TAKE THE FIFTEEN-DAY RELATIONSHIP CHALLENGE

I want to introduce you to a good friend of mine, whose story exemplifies the ideas in this book. Mark Householder is president of Athletes in Action, an organization which uses sports as a platform to help people answer questions of faith. A ministry of Cru, AIA engages with athletes in the professional, collegiate, and other arenas to create vision, growth, and outreach to the world through the world of sports.

For the past several years, Mark has been exposed to and trained by the primary message of this book: people are God’s fuel for growth. He has been deeply involved in the growth process and has committed a great deal of his and his organization’s time and energy to this principle.

Mark will tell you that AIA’s performance, its clarity, his personal life, his family, and his relationships have all been transformed by this idea. He has restructured how the organization operates, and it has borne fruit.

Mark once told me that one of the most profound insights he experienced in the process was simply that “we need to need,” which I mentioned at the beginning of this book. Mark’s leadership DNA was to be other centered, and he did not know how to recognize, respect, and provide for his own needs. The principles in this book provided a new, somewhat disruptive, but ultimately liberating reality. He and his ministry remain committed to and growing in this paradigm. They have made vulnerability a cultural norm in their individual, team, and larger meeting contexts, and the results have been transformational.

To help you begin to see visible results from applying this truth and the ideas mentioned here, I want to offer you a challenge. Starting with the Townsend Personal and Relational Assessment Tool (TPRAT), this quick (ten minutes) online survey will help you find out how you are doing in the four character capacities: bonding, boundaries, reality, and capability. It is free to anyone who purchases this book. After completing the assessment, you’ll get a score of one to ten in each area, along with a customized report which lists your specific skills and gives you action steps to take to improve your scores and increase your personal growth.

Then, for the next fifteen days, begin each day with some time to think about how to take one or two of the action steps listed in your results. Whichever categories need attention—bonding, boundaries, reality, and/or capability—do the reading and complete the personal insight assignments step by step. Once you’ve worked through the chapters, it might take you a couple of hours to fully consider how best to apply the ideas. But assign yourself the task of considering specific actions you can take in one or more of your relationships to move them forward. And then, if you took note of some relationships that need attention as you read this book, go back and take those actions as well.

The best part is, once you’ve worked through all the insight assignments, you can take the TPRAT again for free to see how you’ve improved. When you see your score improved by the actions you’ve taken, you’ll experience what so many others have reported, that recovering your energy for relationships is only one benefit of applying the instruction here. We are finding that people are encouraged with their growth upon knowing what to do and working on the skills. You will find the link and password to taking the TPRAT in the informational page in the back of this book.

It’s easy to quickly read a book and feel like you’ve done something for yourself when you haven’t. The transformational benefit you’ll experience for a lifetime comes from taking the first steps. If you take the challenge and complete the personal insight assignments, you will gain significant growth from the new insights received and be enabled to begin making important life changes. Our brains store information much longer when we act on it. So begin to realize the benefits of this information in your life, and maximize the benefits for the people you care for.

You now know what the growth system for life looks like, why it exists, and how we bear good fruit. But each of us has a responsibility to consider who the right people are who can provide the right nutrients in the right quantities at the right times. In this way, we are regularly receiving and delivering what makes life work. Your task over the next fifteen days (or more, if needed) is to take steps to balance out with whom you should be spending more time, and which relationships you should be pruning back, so you can be fueled with the right ratios of nutrients.

Finally, let me challenge you to begin looking at your relationships in a fundamentally different way. Many of us see others as a burden we are to carry, personally or professionally. Or we see others as not all that interested in entering our wells. Neither of these viewpoints is entirely correct, and they’re certainly not helpful.

Instead begin to look at all of this simply as an ecosystem created by God, in which your needs are significant for your well-being. And more, that there truly are others who would count it a privilege and an honor to provide you with the nutrients you need—certainly for your growth but also foundationally, because you are loved. Then pay it forward and transfer your own nutrients to those who need them.

That is the key for all of us, to the life that is well worth living. As Jesus said, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other” (John 15:16–17). God picked you to go bear fruit, fruit of all kinds. And it cannot be done, in its fullest expression, without the love we are to have for each other, as it manifests itself in the giving and receiving of what ultimately are his nutrients for us.

God bless you.