The Laws of Lifetime Growth: Always Make Your Future Bigger Than Your Past by Dan Sullivan and Catherine Nomura
The key to making your future bigger than your past is to focus on the learning opportunities that are all around you. That might mean picking up a book from a used book store, like I did with this one.
Every book can teach you something, if you pay attention. And while I think I knew most of the points the authors make here, it’s always nice to have a refresher.
Identify the 2 Aspects of Every Experience
“Every experience you’ve ever had has two parts to it: the things about the experience that worked and the things that didn’t work. By worked we mean that those parts of the experience moved you forward, adding to your sense of capability and confidence. By didn’t work we mean the opposite: those aspects of the experience blocked or undermined your sense of capability and confidence.
Once you identify these two aspects of every experience, you begin to become aware of new ways to maximize what worked, and to bypass or eliminate what didn’t.”
Some of the best learning experiences are the times we fail. If we identify why something didn’t work, we can take steps to avoid a similar failure in the future.
“The biggest breakthroughs often come from mistakes, because that’s where you get your best improvement ideas.”
Look For Learning Opportunities
“Your own experience is rich with learning opportunities that you will see if you’re looking for them. Transform your experience into lessons and you’ll never feel world-weary or disadvantaged by your past. Instead, each lesson will provide the foundation for better experiences in the future.”
Instead of telling a great sob story, use that situation as a springboard to something greater.
Strive to Get Better
“Increased performance is essential for lifetime growth. If you become more skillful and useful, you will receive greater applause from an expanding audience. This can be intoxicating, and the temptation will be to start organizing your life around other people’s recognition and praise—to keep repeating what got you the applause in the first place—rather than moving on to something new, better, and different. When this happens, the danger is that applause will become more important to you than your improved performance. The greatest performers in all fields are those who always strive to get better. No matter how much acclaim they receive, they keep working to improve their performance. Continually work to surpass everything you’ve done so far, and your performance will always be greater than your applause.”
It Takes a Team
“What happens in a great performance is that the performer and the audience together celebrate the greatness of the music. The performer ‘applauds’ the music through his or her performance, and the audience applauds more literally.
“Every success comes through the assistance of many other people.”
Be grateful for the support and always work to build your team.
“No success happens without the right combination of elements and circumstances aligning, whether you believe it’s by luck, fate, design, or destiny.”
Stay Playful
“Creativity is all fields of activity is intimately linked to playfulness—the constant desire to do new things just for the fun of it. Approach everything you do with these sense of play, and you will ensure that, even though you still get as good or better results, your enjoyment is always greater than your effort.”
My Reading Log of 2021 – with links to book reviews for each title