Growth Begins on the Inside

Good morning, team! All right, so here we are having a wonderful Wednesday. I wanted to reach out to you and share something I read, a quote from John Maxwell. Most of you know by now, especially if you’ve been listening to me for a while or been through a leadership class, that John Maxwell is one of the men whose books I’ve read many of. He just put out another one. I think he’s put out like three books in the last—I don’t know—two years, maybe 18 months? I don’t know. He writes faster than I can read, but I’m excited about reading his next book.

Anyway, he said this: “Growth on the inside fuels growth on the outside.” Let me say that again: “Growth on the inside fuels growth on the outside.“

So, how are you growing? Are you growing your inside? Are you focused?

And I’m not talking about how much you eat so that you have to buy a new pair of pants. I’m focused on the fact that the growth that you complete on the inside of you, who you are as you develop your character, that will become noticeable. People will see growth and wisdom, and experience on the outside.

Nobody’s going to see what happens on the outside of you and what you say until after it has become something that has been a part of you. You build your character, and you grow and learn and develop yourself. That comes through reading and going to school, and knowledge.

It’s something I keep working on with my boys. I’ve been explaining this to Jonathan, who thinks he hates school. I think we all probably, at some point in our lives, maybe didn’t like school. Some of you are weird, and you just loved school, ate it up, and loved every minute of it. You probably should be committed to an institution somewhere. And I’m not talking about an educational institution, I’m talking about one with white coats and padded walls.

Anyway, my point is that not everybody loves school. Not everybody likes it all the time. But it does help develop us. It helps us learn, it helps us grow. It helps us become better. And if we learn—if we pay attention—

My son was doing fractions the other night, and I was sitting down with him. I hadn’t done fractions in over 40 years. So I’m looking at the paper, and I’m actually starting to fill out the stuff because I’m trying to make sure I understand it. My son tells me, “Well, it’s because you did really good in school.”

And I said, “No, no. I did not do really good in school, and I didn’t do really good in fractions at all.” But I explained to him, I said, “The difference is, I’m trying.”

Now I want you to hear that: growth on the inside happens when you actually try—when you want to learn. You’ve all heard my story that I didn’t read a book from cover to cover until I was 19 years of age. And then I read a lot of books from cover to cover. It was because I had the intention to grow my inside.

Then the growth on the outside became evident to everyone else around me. And it became more evident to myself because my reading vocabulary and my understanding grew.

Anything that you want to do—it first starts on the inside. If you want to be great at anything, you have to start with a mental mindset of trying to grow and understand how to do it. Pay attention. Focus. Take some classes. Read a book. Whatever it is that you’re trying to get better at, you’ve got to put intention into it.

And then make sure that what that intention is—and what you’re trying to become better at—if you’re trying to become better and you want to be the best at Splinter Cell or the best at SOCOM 7 or 21 or whatever it is now, or the best at Mario Brothers or Mario Kart or whatever, then you might be wasting your intention in growing something that is not nearly as important.

So the other thing I would like you to think about is: grow in value. What is it that you’re intending to grow at? To become better at? And what benefit does it have to your community, to your family, and to yourself?

I’m not talking about just money. I’m talking about: what can you invest of in your life to become better at so that you can invest value into your community and make it a better place for others to live? When it’s all said and done, did you live your life well? Did you make your community and the space around you a better place?

Not all of us are going to be mayor or president or congressman. Who would want to do that—unless you just want to steal money from the government and make yourself better? Anyway, I don’t want to get on a soapbox. But my point is: what is it that you want to do? Is it for the community, is it for your family? Is it to make the world a better place? Do you want to help people?

Because if you add value to people, then you’re adding value to yourself. If you’re adding value to your community, you’re adding value to yourself. You’re leaving a legacy for your children, your grandchildren, and your great-grandchildren.

So think about those things. It starts with growth on the inside of your character and who you are. Then that will fuel the growth that people will see around you and that will bring value to everyone around you. And it will leave a legacy that will have a ripple effect through time—even into the lives of your great-grandchildren and your friends’ great-grandchildren and people you’ve never met’s grandchildren—because your contribution made the world a better place.

So think about those things and fuel the inside so that the growth on the outside happens. All right. God bless you guys. Have a wonderful week. I’ll talk to you next week.