicken Soup for the Soul series Alan Cohen says, “To grow, you must be willing to let your present and future be totally unlike your past. Your history is not your destiny.” The second thing I do is work to develop my “reach muscle.” A. G. Buckham, who pioneered aviation photography in the early days of flight, observed, “Monotony is the awful reward of the careful.” If you want to grow and change, you must take risks. “Monotony is the awful reward of the careful.” —A. G. Buckham Innovation and progress are often initiated by people who push for change. Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek observed, “Have you ever met a successful person who wasn’t restless—who was satisfied with where he or she was in life? They want new challenges. They want to get up and go… and that’s one of the reasons they’re successful.” It’s unfortunate that the word entrepreneur has come to mean gambler to some people. But risk has advantages. People who take risks learn more and faster than those who don’t. Their depth and range of experience is often greater. And they learn how to solve problems. All of those help a person to grow. The greatest stretching seasons of life come when we do what we have never done, push ourselves harder, and reach in a way that is uncomfortable to us. That takes courage. But the good news is that it causes us to grow in ways we thought were impossible. And it gives life to what novelist George Elliot said: “It’s never too late to be what you might have been.” “It’s never too late to be what you might have been.” —George Elliot

P11 5. Stretching Sets You Apart from Others. America seems to be increasingly satisfied with mediocrity. Yet it isn’t at its root a national problem; it’s a personal concession to do less than our best. It takes an individual to say, “I guess good enough is good enough.” But unfortunately, mediocrity spreads from person to person and eventually metastasizes until an entire nation is at risk. Excellence seems to be moving farther and farther from the norm. However, people who live by the Law of the Rubber Band and use the tension between where they are and where they could be as impetus to stretch can distinguish themselves from their peers. Jack and Suzy Welch address this issue in their book Winning: The Answers when a young person entering the corporate world asks, “How can I quickly distinguish myself as a winner?” They answer, First of all, forget some of the most basic habits you learned in school. Once you are in the real world—and it doesn’t matter if you are twenty-two or sixty-two, starting your first job or your fifth—the way to get ahead is to over-deliver. Look, for years, you’ve been taught the virtues of meeting specific expectations. And you’ve been trained that it’s an A-plus performance to fully answer every question the teacher asks. Those days are over. To get an A-plus in business you have to expand the organization’s expectations of you and then exceed them, and you have to fully answer every question the “teacher” asks, plus a slew of questions he or she didn’t even think of. Your goal, in other words, should be to make your bosses smarter, your team more effective, and the whole company more competitive because of your energy, creativity, and insights…. If your boss asks you for a report on the outlook of one of your company’s products over the next year, you can be sure she already has a solid sense of the answer. So, go beyond being the grunt assigned to confirm her hunch. Do the extra research, legwork, and data crunching to give her something that really expands her thinking…. In other words, give your boss something that shocks and awes her, something new and interesting that she can report to her bosses. In time, those kinds of ideas will move the company forward and you upward. Improving yourself is the best way to help your team. Successful people set themselves apart because they initiate the improvement others need. When you get better, those around you benefit. Excellence has the potential to spread in the same way that mediocrity does. The positives or negatives of a group always begin with one. When you get better, so will others. 

P12 6. Stretching Can Become a Lifestyle. When we stop stretching, I believe we stop really living. We may keep on breathing. Our vital life signs may be working. But we are dead on the inside and dead to our greatest possibilities. As editor James Terry White observed, “Nature has everywhere written her protest against idleness; everything which ceases to struggle, which remains inactive, rapidly deteriorates. It is the struggle toward an ideal, the constant effort to get higher and further, which develops manhood and character.” I’m getting older. I will not always be able to perform at my peak level. But I intend to keep reading, asking questions, talking to interesting people, working hard, and exposing myself to new experiences until I die. Too many people are dead but just haven’t made it official yet! Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav said, “If you won’t be better tomorrow than you were today, then what do you need tomorrow for?” I refuse to give up growing. The following words sum up how I feel: -I’m not where I’m supposed to be, -I’m not what I want to be, But I’m not what I used to be. -I haven’t learned how to arrive; I’ve just learned how to keep going. I’m going to keep on stretching until I’m all stretched out. And it doesn’t matter whether I see success today or not. Why? Because, sadly, many people stop growing after they have tasted success. Management expert Peter Drucker observed, “The greatest enemy of tomorrow’s success is today’s success. No one has ever made a significant impact after they won the Nobel Prize.” I don’t want success, no matter how great or small, to derail me. “If you won’t be better tomorrow than you were today, then what do you need tomorrow for?” —Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav I’m going to keep on stretching until I’m all stretched out. And it doesn’t matter whether I see success today or not. Why? Because, sadly, many people stop growing after they have tasted success. Management expert Peter Drucker observed, “The greatest enemy of tomorrow’s success is today’s success. No one has ever made a significant impact after they won the Nobel Prize.” I don’t want success, no matter how great or small, to derail me. “If you won’t be better tomorrow than you were today, then what do you need tomorrow for?” —Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav

P13 7. Stretching Gives You a Shot at Significance. Indian statesman Mahatma Gandhi stated, “The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.” That difference is the gap between good and great. And what closes the gap is our willingness to stretch. People who exist on the “good” side of the gap live in the land of the permissible. What they do is okay. They follow the rules and don’t make waves. But do they make the difference they could if they followed the Law of the Rubber Band? Cross over the gap and you find yourself on the “great” side. That is the land of the possible. It’s where people achieve in extraordinary fashion. They do more than they believed they were capable of, and they make an impact. How? By continually focusing on making the next stretch. They continually leave their comfort zone and stretch toward their capacity zone. Philosopher Søren Kierkegaard said, “A possibility is a hint from God. One must follow it.” That possibility path is God giving us an opportunity to make a difference. As we follow it we stop asking ourselves what we are, and we start asking what can we become. We may appreciate what we did yesterday, but we don’t put it on a pedestal. It looks small in comparison to the possibilities in the future. Looking forward fills us with energy. We resonate with the words of Robert Louis Stevenson, who said, “To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end in life.” “A possibility is a hint from God. One must follow it.” —Søren Kierkegaard Significance is birthed within each of us. If we are willing to stretch, that seed can grow until it begins to bear fruit in our lives. What’s fantastic is that the change within us challenges us to make changes around us, and our growth creates a belief in us that others can grow. When that happens in an environment and everybody is stretching and growing, then indifference is replaced with make-a-difference. And that’s how we begin to change our world.

P14 Stretching to the End. One of my favorite sports heroes is Ted Williams, said to be the greatest hitter in the history of Major League Baseball. The last man to bat over .400 in a season, he retired with 521 home runs and a career batting average of .344. It’s said that Williams could heft a bat and tell the difference between his normal thirty-four-ounce bat and one weighing half an ounce less. He once complained about the way the handles of a bunch of bats felt and sent them back. It turned out that their thickness was fivethousandths of an inch off. And when he watched a ball coming toward him as he stood at bat, he could tell what kind of pitch it was by the way the laces moved. The man loved hitting baseballs and was meticulous about every aspect of it. And for as long as he lived he was constantly learning and continuing to stretch in this area. I recently read an anecdote about a meeting between Williams and Boston Celtics coach Red Auerbach in the 1950s. As the two greats discussed their sports, Williams asked, “What do your guys eat on the day of a game?” “What do you want to know for?” Auerbach replied. “You seem to be doing all right with what you’re doing.” “I’m always looking for new ways to improve what I do.” Auerbach said of Williams, “He thought of the little things, what’s important to being great. When you’re great and you excel, some athletes would coast on that…. Here’s the best hitter in baseball, and he’s trying to get another little percentage point.” As much as any athlete I’ve ever read about, Williams lived by the Law of the Rubber Band. He understood that growth stops when you lose the tension between where you are and where you could be. For most people, as time goes by they lose the tension that prompts growth—especially if they experience any success. But having less tension makes people less productive. And it undermines the growth toward their potential. Remarkably, when it came to hitting, Williams never lost that tension. Long after he retired from baseball, he still talked about hitting with anyone who cared about it. He was continually learning—and continually sharing what he learned. We should all strive to be a little more like him.

P15 Applying the Law of the Rubber Band to Your Life. 1. In what areas of your life have you lost your stretch and settled in? Whereverthey are, you need to find internal reasons to seek the tension to stretch again. Tap into your internal discontent to get you going. Where are you falling short of your potential? What goals haven’t you hit that you know you’re capable of? What habits have you developed that are hindering you from moving forward? What areas of past success have you stopped winning in? Remember, change is the key to growth. Use your lack of satisfaction to get you started anyplace you’ve stalled. 2. Be strategic to maintain the tension between where you are and where you couldbe by continually resetting intermediate-range goals for yourself. If goals are too immediate, you lose the tension when you achieve them quickly. If the goals are too lofty, they can seem too difficult to achieve and become discouraging. What is the right time frame for you to maintain the tension? Three months? Six months? A year? Set goals for yourself according to your individual personality, and then keep revisiting them at the end of those time increments. You want the goal to be just barely within reach—not too easy, but not impossible either. Being able to figure this out is an art. But it will pay tremendous dividends in your life. 3. If you need an overarching goal to keep you stretching, think about what significant action you could take if only you become what you could be. Dream big, and set this as your lifetime goal