Are You Becoming Obsolete?
David Freund, Chief Leadership Officer
Within MACNY’s vast membership, there are several organizations that routinely encourage their people to my attend my classes. These organizations realize that most people only use a fraction of their abilities and rarely reach their full potential, so they plant the seeds within their teams to encourage growth. In other words they encourage their teams at all levels to stretch.
In his book, 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth, John Maxwell introduces us to several laws, but the law I want to focus on today is Law # 10: “The Law of the Rubber Band.” A rubber band is only useful when it’s stretched. If it’s not stretched, it serves no useful purpose. We’re very much like the rubber band; unless we’re stretched, we’ll soon outlive our usefulness. We all know that change is inevitable, but do we know that growth is optional? The reality is that growth stops when we lose the tension between where we are and where we could be. We each need to stretch.
According to a 2019 survey, one-third of high school graduates will never read a book after high school, 42% of college graduates will never read a book after college, and 80% of U.S. families didn’t buy or read a book in 2018. So much for growth and learning. Where have all the learners gone? What happened to the idea of building a better tomorrow for our families and communities? Are we settling for average or mediocrity? If so, it’s because we’ve lost the tension between where we are and where we could be. According to psychologist Abraham Maslow, “If you plan on being anything less than what you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.”
It’s time to wake up and realize there’s a great tomorrow out there; a tomorrow that’ll offer opportunities we haven’t even imagined. In my classes, I often make this statement: “When the rate of change inside of you is less than the rate of change outside of you, you’ll quickly become obsolete.” Will you take the initiative to stretch and grow so you’ll be ready when opportunity knocks, or will you simply outlive your usefulness?