Back in April, I started a series of themes of the week based on a book I had been reading at the time by John Maxwell and Rob Hoskins called, Change Your World. We have come to the final chapter in the book, Chapter 9 – “It’s Your Turn to Change Your World.”

This chapter was a review and a challenge to us for our future. It started with a quote from the artist Andy Warhol. “They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”

I love this quote! While it can take time for certain things to happen or to change in life, most things don’t just happen due to time passing. They need some kind of catalyst for them to happen. If you want something to change in your world, you need to be that catalyst.

Follow the Map

In the first section, Maxwell & Hoskins tell us that they took us an on “aspirational journey in four phases, from me to we to making a difference together.”

Phase 1: I Want to Make a Difference

The first two chapters, “We Can’t Wait for Change” and “Become a Catalyst for Change” were all about the desire to make a difference. Their goal in those two chapters was that they “fed a growing passion within you to change your world and affirmed your ability to make a difference.”

They went on to say that they had “watered the seeds of compassion and conviction in you so they would blossom into hope, hope that can now be harnessed to make your world a better place.”

Phase 2: With People Who Make a Difference

A critical component to you “making a difference” is that you make a difference with other people who make a difference. In chapters 3 & 4 “We All Need One Another” and “Let’s All Get on the Same Page,” they presented the idea that “change is greater when everyone works together, each person bringing specific skills, talent, and experience to the table to make everyone better. When people collaborate, movements often start…. When people who care get on the same page and work from a foundation of shared values, they can make a difference.”

Speaking of movements, it was in Chapter 3 where we learned about Casey Crawford, the former NFL football player who decided that there had to be more to life than just making money playing football and who decided to do something about it. He started Movement Mortgage to make the home-buying experience more affordable for more people, especially those who were struggling financially.

But Crawford didn’t stop there. He decided to also build schools in poverty-stricken communities, and then he decided to build hospitals in those communities, too. He formed the Movement Foundation to handle that mission to help as many people in those tough situations as he could. His story was extremely impactful to me, and it was one of those things in the book that hit me hard in telling me that I need to get moving on a project/mission that I have been thinking of starting for close to a year now.

Phase 3: Living Values That Make a Difference

Maxwell & Hoskins then focused on the importance of values in Chapter 5 “Experience the Value of Values” and Chapter 6 “Transformation Happens one Table at a Time.”

The power of having, living, and instilling good values in order to change your world was a major element in both of these chapters. Maxwell said, “Rob and I have never seen positive change occur or the transformation of a community happen unless good values were embraced by the people involved. …Whatever your hopes and dreams for positive change—for yourself or others—living good values will expand them. Good values always make a difference.”

This phase is also where they introduced us to the concept of Transformation Tables. They feel that transformation tables are the best way to help people live good values.

Phase 4: Taking Action that Makes a Difference

The final phase, Chapter 7 – “What Gets Done Gets Measured” and Chapter 8 – “Let’s Keep Talking,” were all about taking action. They said, “Hope, though powerful, is not enough to change your world. Action is what actually makes a difference.”

And a key to people continuing to keep making a difference, is that they “need to continue talking to one another, to have ongoing transformational conversations.”

Get In Where You Fit In

Maxwell & Hoskins talk about different ways to start on the road to changing your world. One way is to follow the roadmap they created. One way to do that is to go to their website ChangeYourWorld.com. They have many different tools there to help people grow through every phase of the process.

However, they were not saying you had to follow their way. They said that everyone takes “a unique route to get there, but the result we desire is the same—transformation…. It matters less how you get started than that you simply get started.”

You May Blaze Your Own Trail

They told a powerful story of a girl named Charlee Tchividjian-Sherry. She was a high school dropout who started working at Rob’s OneHope organization volunteering in South Africa. The terrible things she saw there prompted her to want to make a difference in the lives of poor, young mothers who felt hopeless and had no support in raising their new babies.

After coming home to America, Charlee started an organization called EMA—Every Mother’s Advocate—dedicated to doing that in Virginia. She then moved to Florida and started EMA there. She and her organization have helped thousands of children stay out of foster care and stay with their moms.

Maxwell & Hoskins say, “Charlee is just a regular person, but she is changing the world because she followed her heart and took action on what she thought was the right thing to do. She blazed her own trail, feeling her way along as she found the place where she could make the most difference…. What she has done, you can do.”

You Can Join Our Transformation Team

While Charlee and countless others have blazed their own trails to change their world, Maxwell & Hoskins recognize that not everyone feels comfortable doing it that way. They said that if you would prefer to follow an existing path instead, you can join them on their journey of transformation.

Becky Bursell is someone who changed her world by doing just that. While she was a financially successful businessperson in the nutritional supplement industry, she felt that there had to be more to life than just making a lot of money.

She said, “I found myself at forty-one years old having to reevaluate and redefine my values, based on who I wanted to be, not what I wanted in return. The only way for me to do that was to start at the beginning—with a clean slate.”

She sold her business and went searching for a way to make a difference in the lives of others. She met John, and he invited her to begin leading transformation tables. The materials were already written for anyone who wanted to use them, so she began using them herself and then training others to use them. She enjoys telling others:

You can change your world when you…

  1. Facilitate Transformation Tables
  2. Complete the curriculum
  3. Live the values.
  4. Share your experience of transformation
  5. Invite others to facilitate transformation tables
  6. Repeat

This curriculum is so powerful. These are values, embedded in universal principles, that can be applied to every path in life. All we have to do is be the facilitators.

Take Your Next Step

Maxwell & Hoskins bring the book to a close with the following ideas:

You don’t need to change the whole world; just make things better for people in your world…. If you have a sense of what you should do, then do it…. Transformation is possible for anyone willing to learn and live good values, value people, and collaborate with them to create a positive values culture.

 

What matters now is that you do something. Get started today and find out where it leads. Even if it turns out totally different from what you expect, you’ll enjoy the journey and you’ll never regret working to make a difference, because it will change your world—and you.

I have told you how powerful and impactful this book was for me. Next week, I will begin to tell you about the idea/project/mission that I have had in mind for a while that this book helped move me to start taking action on bringing to life. Based on who many of you in my audience are, I have a feeling quite a few of you will want to join me on the journey that I think is going to change the world for a lot of people.

I will save that for next week and for more weeks to come. Until then, if you would like more information on how to change your world, as I have said each week, GET THE BOOK NOW!

And as I mentioned earlier, you can also go to ChangeYourWorld.com to receive materials to lead transformation tables, iLead youth materials, and information on becoming part of a transformation team.

Thank you, John Maxwell & Rob Hoskins, for writing such an impactful book and for being our guides over the last nine weeks to help us all learn how to change our worlds.

And thank you to all of you for allowing me to take you on this journey through their book. I would love to hear from you about how it has impacted all of you and what you have started to do to change your world because of it. Please leave a comment below or email me at scott@slamdunksuccess.com and let me know.

Next week, we start a new journey—one that might be called, A Journey of Significance!