JANUARY 2019

Business Tips:

15 Invaluable Laws of Growth

Our management is doing a new study on the John Maxwell curriculum with the book called the 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth. We recommend you pick up a copy or listen to it online if you have the technology to do so. We will be exploring these laws as a team this year.

              The goal in the study is to help each of us learn how to grow and develop ourselves so we have the best chance of becoming the person we were created to be.

~ The Law of Intentionality ~

              If you haven’t recognized it yet, positive growth doesn’t just happen. We have to do it on purpose. Most days it can feel like we are going up a down escalator if we don’t have the right habits in place.

              There is a difference between getting older and getting better, experience isn’t always the best teacher.

              “People are anxious to improve their circumstances but are unwilling to improve themselves. They therefore remain bound.” – James Allen – Most want their circumstances and surroundings to change, but they don’t understand that the core of everything has to be them, and change has to begin with them.

Personal Tips:

~ Resolution 2: Character ~

RESOLVE TO: Choose character over reputation any time they conflict

On integrity: John Wooden (famous UCLA basketball coach) – “Never lie, never cheat, never steal.”

Integrity is a crucial attribute, but a person can have unimpeachable integrity and still not have character. Character moves beyond integrity and requires courage to fulfill its high calling.

Integrity is not doing wrong, while character is doing what is right. For example, John, an older boy, bullied young Billy at school. Tom watched the incident happen but didn’t participate. Tom displayed integrity by not joining in the bullying, but not character. For Tom to have character, he must move beyond integrity and have the courage to defend young Billy, willing to risk his personal peace and safety for the sake of justice. Although integrity (refusing to do wrong) is good, character (expecting people to have the courage to do what is right) is even better. If Tom had helped Billy, he would have moved from integrity to character through his courageous actions.

One might wonder how to develop character. The simple, but not easy, formula for character is this: character = integrity × courage.

              This also moves into trust as character plus competence yields trust. Trust is the underlying result of having character.

By demonstrating character consistently, trust is the fruit of that consistent labor.

Woodward, Orrin. RESOLVED: 13 Resolutions for LIFE

Life Skills:

Faith, Family, Fitness, Finances, Friends, Fun, Following, Freedom; we call these the 8F’s in life.

Many of these categories can tell one where their priorities are in life by measuring the time one would spend in one of the above categories. I know we don’t have it all figured out, but we have a lot of great sources that speak into these items and we welcome your comments. Please feel free to drop us a line concerning any of them.

THE DAILY DOZEN

This year we are going to use this concept to explain 1 word per month that if made into a habit, we believe your life will, no doubt, improve.

WORD

              So far in my life reading has been the “difference maker” when it comes to growth. I know, there are videos, audios, etc available everywhere, but when you engage your mind in the habit of reading every day….it changes you. Your capacity to understand, develop cognitive thinking skills, and just the overall skill of reading becomes a part of you. Many of the great texts, like the Bible, are meant to be studied. Just listening or watching something will not help to grasp or develop the contextual basis, language, or your own interpretation. Engaging it on paper makes the difference. Just do it…..make reading part of your daily walk.

·       10-15 minutes per day to start

·       Pick the books that you want to read before each quarter and set the goal to get through them

·       Tear them up, dog ear them, highlight them, write notes in them, apply truthful knowledge to your life

– Reading for growth should be study and that makes all the difference –

Notable quotes: They are italicized above.

Something I want you to know:

Being intentional about growth, developing character, and making a habit of reading will change your life.