Last Review ( Chapter 11 & 12 ) - Sometimes you win Sometimes you learn by. Jhon C. Maxwell

Chapter 11 – Maturity: The Value of Learning

Maturity doesn’t necessarily come with age.

Here’s what results in maturity for John Maxwell:

1. Finding the Benefit in the Loss.

2. Learning to Feed the Right Emotions.“Maturity is doing what you are supposed to do, when you’re supposed to do it, no matter how you feel.” Action is the key to success. Too often we want to feel our way into acting, when instead we need to act our way into feeling. If you take the right actions, you will eventually feel the right feelings.

3. Learning to Develop Good Habits. By acting into our feelings with positive action over a sustained period of time, we will form positive habits. As poet John Dryden put it: “We first make our habits, and then our habits make us.” Comes hell or high water, you need to follow through.

4. Learning to Sacrifice Today to Succeed Tomorrow. People are naturally inclined towards behavior that make them feel good in the short term. Hence you have to cultivate the willingness to sacrifice.

5. Learning to Earn Respect for Yourself and Others. Brian Tracy says: “Self-esteem is the reputation you have with yourself.” If you want it to be solid and lasting, it must be earned and confirmed, day by day. Following through no matter what is a great way to earn that respect.

Too often we want to feel our way into acting, when instead we need to act our way into feeling

Chapter 12 – Winning Isn’t Everything, But Learning Is

Sometimes You Win Sometimes You Learn ends with another fabulous chapter on the advantages of a learners’ mindset:

1. Learning Too Often Decreases as Winning Increases Complacency.Winning may remove some of your hunger. Here’s the solution for John Maxwell: keep your hunger to learn instead. Then no matter whether you win or lose, you’ll keep getting better.

2. Learning Is Possible Only When Our Thinking Changes. Negative ideas and discouraging thoughts will try to creep in. But Maintaining a consistently positive mental attitude will be your greatest ally in growing and learning. So you stand guard at the gates of your mind. Think positively long enough, and your positive thoughts will grow stronger and natural.

3. Real Learning Is Defined as a Change in Behavior. The greatest gap in life is the one between knowing and doing.Remember to apply your learning and translate them into action.

4. Continual Success Is a Result of Continually Failing and Learning.Joseph Sugarman says, “(..) if you’re willing to consider failure as a blessing in disguise and bounce back, you’ve got (..) one of the most powerful success forces.” Progress requires risk, but there’s an art to managing that risk: be in your strength zone -the things you like and do well- but get out of your comfort zone.

How you can apply it

Sometimes You Win Sometimes You Learn is a is the condensed guide for a learners’ mindset. Here are a few distilled ideas on how to make it even more applicable:

Approach your challenges as an opportunity to learn
This will both prepare you to learn and grow and at the same time take some pressure off. “It’s just an opportunity to learn”, you tell yourself, and you will quiet your lizard brain which is so adamant in keeping you in your comfort zone.

Move past the mistake trap
If you are ambitious chances are you are very hard on yourself. The words of Hugh Prather in Sometimes You Win Sometimes You Learn will probably ring true to you: “I react to a mistake as if I betrayed myself. My fear of making a mistake seems to be based on the hidden assumption that I am potentially perfect, and that if I can just be very careful I will not fall from heaven (…)“. Needless to say, this mindset is a straitjacket.
Solution: Realize you’re always a work in progress and your goal is not being perfect but getting better (learner mindset). Then fail quickly, forge ahead with a win or lose attitude, and base your self esteem on doing it, rather than doing it perfectly.

Move past regret and losses
I put it here again because I know this is a sticky point for so many. Moving past losses and regret is key to a successful -and happy- life. But it’s not our default setting.
Solution: here’s what John Maxwell recommends to minimize the damage of losses:
1. Let them go emotionally
2. Remain positive -by feeding positive thoughts and interpretations to your mind-
3. Watch out how you evaluate yourself: be constructive (start with a positive and end with a positive)
4. Radically change the way you look at losses (as a learning opportunity, which is what the book is about)

We want success, but we should instead train for losses