Tim Lavender - Achieving Personal Greatness. Discover the 10 Powerful Keys to Unlocking Your Potential

ACHIEVING
PERSONAL
GREATNESS

ACHIEVING
PERSONAL
GREATNESS

DISCOVER THE 10 POWERFUL KEYS TO
UNLOCKING YOUR POTENTIAL

TIM LAVENDER

Copyright 2002 by Tim Lavender

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson, Inc.

All Scripture quotations are taken from the NEW KING JAMES VERSION. Copyright 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lavender, Tim.
Achieving personal greatness : discover the 10 powerful keys to unlocking your potential / Tim Lavender.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-7852-6556-2
1. Self-actualization (Psychology) I. Title.
BF637.S4 L395 2002
158.1dc21

2002006423

Printed in the United States of America

1 2 3 4 5 6 BVG 06 05 04 03 02

DEDICATION

To the three great mentors who have shaped my lifeDonny, Larry, and Michael. Thank you for using your positive influence to unlock my potential.

To my best friend and wife, Joy. Thank you for believing in me when I was all alone. Your unconditional love has energized my life like nothing else ever could.

To my dear children, Jacob and Rachel. You are my greatest gifts from the hand of God.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION
UNLOCK THE GREATNESS INSIDE YOU

ONE SATURDAY WHEN I WAS THIRTEEN YEARS OLD, MY best friend invited me to play golf with him. At that time, I was an avid and successful baseball player and, generally speaking, an excellent athlete, but I had never picked up a golf club. My friend, on the other hand, had played golf with his dad every weekend for a couple of years.

I picked up the clubs with the same ten-finger grip I used in baseball and slugged away... and after eighteen holes, I had a better score than my friend. I had also fallen in love with the game.

I played golf as often as I was able and slowly but steadily lowered my score. Then I hit a plateau. I was determined to continue to improve, but nothing I tried seemed to help. I sought out a pro at a local club and signed up for a lesson.

The pro took one look at my swing and promptly advised me that the ten-finger grip I had used to hold a baseball bat didnt work in golf, and that I would need to change my grip if I wanted to play better golf. He showed me the proper grip, and I swung away. Nothing about that grip felt comfortable. The ball didnt go nearly as far or in the direction I desired. After half a bucket of balls with the new swing, I informed the pro that I couldnt make the change.

I expected him to offer a Plan B approach to improving my game, but to my surprise, he said, OK, Thats all for today.

I was stunned. All for today? You mean the lesson is over? I asked.

Yes, he said.

But why? Thats all youre going to teach me in one lesson?

The pro responded, If you dont change your grip, youre as good as youll ever be. Nothing else I tell you will matter if you dont change your grip.

I wanted to improve in golf more than I wanted to cling to my old habits, so I made the change. As awkward as it was at first, as unsuccessful as I was at first, as clumsy as the new grip felt at first, I made the change. I practiced and practiced until I could hit the ball with the new grip as well as I had with my old baseball-style grip. And then I began to hit the ball even better.

Years later, Im still hitting the ball with the proper grip, and Im still in love with the game. Ive won fifteen amateur tournaments, and I hope to win more.

If you truly want to unlock the potential for greatness that lies within you, you are going to have to make some changes in the way you think. Perhaps the first change needs to be in the way you think about personal greatness.

EMBRACE YOUR OWN GREATNESS

A friend of mine said to me, You know, Im not sure about your idea of personal greatness. It sort of makes me feel uncomfortable to tell someone that I think I can be great.

Really? I said. You know, I knew your father, and in some ways, he was the father I never really had. How do you evaluate your dad? How do you rate him when it comes to being great?

Oh, Dad was a great man. No doubt about it! I learned so many things from him, he replied.

What about our mutual friend John? You and I have enjoyed his friendship for many years. What about him? I asked.

Oh, he has been a great friend to me, he said. I think hes a great guy.

Well, if these people are great in your eyes, dont you believe you can be great in the eyes of others?

I watched his face closely as I asked this question. It was as if a light went on.

Personal greatness is not about your believing that you can achieve superiority over others. Its not about developing a proud attitude. Its not about being better than other people.

Personal greatness is about your becoming foundationally great and great in the eyes of others so that one thing might happenthey might be influenced to be more than they would be without you in their lives.

We seem to use the term great all the time. We talk about great friends and the great times we share with them. We talk about the great teachers we have had over the years and how they influenced our lives. We talk about great pastors we have had, great courses we have taken, great books we have read, great movies we have seen, great songs we have heard, great things we have experienced, and great lessons we have learned.

The idea of greatness is common to us, and we use it to describe people and things that have had a positive influence on our lives. However, most of us dont use the term great to describe ourselves.

In my nearly three decades of being in business and working with all types of people, I have learned that many, if not most, people believe deep down inside that they can be great. There is a still, small voice telling them that they can be someone special. Its the inner greatnessthe inner desire to be ones very bestthat is at the heart of personal greatness.

Personal greatness has nothing to do with being exceptionally intelligent, rich, famous, or politically successful. Its about being a person who exerts positive influence on others. Personal greatness is a matter of unlocking your potential and using your potential in such a way that it overflows into other peoples lives to generate a positive result.

This book presents three basic laws of personal greatness, seven guiding principles that are absolutely necessary for you to embrace if you are to unlock your potential, and ten powerful keys that can help you release your potential and turn it into positive influence. Together, these laws, principles, and keys present the way to achieve your very own expression of personal greatness.

I invite you to the adventure.

I invite you to take a step toward the day when other people will call you great because of the wonderful things you have helped unlock in their lives.

LAW #1
POTENTIAL PLUS POSITIVE INFLUENCE PRODUCES PERSONAL GREATNESS

WHEN I WAS WORKING ON MY MASTERS DEGREE IN business administration at Southern Methodist University, I had a leadership professor who made this claim in a lecture: Hitler was a great leader. Most of us in the class grimaced. He went on, however, to ask us to argue in favor of that statement. Some of the arguments that emerged were these: