The secret to growth is helping others to grow
– Julian Hall
In today’s fast-moving environment, if your aim is to be successful alone you are beautifully limiting your expansion. I am not trying to take away the importance of staying alone from you, a man who can’t stay alone, won’t be able to stand alone when his convictions are tested in deep waters. Moreover, when it comes to matters of growth, come out of that cave called alone.
Even the Creator knew the importance of “not staying alone” when he said, “it is not good for man to be alone”. God understands when it comes to fruitfulness and productivity, a man who is alone can’t attain it.
The language of growth is not “I ALONE” but “I and OTHERS”.
You can never have it all, no matter how wise you are – No, a wise man knows he can’t have it all. It is only an ignorant and arrogant man that thinks he is the epitome of all knowledge. An alone man is a dead sea and will always be an ambassador decorated with the attributes of a dead sea.
Dead seas are stagnant, and they experience little or no improvement. They are dirty, odourful and their contents are always harmful. They are full of themselves and their most significant achievements. An alone man is a selfish man and doesn’t care if others around him grow; all he cares about is taking in sporadically. A typical example of a dead sea is blocked gutters or stagnant waters. No sane man wants to have anything with something that can stain them.
Let me paint a relatable picture for you: anybody who is passing through the secondary school system or who has passed through or the equivalent in other nations can’t forget “MR NIGER D”. I want you to let “N-NUTRITION, G-GROWTH, E-EXCRETION and R-REPRODUCTION” be buried in your consciousness.
The endpoint of nutrition is a reproduction, not growth. Growth is just a process to reproduction, the totality of adding value to ourselves is a reproduction, to attain the ability and capacity to reproduce our growth in others. Excretion is another process we must undergo, and it is the place of unlearning and relearning, it is the stage where we put off dirty linens and besetting weights.
The endpoint of staying alone must be reproducing our growth in others, better than ours. Any man who stayed alone with the objective of growing alone will become a dead sea. The Dead Sea only takes in different nutritions, becomes full of itself and many assume it is growth. They don’t know reproductivity is the mother of all growth and that you are not growing when you are growing alone or better put, staying alone.
Growing alone or staying alone is deceptive, you won’t experience excretion, i.e. unlearning and relearning nor reproduction. To what end is your effort to add nutrition? To what purpose is your attempt to pursue growth? When you can’t reproduce and excrete—a barren land.
You become valuable not by adding value to yourself alone; the equation is balanced by adding value to others. Being valuable is your capacity to be able to add value to yourself and others. The beauty of growth is understanding that the secret to growth is helping others to grow. Reproduction when it comes to growth and development is in helping others to grow.
We must realise this; you will get to a place in life when your personal growth and development, business outcomes will be dependent on how much investment you have dedicated to helping others to grow. Be a flowing river.
My short stint in some villages in Ondo State, located in South-West Nigeria, has made me realize the valued attributes of a flowing river. On one of those lonely and sunny afternoons of my stay, I took a walk to one of the nearby rivers often buzzing with activities, as usual, it is always a pleasant sight to behold. But I went a step further this memorable day; I want my soul to taste what it feels like to be in running water. I did not know how to swim; I undressed and found a shallow spot.
As I baptized my body in the water, my soul was excited, I can’t explain this feeling, but it was better than good. It has never occurred to me that a river can be that cold when a hot sun is covering. It was this day that I decided always to be a flowing river when it comes to growth. The river was able to maintain its nature under such harsh conditions because it is flowing.
A flowing river doesn’t hoard what it has; it gives as it receives. A river knows it can’t be reproductive nor be a blessing to others when it is not flowing. Generally, a river is one of the most significant examples of how a growth chart should look like. They add value and give value; this is the prerequisite of becoming valuable. If you are not faithful in giving little, you can’t be faithful in providing much. Stop adding alone, start adding to others.
Related: WHY A CHRISTIAN MUST PRACTICE GIVING
Give or lend or prescribe books which aid your growth to others if you can’t afford one. Share those podcasts or videos on your laptop. Don’t be a one-person battalion even if you are doing a one-man business, bring others on board. Joshua Selman said, “your first members/followers are your ministry/organisation future leaders”. Your success story is dependent on how many people you need to meet and how many people you have helped to grow.
Don’t be a dead sea, the world will become better if we will all live like a flowing river.
