At least not legally or eth­i­cally. And if we under­stand that one key to suc­ceed­ing in life and in busi­ness is to add value to those around us, why are we not more inten­tional with our own development?

Our com­pany, Build­ing Cham­pi­ons, has five con­vic­tions that act as fil­ters for our deci­sions and clar­ify what our team­mates belong to. One of those con­vic­tions is as fol­lows: “We are life­long learn­ers. We can only give away what we possess.”

I think most of you would agree that at the end of the day — or at the end of your life — you want to have led a life of con­tri­bu­tion. You want to have made a sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence in the lives of those around you at home, at work, and in your community.

My encour­age­ment to you is to get off the fast-moving tread­mill once in a while. Make sure that you are con­tin­u­ally chal­leng­ing your­self to learn and grow in the areas of your life that are most impor­tant to you. This is where hav­ing a Life Plan can really make a difference.

Be proac­tive and cre­ate a devel­op­ment plan that is so spe­cific with how and when you will grow that your actions are schedu­la­ble. Don’t just hope that you will lead a life and busi­ness of value. Instead, be one of the very few who are clear on this con­vic­tion of life­long learn­ing, so that you can give away more as the result of pos­sess­ing more.

At this year’s Expe­ri­ence, our theme is Con­tri­bu­tion. We all have more to give, and if you are seri­ous about devel­op­ing your­self so that you can con­tribute more, con­sider join­ing us in September.

Here’s to liv­ing and lead­ing proac­tively and inten­tion­ally, and to ulti­mately mak­ing a greater difference!