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He has done several interview and articles. One interview was with Chris LoCurto for the EntreLeadership podcast. In that interview, he mentioned that he was 26 when he first realized the importance of intentionally working on personal growth. Then began the 40-year journey that brought him to this point.

Listening and thinking about that point made me think about myself. Looking back, I can see that I’ve “always” (used loosely) had a desire to learn and grow personally. But when I was also 26 (maybe I’ll be the next John Maxwell?), there were several defining marks.

Know what I believe – I really began to examine my beliefs. Not just what I believed, but I wanted to really know why I believed it. I also began to solidify what I was going to stand for and against – no matter the consequence.

A love for learning – I’ve always like to learn to things. I was the geek in school (or nerd, dweeb, or whatever term you prefer). I was the kid that got A’s with little effort. It wasn’t because I was exceptionally smart, it was because I wanted to learn it. When you really want to learn something, it makes it much easier to learn. When I was 26, I really started to expand this for the first real time in my adult life. I started to read, study, and research – and not for an assignment, project, or report. I was growing my desire and love for learning.

Relearning about trust – I wrote a post about trust recently. The time I referred to there was prior to getting married. I learned a lot about trust then. Several years later (you guessed it – when I was 26), I started to learn it again. This time, however, it was my trust that was broken. Not only was my trust broken, but the trust of my entire church was broken (read about it here). I had to learn to properly deal with broken trust in my life, while trying to help others deal with it in their lives.

Importance of family – This is one of the most important things I learned when I was 26. I realized that I could not just live however I wanted it, ignore my family to achieve my own goals, and expect everything to be okay in my family. I was busy with all of my responsibilities (still am), but I had to make sure to take quality time with my family (notice the word ‘quality’). After the situation in our church at that time, my wife and I needed to have some healing time for our family. We made extra efforts to make time for each other (and our kids).

There are probably numerous other things that I could write about from that year. These are just a few of the ones that really stood out to me. It was a time when I began to intentionally make plans and goals for my life. I began to move from accidental growth to intentional growth.

Question: Can you think of a time in your life when you began to be intentional about your life?

Photo edited by Lily Kreitinger