📕𝘾𝙃11:(🐛𝙏𝙃𝙀15 𝙑Æ𝙇𝙐𝘼𝙉𝙇𝙀 𝙇𝘼𝙒 𝙤𝙛

[P1] THE 15 INVALUABLE LAWS OF GROWTH “LIVE THEM AND REACH YOUR POTENTIAL” - JOHN C. MAXWELL- CHAPTER 11: The Law of Trade-Offs You Have to Give Up to Grow Up. “People will cling to an unsatisfactory way of life rather than change in order to get something better for fear of getting something worse.” —ERIC HOFFER What will it take for you to go to the next level? Vision? Yes. Hard work? Of course. Personal growth? Definitely. How about letting go of some of the things that you love and value most? Yes, and believe it or not, this is the thing that often holds people back, even those who have achieved some level of success. When you’re first starting out in your career it’s not very hard to give up to grow up. In fact, you’re willing to give up everything for an opportunity. Why? Because your “everything” isn’t much of anything! But what about when you’ve started to earn some things: a job you enjoy, a good salary, a home, a community you’ve become a part of, a level of security? Are you willing to give up those things for a chance at doing something that will take you closer to your potential?

[P2] Achieving the American Dream. Recently I read the story of a businessman who recognized the importance of making trade-offs to become more successful and reach his potential. The son of poor service workers who worked hard and scraped for everything they had, he worked to put himself through school and earned a degree in mathematics. He began his career working for the government, but he soon transitioned into a business career, starting with Coca-Cola, the company his father worked for as a driver. He was a manager, but he believed that his career would be limited there, since he suspected he would always be seen as the driver’s son and not evaluated according to his own merits. So when he had the opportunity to take a job at Pillsbury’s corporate headquarters, he took it and moved to Minnesota. His boss at Pillsbury, whom he had gotten to know previously at Coca-Cola, told him that they were facing a difficult challenge, and if they didn’t succeed they would be looking for new jobs. That didn’t intimidate him. “I have always been more motivated by the possibility of success than by the fear of failure,” he explains. He worked hard and set his sights on becoming a vice president by the age of forty. At Pillsbury, he started as a manager. Soon he was promoted to group director, then senior director of management information systems, and eventually to corporate vice president of systems, where, among other things, he oversaw the construction of Pillsbury’s World Headquarters, a twin-towered, forty-floor office complex in downtown Minneapolis. He completed the project ahead of schedule and under budget. Four years before his target age, he had arrived. He was a vice president, and he had an office with a beautiful view on the thirty-sixth floor. He had achieved his dream and gone much farther than his humble beginnings might have indicated. But it wasn’t enough for him. He writes, I was thirty-six years old and although I had been blessed to achieve so much, so fast, I knew at that moment that I had to reach for more. So I began to imagine how exciting it would be if I were actually the decision-maker running a business…! After several successful years as vice president of Pillsbury’s corporate systems and services, I knew that I had to dream higher; I had to dream of being president of something, for somebody, somewhere. If he stayed on his current track, he could never become the president of Pillsbury. His problem was that while he had always been successful and handled every responsibility with a high degree of competence, he had never been responsible for profit and loss in any position. What was he going to do? How would he achieve his dream? 

[P3] From Corporate Vice President to Burger Flipper. He discussed his situation with Pillsbury’s COO, and was given a possible solution. Go work for one of Pillsbury’s divisions: Burger King. The move had potential, but it meant making some difficult trade-offs. He says, My going to Burger King would mean the loss of my hard-earned, and much coveted, vice presidential title; a significant initial drop in salary; loss of stock options; the need to learn a new business from the ground up; and, if I succeeded, a potentially disruptive relocation to another part of the country.” In other words, it would turn his whole life upside down. But that’s the way the Law of Trade-Offs works. If you want to grow up to your potential, you must be willing to give up some things you value. You have to give up to grow up. As he made the decision, he asked himself whether this would get him closer to his dream of being the president of a business. He also says, “I did not ask myself the wrong questions: How hard will my new job be? What will my friends think if they see me making hamburgers in a quick-service restaurant? What will I do if this new position does not work out as planned?” He made the trade-off, took the position, and dove in. He went to Burger King University, along with a bunch of recent college graduates and restaurant workers who were receiving an opportunity to become assistant managers. He was the “old dude.” He learned the whole business, starting with running the broiler to making Whoppers to working the cash register and everything in between. And when his training was complete, he became a fourth assistant manager a mere fifteen-minute drive from the office where he had served as a vice president. At Burger King, in time he moved up from assistant manager to store manager to regional manager and vice president in Philadelphia. It wasn’t an easy road. He faced many challenges and there were people in the organization who didn’t want to see him succeed. But he persevered, and he succeeded. “In retrospect,” he says, “the unexpected obstacles I encountered at Burger King may have been a blessing in disguise. Had I anticipated them up front, I might have lost sight of my dream.” Did he ever achieve that dream of becoming the president of something? The answer is yes. Four years after transitioning from Pillsbury’s corporate offices to Burger King, he was invited to take over a failing company that Pillsbury had acquired: Godfather’s Pizza. And if you haven’t already guessed, the businessman’s name is Herman Cain. Despite his failed bid for the presidency and the criticisms leveled at him, if you look at his life and career, you can see that he understands the Law of Trade-Offs and has often given up to grow up. 

[P4] The Truth about Trade-Offs. Life has many intersections, opportunities to go up or down. At these intersections we make choices. We can add something to our life, subtract from it, or exchange something we have for something we don’t. The most successful people know when to do which one of those three. Here are some insights that I hope will help you to understand trade-offs, spot them, and use them to your advantage. 

[P5] Trade-Offs Are Available to Us Throughout Life. I first learned the Law of Trade-Offs when I was in elementary school, though I didn’t call it that at the time. Back then, I loved to play marbles. Some days we would play marbles all during lunch and recess. It was a lot of fun trying to beat friends and win their best marbles. A friend of mine had a big, beautiful, cat’s-eye marble that I wanted very badly, but he wouldn’t play with it, so I never got a chance to win it. He just held onto it and showed it to us. So I developed a strategy. I offered to trade for it. First I offered any marble I had for it. He wasn’t interested. Then I offered two for it. Then three. Then four. I think he was finally willing to make the trade when I reached seven. He was happy because he had seven marbles. I was happy because I’d given up several average marbles for one beautiful one. Everybody makes trades throughout life, whether they know it or not. The question is whether you are going to make good ones or bad ones. In general, I believe that… Unsuccessful people make bad trade-offs. Average people make few trade-offs. Successful people make good trade-offs. I estimate that I’ve made over twenty significant trade-offs so far during my life. I made two of them just in the last three months! At age sixty-four, I have come to realize that I have to be willing to keep making significant trade-offs if I want to keep growing and striving to reach my potential. When I stop making them, I will arrive at a dead end in life. And at that point my growth will be done. And that will be the day that my best years are behind me and my potential is no longer ahead of me.

[P6] We Must Learn to See Trade-Offs as Opportunities for Growth. Nothing creates a greater gap between successful and unsuccessful people than the choices we make. Too often, people make life more difficult for themselves because they make bad choices at the intersections of their life or they decline to make choices because of fear. But it’s important to remember that while we don’t always get what we want, we always get what we choose. While we don’t always get what we want, we always get what we choose.

[P7] Whenever I face an opportunity for a trade-off, I ask myself two questions: ●WHAT ARE THE PLUSES AND MINUSES OF THIS TRADE-OFF? Anytime you react to one of life’s crossroads according to fear rather than looking at its merits, you close yourself off from a potential opportunity. By trying to figure out the pluses and minuses of any given choice, it helps me deal with that fear. Looking at cold, hard facts has also led me to discover that I have a tendency to overestimate the value of what I currently have and underestimate the value of what I may gain by giving it up. ●WILL I GO THROUGH THIS CHANGE OR GROW THROUGH THIS CHANGE? Good trade-offs are not something to be endured. That reflects a passive attitude and a mind-set that says, “I hope this turns out all right.” Instead, positive trade-offs should be seen as opportunities for growth and seized. After all, we become better as a result of them. When we grow through change, we become active. We take control of our attitude and emotions. We become positive-change agents in our own lives. Author Denis Waitley said, “A sign of wisdom and maturity is when you come to terms with the realization that your decisions cause your rewards and consequences. You are responsible for your life, and your ultimate success depends on the choices you make.” I agree with that, and years ago I determined that while others may lead timid lives, I would not. While others might see themselves as victims, I would not. While others leave their future in someone else’s hands, I will not. While others simply go through life, I will grow through it. That is my choice, and I will surrender it to no one.

[P8] Trade-Offs Force Us to Make Difficult Personal Changes. Often I hear people expressing the hope that things will change. At those moments, I want to tell them that 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. When you want something you have never had, you must do something you’ve never done to get it. Otherwise you keep getting the same results. 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. Changes to our lives always begin with changes we are willing to make personally. That’s often not easy. But to get ourselves over the hump, we need to remember that… Change is Personal—To change your life, you need to change. Change is Possible—Everyone can change. Change is Profitable—You will be rewarded when you change. Change may not always be easy, but it can always be done. As psychologist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl observed, “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” We just need to remember that we are the key. Being willing to make a change is important. So is when we make the change. Changing for the sake of change gives a person whiplash. Changing before you have to can lead to a big win, but it’s difficult to do. Changing when you have to gives you a win. Changing after you have to leads to a loss.Refusing to change is death to your potential. One of the toughest personal changes I went through came in 1978. At that time, I found myself at an intersection in life. I realized that my ability to help people as a speaker was very limited. I could only touch the lives of as many people as I spoke to in person. That’s when I decided that I wanted to write books. The problem was that I had never written a book and didn’t know how to do it. I realized I would have to trade much time and effort to try to become an author, but I was willing to give it a try. “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” —Victor Frankl I spent dozens of hours interviewing writers, taking classes, attending conferences, and listening to tapes. I spent hundreds of hours writing and revising what I’d written. The process took me a year, and all I had to show for it was a small, one-hundred page manuscript. It was rejected by publishers, and there were several times when I asked myself, “Is all this effort really worth it?” In the end, it did pay off. I was able to publish my first book, Think on These Things. Did I reach my potential writing that book? No. But it put me on the road to reaching my potential because I grew. And completing one book made it possible for me to keep writing, learning, and improving. Today, I’ve written more than seventy books that have sold more than 21 million copies. But I never would have sold even one book if I hadn’t been willing to make the difficult changes necessary to become a writer. And I never would have reached most of the people I’ve had the opportunity to help.

[P9] The Loss of a Trade-Off Is Usually Felt Long Before the Gain. Not long ago I was at my son Joel’s house, and I saw my grandson James, who was three, sitting in the laundry room pouting. He was waiting for his blankie to dry, and he was very unhappy because when his blanket is in the dryer, there’s nothing for him to hold onto. We are a lot like James. We want a change, but we don’t want to wait for the result. And often we become acutely aware of what we have lost in the trade because we feel that immediately, while we often don’t reap the benefit of the trade until days, weeks, months, years, or even decades later. These in-between periods of transition can be a real challenge. We want the outcome, but we have to face the end of something we like and face the uncertainty between that ending and the hoped-for new beginning. The change feels like a loss. Some people deal with uncertainty fairly well; others don’t. Some recover from the psychological stress of change fairly quickly and process through it successfully; others don’t. How well you do will depend partly on personality and partly on attitude. You can’t change your personality, but you can choose to have a positive attitude and focus on the upcoming benefits of the trade-off. 

[P10] Most Trade-Offs Can Be Made at Any Time. There are many trade-offs in life that can be made at any time. For example, we can give up bad habits to acquire good ones anytime we have the willpower to make the decision. Getting an appropriate amount of sleep, trading inactivity for exercise, and developing better eating habits to improve our health are all matters of choice, not opportunity. Obviously, the sooner we make such decisions the better, but most of the time they are not time driven. After they make a bad trade-off, people often panic, feeling that they have blown it and can never recover. But seldom is that true. Most of the time, we can make choices that will help us to come back. I know that has been true for me. I’ve made more than my share of poor trade-offs, but I have made many U-turns and recovered. One of my favorite poems by Carl Bard expresses the power of making good choices after bad ones: -Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, my friend, Anyone can start from now And make a brand new ending. So when it comes to choices, never say never. Never is a long, undependable thing and life is too full of rich possibilities to have that kind of restriction placed upon it.

[P11] A Few Trade-Offs Come Only Once. The cycle of change gives us windows of opportunity in which to make decisions. Sometimes that cycle only goes around once. Miss it and the opportunity is gone. Andy Grove, former chairman and CEO of Intel, observed, “There is at least one point in the history of any company when you have to change dramatically to rise to the next performance level. Miss that moment, and you start to decline.” I experienced one of these situations a few years ago. For over a decade, the person I most wanted to meet was Nelson Mandela. It took a few years, but I was finally able to set up an appointment to spend the day with him. But as the date approached, Mr. Mandela broke his hip and he canceled the appointment. I could have changed my schedule to go meet him where he was, but it would have meant canceling a commitment I had made to speak in Kenya. That was a trade-off I was not willing to make, because I had promised to be there. Because of Mr. Mandela’s age, I’ve probably lost the opportunity to meet with him forever. 

[P12] The Higher You Climb, the Tougher the Trade-Offs. As I noted previously, if you’re like most people, when you are starting out in life you have little to give up. But as you climb and accumulate some of the good things of life, the trade-offs demand a higher price. Former secretary of state Henry Kissinger said, “Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem.” “Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem.” —Henry Kissinger When we’re at the bottom, we make trade-offs because of desperation. We are highly motivated to change. As we climb, we change because of inspiration. At this higher level we don’t have to anymore. We get comfortable. As a result, we don’t make the trade-offs. One of the dangers of success is that it can make a person unteachable. Many people are tempted to use their success as permission to discontinue their growth. They become convinced that they know enough to succeed and they begin to coast. They trade innovation and growth for a formula, which they follow time after time. “You can’t argue with success,” they say. But they’re wrong. Why? Because the skills that got you here are probably not the skills that will get you there. This is especially true today when everything is changing quickly. Five years ago (from when I am writing this), Twitter didn’t exist. Now think about how it is impacting our culture and businesses. Four years ago, the iPhone didn’t exist. Now it is normal to carry around this high-powered computer and communication device in a pocket. No matter how successful you have been up to this point, you can never “stand pat.” If you want to keep growing and learning, you need to keep making trades. And they will cost you. In the end, when we make trades we are trading one part of ourselves for another part. Author and thinker Henry David Thoreau said, “The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.” You give part of your life to receive something back. That may not be easy, but it’s essential. “The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.” —Henry David Thoreau

[P13] Trade-Offs Never Leave Us the Same. Business book author Louis Boone asserted, “Don’t fear failure so much that you refuse to try new things. The saddest summary of life contains three descriptions: could have, might have, and should have.” We all have the power of choice, but every time we make a choice, our choice has power over us. It changes us. Even the bad choices can ultimately help us to change for good, because they clarify our thinking and show us ourselves. Professor, novelist, and apologist C. S. Lewis wrote a book called The Great Divorce. It’s been said that he chose that title because faith requires a choice. If we truly examine it, we must decide which side of the line we want to live on, and that choice causes us to divorce ourselves from things we once held onto. So either way we choose, we aren’t the same after we make the choice. 

[P14] Some Trade-Offs Are Never Worth the Price. I’m all for making trade-offs. I have come to see doing them as a way of life. But not everything in my life is on the trading block. I’m not willing to trade my marriage for my career. I’m not willing to trade my relationship with my children or grandchildren for fame or fortune. And I’m not willing to trade away my values for anything or anyone. These kinds of trade-offs only lead to regret. And they are difficult to recover from. Perhaps the most telling story of a bad trade-off can be found in the account of Jacob and Esau in the Bible. As the older son, Esau was in line to inherit the best of everything from his father, Isaac: the birthright, the blessing, and the greater share of his father’s wealth. But then he traded it all away to fill his stomach: One day Jacob was cooking a stew. Esau came in from the field, starved. Esau said to Jacob, “Give me some of that red stew—I’m starved!” That’s how he came to be called Edom (Red). Jacob said, “Make me a trade: my stew for your rights as the firstborn.” Esau said, “I’m starving! What good is a birthright if I’m dead?” Jacob said, “First, swear to me.” And he did it. On oath Esau traded away his rights as the firstborn. Jacob gave him bread and the stew of lentils. He ate and drank, got up and left. That’s how Esau shrugged off his rights as the firstborn. I believe that most people who make these kinds of devastating trades don’t realize they’re making them until after it’s too late. That’s why I believe it’s important to create systems and draw lines to keep ourselves safe. For example, I give Margaret veto power over my schedule to keep me from spending too much time working. I also avoid being alone with any women other than family members. And I spend time every day in prayer to keep my values front and center in my life. I highly recommend that you make choices and use systems to keep yourself grounded and on track.

[P15] Trade-Offs Worth Making. What kinds of trade-offs have you been making so far in your life? Have you thought about it? Have you developed guidelines to help you decide what to strive for and what to give up in return? Allow me to give you five trade-offs that I have thought through that may help you to develop your own guidelines:  1. I Am Willing to Give Up Financial Security Today for Potential Tomorrow. Physician and writer George W. Crane said, “There is no future in any job. The future lies in the man who holds the job.” I have always believed that to be true, and as a result, I have always been willing to bet on myself, so much so that I often accepted financial risks or pay cuts to pursue what I believed was a good opportunity. “There is no future in any job. The future lies in the man who holds the job.” —George W. Crane I’ve made seven major career moves in my lifetime, and in five of them, I took a pay cut to do so. The first came when I chose my first job. When I graduated from college, two churches extended an invitation to me to come and lead their congregation. One offered a full-time salary. The other didn’t. I chose the one that didn’t pay as well because I believed I would grow more there. (And because Margaret was willing to work to help support us!) The second position I held with a larger church was an upgrade financially. That was in 1972. In all the career moves I’ve made since then, only one offered a financial gain—and that was in 2010! Why was I always willing to take a pay cut when changing jobs? Because I value opportunity over security. And I knew I would work hard and be able to earn the ability to make more money in the long run. As my friend Kevin Turner, the COO of Microsoft, says, “The only job security we have is our individual commitment to personal development.” That is a trade-off that always brings a payoff. “The only job security we have is our individual commitment to personal development.” —Kevin Turner

[P16] 2. I Am Willing to Give Up Immediate Gratification for Personal Growth. I’m a very sanguine person, and I love to have fun. In fact, if you had known me when I was a boy, you probably would have predicted that my life wouldn’t amount to much. I was worthless. All I ever wanted to do was play ball and spend time with my friends. But as I began to mature, I learned what opera singer Beverly Sills said: “There are no shortcuts to anyplace worth going.” Instant gratification and personal growth are incompatible. My friend Darren Hardy writes in his book The Compound Effect about the battle most people experience when it comes to weighing instant gratification against doing what’s best for us: We understand that scarfing Pop-Tarts won’t slenderize our waistlines. We realize that logging three hours a night watching Dancing with the Stars and NCIS leaves us with three fewer hours to read a good book or listen to a terrific audio. We “get” that merely purchasing great running shoes doesn’t make us marathonready. We’re a “rational” species—at least that’s what we tell ourselves. So why are we so irrationally enslaved by so many bad habits? It’s because our need for immediate gratification can turn us into the most reactive, non-thinking animals around. When it comes to growth and success, immediate gratification is almost always the enemy of growth. We can choose to please ourselves and plateau, or we can delay our gratification and grow. It’s our choice.

[P17] 3. I Am Willing to Give Up the Fast Life for the Good Life. We live in a culture that idolizes movie and music stars, drools over opulent mansions, idealizes travel, and plays the lottery in hopes of someday getting the chance to live the fast life it so admires and emulates. But most of that is an illusion. It’s like the airbrushed image of a model on the front of a magazine. It’s not real. That’s just one of the reasons I choose to forgo the fast life in favor of the good life. What is the good life? In their book Repacking Your Bags, Richard J. Leider and David A. Shapiro offer a formula for the good life. They say it is “Living in the Place you belong, with the people you Love, doing the Right Work, on Purpose.”8 That’s a pretty good description. I would also add what missionary Albert Schweitzer said: “The great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.” To keep myself from getting “used up,” I try to create greater capacity in myself and therefore margin in my life. If you want to create capacity and margin in your life, I suggest that you do the following: ● Delegate so you’re working smarter, not just harder. ● Do what you do best and drop the rest. ● Get control of your calendar; otherwise other people will. ● Do what you love because it will give you energy. ● Work with people you like so your energy isn’t depleted. If you do those things while doing the right work with purpose in the right place with people you love, you will be living the good life.

[P18] 4. I Am Willing to Give Up Security for Significance. I know many people whose goal in life is security: emotional security, physical security, and financial security. But I don’t think it’s wise to measure progress according to security. I think it’s wiser to measure it by significance. And that requires growth. You’ll never get anywhere interesting by always doing the safe thing. Most people are capable of making a living. That’s the safe thing. The significant thing is making a difference. The great men and women of history were not great because of what they earned and owned, but rather for what they gave their lives to accomplish. Every trade-off is a challenge to become what we really are. Done correctly, we can create opportunities to help others become who they really are. That is significance! The great men and women of history were not great because of what they earned and owned, but rather for what they gave their lives to accomplish.

[P19] 5. I Am Willing to Give Up Addition for Multiplication. I started my career as an achiever. I’ve always had lots of energy, I get excited to do work I love, and I’ve never needed a lot of sleep. So I jumped into my job with both feet and I was motivated to help people. My attitude in the beginning was, “What can I do for others?” But that is addition. Once I began to learn leadership, my question changed to, “What can I do with others?” That’s multiplication. The place where I am investing the greatest amount of time, energy, and resources toward multiplication is EQUIP, the nonprofit organization I founded to teach leadership internationally. With the intention of partnering with others and helping more people, we asked ourselves, What would happen if a leadership company would every day… Strive to add value to leaders and organizations; Value partnerships and aggressively pursue them; Share, not hoard, resources and knowledge with others; Not care who gets the credit; and Become a river of help to others and not a reservoir of assets for themselves? The answer is multiplication! As of today, EQUIP has trained more than 5 million leaders in 175 countries around the globe. That’s something worth making trade-offs for. If you do not already consider yourself a leader, I want to encourage you to explore developing your leadership potential. Even if you are a tiger for personal growth and greatly improve your skills and abilities, if you learn to lead, you can increase the impact you make in life. However, if you believe that you don’t have it in you to lead others, then consider becoming a mentor. Your investment in others will have a multiplying effect, and you won’t regret the time you give. Most people try to take too many things with them as they journey through life. They want to keep adding without giving anything up. It doesn’t work. You can’t do everything; there is only so much time in a day. At some point, you reach your limit. Besides, we need to always remember that if nothing changes, nothing changes! A lot can be learned about trade-offs from a checkers game. As someone once said: Surrender one to take two; don’t make two moves at one time; move up, not down; and when you reach the top, you have the freedom to move as you like.9 If you want to reach your potential, be ready to make trade-offs. As author James Allen said, “He who would accomplish little must sacrifice little; he who would achieve much must sacrifice much.” 

[P20] Applying the Law of Trade-Offs to Your Life. 1. Write your own personal list of trade-off principles. Start by using the list in thechapter to spark ideas: • I Am Willing to Give Up Financial Security Today for Potential Tomorrow • I Am Willing to Give Up Immediate Gratification for Personal Growth • I Am Willing to Give Up the Fast Life for the Good Life • I Am Willing to Give Up Security for Significance • I Am Willing to Give Up Addition for Multiplication Think about worthwhile trade-offs you have made in the past that you believe will continue to be good ideas for the future. Also consider what might be needed for you to reach your potential along with what you might need to give up to fulfill it. 2. It’s just as important for you to know what you are not willing to give up as it is to identify what you are willing to give up. Think through the things that are nonnegotiable in your life and list them. Then for each, identify its greatest potential threat and what safety measures you need to put into place to protect it. 3. What trade do you need to make right now that you have been unwilling tomake? Most people settle in and learn to live with a limitation or barrier that can be removed by making a trade. What is that next thing you need to trade for? And what must you give up to get it?