LAWS OF LIFETIME GROWTH

LAW FOUR
 Always Make Your Performance Greater Than Your Applause
Increased performance is essential for lifetime growth. If you become more skillful and useful, you will receive greater applause from an expanding audience. This can be intoxicating, and the temptation will be to start organizing your life around other people’s recognition and praise—to keep repeating what got you the applause in the first place—rather than moving on to something new, better, and different. When this happens, the danger is that applause will become more important to you than your improved performance. The greatest performers in all fields are those who always strive to get better. No matter how much acclaim they receive, they keep working to improve their performance. Continually work to surpass everything you’ve done so far, and your performance will always be greater than your applause.
The future is always created through action, through performance. We can have an idea or a vision of a bigger future, but the idea and vision become real only when we take actions that are directly focused on achieving specific goals.
Applause resulting from performance is just a by- product. Obviously, it can be a very useful and valuable by-product, but it should never be the main focus. For a person to keep growing, the central focus always has to be the performance itself—never other people’s response to it.
You have control over your performance. You never have control over other people’s responses, approval, or applause. The goal here is always to be getting better; to appreciate how far you’ve come, but also to keep striving to go further, always making your future bigger than your past. A bigger future demands greater performance on your part. A bigger future requires that your skill and mastery keep improving.