Maxwell Leadership Podcast: How to Develop an Abundance Mindset

Mark Cole:
John Maxwell says, what we focus on expands. I love this quote by John, as I love many quotes. But I love it because what we’re talking about today in today’s podcast is how to develop an abundance mindset. I’m so glad you’ve joined us here on the Maxwell Leadership podcast. Our podcast is committed to adding value to leaders who multiply value to others. My name is Mark Cole, and today, as John talks about developing an abundance mindset, I am so excited for you to hear what he has to say, take notes on what he has to say, and begin the process of changing your mindset. Because as John says in the lesson today, what you see becomes reality to you. I want to change your reality today.

Mark Cole:
I want to help you focus. John wants to help you focus on abundance. Now, after John is done teaching, I can’t wait. Because one of the greatest thinkers in the area of abundance positivity is a guy I get to work with day in and day out. His name is Chris Robinson, and Chris is here today. And we’re going to take what John teaches. We’re going to break it down, and we’re going to help you apply it to your life and your leadership. Don’t miss out on the bonus resource or the option to watch this episode on YouTube.

Mark Cole:
You can go to maxwellpodcast.com/abundance to access this and many other resources. Okay, family, get ready. Grab your pen. And whether you’re listening, whether you’re watching, get ready. Here is John Maxwell.

John Maxwell:
What we focus on expands. So these next few minutes, focus with me on abundance. If you and I are walking down a street and we’re just breathing, okay, we’re just walking, talking, we’re breathing. Not one time do you look at me and say, John, do you think there’s enough air to breathe? Not one time do I look at you and say, wow, we, you know, measure your breaths because, you know, gosh, we could. We could run out air. No, no, no. It never enters our mind because we have grown up in an environment of abundance, that there’s plenty of air for all of us. But let’s just say, for example, we’re scuba diving.

John Maxwell:
And in the scuba diving, all of a sudden, maybe one of the tanks malfunctions. And instead of having two tanks, we got to have one tank to get back up to the surface. And now, all of a sudden, we’re being very careful and we are measuring our breaths, and we are asking each other, do we have enough air in that tank? Now, what I’ve just described is a scarcity mindset. And let me just say this. During adversity, it’s okay for a brief time to go into scarcity. And the reason it’s okay is because just as the scuba diving illustration is, we understand we got a problem. We only have one tank of air. We’ve got to get back to the service.

John Maxwell:
So now we have to measure our breath. Now we are asking the question, is there enough air? And what I want you to know is, during difficulties, during surprises, there’s a tendency for us all to say, oh, what do I have? How much do I have? It’s okay to have a scarcity mindset in emergency. It’s not okay when the emergency is over to stay in that type of thinking. That’s what I don’t want you to miss. And so many times I think we allow what happened behind us or the experiences that we’ve had to begin to cause us to lead differently instead of leading abundantly. Again, we go back to the illustration I’ve given you before. Am I a river or am I a reservoir? A reservoir has a scarcity mindset. Hold the water, you may need it for a, hey, not a rainy day.

John Maxwell:
And the river is just flowing and giving and depositing water wherever it can or wherever it should. So we want to focus in this lesson purely on abundance. There are three very simple statements. They all kind of just go together. Just let me give them to you. Then we’re going to build off of them. We’re going to do some teaching. The first statement is that I see what I’m prepared to see.

John Maxwell:
I don’t see everything, and you don’t see everything either. We don’t see what is. We see what we’re prepared to see. That’s why two people can be in the same meeting and see totally different things. Now, this is important, because if I’m prepared to see scarcity, I will constantly see that there’s not enough. If I’m prepared to see abundance, I will constantly see that there’s more enough. Now, let me give you the second statement. What I see becomes reality to me.

John Maxwell:
It’s real. And so when somebody comes up to me and they have a scarcity mindset, and they say, you know what? I, you know, I just, wow, I think we’re kind of. I don’t think we’re going to be able to make it. I look at them and I say, I think you’re probably right. You won’t be able to make it. Someone else comes up and they say, my gosh, I think this is the. The sky is the limit. Yeah, I think you’re right.

John Maxwell:
The sky’s the. You see, we not only see what we’re prepared to see, but whatever we see, it becomes reality to us. So when a person lives in a scarcity mindset, what they’re saying isn’t wrong. I watch people trying to correct them all the time. No, no, no. What they see is what they see. It’s reality to them. Just as a person in an abundance mindset, what they see, that’s a reality, too.

John Maxwell:
Which brings me to the third statement. And the third statement is how I view things determines how I do things. So all of my behavior comes out of how I see things. That’s why this abundance mindset is absolutely huge. Stephen Covey, in his book, basically what he says is very simple. He said, in a world of scarcity, you constantly miss opportunity, even when abundance is all around you. What’s he saying? You’re not lacking opportunity because opportunity is not there. You’re lacking opportunity because you’re not seeing opportunity.

John Maxwell:
You have a scarcity mindset. You see, scarcity equals the negative, which equals what I would call fearful emotions, where abundance equals belief or faith, which is positive emotions. So we both have it. I have. I have within me. You have within you a scarcity emotion, and you have also an abundance emotion. You’ve got them both in you. There’s no such thing as you are void of one.

John Maxwell:
I have both belief and I have both fear. Okay, that’s not the question. The question is which of the two is the stronger? Because the stronger emotion always wins. Not sometimes wins. Not usually wins. The stronger emotion always wins. So if my scarcity fear emotion is greater than my belief abundance emotion, then to be honest with you, I will recognize that some people are abundant. But I’ll go right back into the fear pattern.

John Maxwell:
And the reverse is also true. The stronger emotion, always not sometimes. The stronger emotion always wins. So how do we control that? We control our emotions by our emotions. The next time you’re really trying to figure this out, just take the word emotion and strike the letter e. Motions create emotions. Motions determine emotions. So I’m gonna give you six very simple motions to just absolutely activate on, and those six motions will give you that abundance that you need as a leader to take your people to the level you really want to take them to.

John Maxwell:
Number one, offer words of appreciation. Offer words of recognition. Let people know how much you value their contribution. The people around you, they want to know all the time that their work matters, that they matter, what you appreciate, appreciates, who you appreciate, appreciates. So constantly get into that compounding, appreciating action activity to continue to have an abundance mindset. Because the more that you appreciate, the more that you see abundance, just like the less you appreciate, the more that your world begins to shrink around you. Number two, though, is a good one. Choose to see opportunity.

John Maxwell:
Now, isn’t this interesting? Choose to see opportunity. Most people are hoping that opportunity finds them. We almost have, like, a four leaf clover mindset about opportunity and possibility, and we just kind of hope that we’re at the right place at the right time with the right people doing the right thing. And all of a sudden, this opportunity appeared before us and we go, oh, my gosh, look what just kind of, like, fell into my lap. I’m not saying that at all. If you want to have an abundance mindset, you don’t wait for opportunity to find you. You choose to find opportunity. You choose to see opportunity.

John Maxwell:
So the next time that you’re faced with an obstacle, the next time you’re faced with some kind of a difficulty, a barrier, a roadblock, a dead end, whatever, the next time you see that, that negative which would cause you to go into a scarcity mindset, flip it. Just flip it and see it as an opportunity. The third thing that I want you to do is remind yourself that there is more than enough. The greatest solver of problems is growth. When people start growing, secondary things truly become secondary things. So I want you not only to repeat after me that there’s plenty for everyone, but I want you to begin saying that not only to yourself, but I want you to begin saying that to your team and say it often enough that you not only say it, but that you, you live it and you, you believe it, and you, and you act it out and you behave it. Okay? You got that? Number four, carefully select the company that you keep. Now, this one’s really personal, okay? Because let me tell you something.

John Maxwell:
Mindsets are contagious. And so if you have a lot of scarcity people around you, can I tell you something? After a while, it’ll wear you down and you’ll start to think scarcity. Just like if you have a bunch of abundance people around you, it’ll lift you up and you’ll begin to see more and begin to do more. Mindsets are contagious, and you got the limit your time with scarcity people. Here’s what I want you to hear. I know this journey. I’ve lived this journey, and I’ve had a lot of success in my life. And I’m gonna tell you one of the reasons I understood very quickly that there were people I could not afford to spend time with, that they were gonna pull me down, they were gonna drag me, they were gonna limit me.

John Maxwell:
And I would say probably the biggest decision I made as a young leader was to pick my friends very carefully. Number five, spend time in grateful reflection, and you need to continually be writing down the things that you are grateful for. This is absolutely huge in having an abundance mindset. I have never met a person with great gratitude that had a scarcity mindset. Gratitude is synonymous to abundance. Grateful people are abundant people. Let me give you the last motion to do, and that is give more of what you want. Now, this sounds very counterintuitive when I say this, but one of the greatest ways to increase your abundance is to be generous.

John Maxwell:
And, you know, it was Zig Ziglar that helped me as a young leader. He said, if you’ll help other people get what they want, they’ll help you get what you want. I close with this quote. William James said, the greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their life by altering the attitudes of their mind. He’s right. And you and I can change our mindset the moment we want to. So let’s just determine. We are going to think live and be part of the abundance mindset.

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Mark Cole:
Hey, welcome back, podcast family. I hope that you enjoyed John’s teaching today as much as I did. I was thinking as I was listening, and as I always do with my co host, which today is Chris Robinson. I’m so excited, Chris, you’re here. But as I was listening, I was thinking about a mindset that I had after a meeting just yesterday and how right as John was teaching, I thought, boy, if I change that perspective of that meeting, everything about that meeting and the results and the success and the next steps of that meeting changes with one mindset changes. And so today, I hope, as you listen to John, I hope that you, too were impacted by that. I’m so glad I don’t get a chance to spend time talking leadership to Chris Robinson. Those of you that don’t know Chris, Chris is.

Mark Cole:
He’s an entrepreneur at heart. He’s passionate about leadership and his whole being. And just about four and a half years ago, Chris and I looked at each other and said, hey, we need to be leading beside each other and we need to be making a difference in our coaches lives. For those of you that don’t know, John Maxwell about 14 years ago decided to start a coaching company and now today we have 53,000 plus coaches certified in over 160 countries. And Chris is the leader of that incredible community. But here’s what that’s all good. That’s all what you do. But let me tell you who Chris is.

Mark Cole:
When John and I were talking about getting people to focus on the five areas that John loves, communication, leadership, equipping, attitude and relationship. C l e a R. For those of you watching, I just counted it out five fingers. We looked at the area of attitude and John looked at me that day and he said, mark, there’s only one person I know that every time I’m with them consistently lives out attitude the way I think it should be lived out. And it was you, Chris. And I’ve told you that before privately. But I’m telling our podcast family, you are in for a treat because my co host, my co leader, we lead beside each other every single day. We just don’t get time like this every single day to talk leadership.

Mark Cole:
We’re going to talk about this idea of creating an abundance mindset. And Chris, you’re going to have questions for me. I got all that. But I’m going to start with you because I think you’re an expert at this. You’re an icon to in this area. John says, we don’t see what is. We see what we’re prepared to see. I remember a story you told about your car being flooded out with a light rain.

Mark Cole:
And your whole perspective on that shows me that it is a discipline, it’s a choice. And so talk to me a little bit about how you have become Mister attitude. And by the way, that’s good attitude. Mister good attitude to John Maxwell. What’s the disciplines? What’s the secret?

Chris Robinson:
Well, I guess if I look at disciplines or seekers really not none. And it’s, you know, it being modeled to me because when we think about this, this teaching here of abundance, immediately I think of one of the most abundant thinkers is John Maxwell.

Mark Cole:
It is.

Chris Robinson:
And to be around him and to see his attitude, his perspective and how he gives and how he loves on people, like, it’s just, it’s seen, it’s been caught and, you know, obviously has been taught through what I’ve read over the years. But, I mean, it’s, for me personally, it’s that discipline and that perspective of, hey, we gotta keep going. You know, in here he talks about, you know, taking motion, and it’s just always looking for that next way to move forward. But sometimes, you know, when we get inside that emotion, what will happen is we can go backwards and get into that scarcity. Now, I remember specifically when I went in the opposite direction of having an abundant thought. So in 2008, we had the financial crisis that was going on, and I was caught in that as well, too. I had built my dream home. And at this point in time, the dream home was worth $120,000 less than what I paid for it.

Mark Cole:
Oh, wow.

Chris Robinson:
I mean, that’s a big difference. That’s a big gap. And simultaneously, I started a business that had failed. And now I found myself in a position to have to do something here. Now I’m sitting here and I’ve got a choice. So I’m proactive. And I’m calling the bank and saying, well, hey, you know, in three months, I’m not going to be able to make this payment. I’d like to modify this loan.

Chris Robinson:
They said, well, you can’t modify the loan until you’re actually behind. I said, no, this makes no sense. I’m telling you, it’s about to happen. It’s going to work out. Well, I get behind the 90 days intentionally. And during that process, I was filled with emotion, with emotion. And I started to take some motion, and it was a backward motion. Now, one of the things that I did here, Mark, now listen to this.

Chris Robinson:
Because one of the things I did was I began to jokingly think about a scarcity mindset. Now, the joke was, hey, honey, why don’t we go ahead and go to this grocery store instead of the grocery store that we typically go to? Why don’t we go ahead and get some ramen noodles for us to eat on to get through this time period jokingly. Now, ramens aren’t a bad thing, but what it was attached to was a mindset that I had as an upper lower class individual growing up, and it was attached to that. And so in that moment, not only did I think about going back to a scarcity moment, but the thought came to me that I’m going to lose this house. And I began to take motion action towards things that would move me in that direction, and I lost that home to foreclosure.

Mark Cole:
Wow.

Chris Robinson:
So now I have a philosophy that I love, and it is simple and it’s attached to this abundant mindset, is never eat the noodles. Now, I haven’t had a pack of ramen noodles, seen a pack of ramen noodles in years. Won’t go anywhere near them. Not because they’re bad, but because of what they represent in my mind, in my emotions.

Mark Cole:
Wow. You know, it’s so, so funny. So at this recording, for us, my grandkids, which live with Stephanie and I, at this point, they love ramen noodles.

Chris Robinson:
Yeah.

Mark Cole:
Well, they had them last night, and I’m going, oh, Lord, I better go home and make sure I can pay my house and make sure I’m not getting my house foreclosed on, because I’ve got a ramen noodle mindset right there.

Chris Robinson:
My friend, one of my good friends, he loves ramen noodle. His kids love. He sent me, when he heard that story years ago, he sent me a gigantic box of noodles that were just so. You gotta be kidding me. Now, my kids ate them.

Mark Cole:
But not. You’re not even looking at them, Janae, you fix them.

Chris Robinson:
Not doing that. Not doing that.

Mark Cole:
Yeah. What a great story. As we just kind of dig into how John and how we, as Maxwell, leadership, challenged people to have this abundance mindset. You know, a lot of times, people put abundance toward wealth, or they put abundance toward money. Right? I hear that a lot. Prosperity. And all of these words attached to wealth. But really, you noted correctly.

Mark Cole:
But I still give you a lot of credit. You deflected your genius by giving it to John. I saw what happened there. But you and John, both big gift givers, abundant mindset. There’s a uniqueness that I want to pull out of here, because John does not see abundance as money. In fact, there’s been times that he didn’t have a whole lot of money, but he was still extraordinarily abundant. Even your story of foreclosing house, everybody attaches that to a difficult financial time. But I’ve watched some of the most wealthy people in the world be some of the most scarce minded people there is.

Mark Cole:
It’s not tied to that. And what I would tell you, as we kind of go through some of these points, Chris, I would just tell our viewers, our listeners, that when you are challenged in your thinking, it will permeate every part of your life. You may have a lot of money, but feel like you have none. You may have a lot of time, you may have great relationships around you, but if you let the seed of negativity or scarcity thinking come in, you can have a lot around you and still feel scarce.

Chris Robinson:
Yeah, absolutely.

Mark Cole:
And so anyway, I can’t wait to dig into this. Let’s get into some of this.

Chris Robinson:
You know, one of the main things that stood out to me is, you know, again, is that we, we don’t see what is. We see what we’re prepared to see. So talk to me a little bit about that and how you kind of prepare yourself, but then how you go back in retrospect and go, was I looking at that correctly? So talk to me about that shift between what you see, what you’re prepared to see, and what you actually see and how you make those shifts and change afterwards.

Mark Cole:
Thanks for that question. It’s funny, we were in a lot of leadership meetings together. I was in one yesterday without you, and so you won’t have the reference. But as soon as you asked that question, it reminded me of my last 24 hours. Right now, I was sitting in a meeting. It was a phenomenal meeting, Chris. I learned a lot. I discovered some things that we could do better, and we created an action plan.

Mark Cole:
That’s the best kind of meetings there are, right? And I walked out of that meeting feeling good, but I recognized, because I intuitively, relationally read rooms, that I was the only one walking out of that four person meeting feeling good. And I was perplexed with it. Now I realize that we talked about some hard stuff. Some of us were not performing at the level that we could, but it wasn’t intentional. We didn’t even know until this meeting that we could be doing better. And so all evening long, I was with my family and having a great time. But all evening long, my mind was working on this. Why do I feel like this was one of the best meetings I could have had today? And why did I know that the people that I was in the meeting with didn’t feel that good? And so this morning, I woke up and I sent a text to him, and I said, hey, tell me what it was like being on the other side of me in that meeting yesterday.

Mark Cole:
And I haven’t even got feedback from it yet. This is fresh, podcast family. This is super fresh. I haven’t even got feedback from them on that yet. But as soon as I sent that text, I started listening to my friend, by the way, highly recommended leadership podcast by Craig Groeschel. I started listening to his most recent podcast, and I began to understand that I, therefore my leadership, therefore, the people that I was leading was looking at that meeting incorrectly. We were looking at it from a what can we do better? Rather than what can we do to make a greater impact with the world? And when we were looking at it from what we can do better, it was indicating that we were doing some things wrong. Were we doing some things that could have been done better? Yes.

Mark Cole:
Were we doing things wrong? I don’t know. But here’s what I know. When you begin to take on a difficult conversation with the results that will come because of improvement rather than what do I need to perfect from what I did yesterday, you changed the mindset from scarcity. What did I do wrong from negativity. I couldn’t have been very good yesterday to abundance. What is the opportunity if we do it? And just that one flick, the meeting did not change. I love the meeting, but when I shared that thought with one of the meeting attendees that I just had lunch with, and I shared that thought for two minutes, he went, oh, my gosh. You literally just unlocked how I’m going to answer what it was like being on the other side of you.

Mark Cole:
Now, here’s the moral of the story. If you’ll get the right perspective, you’ll get better positive feedback than the negative that I think he was gonna give me if I hadn’t changed. And I’m just kidding, that’s totally not true. What is true is as leaders, we need to constantly be looking at how we view things, because how we view things, what John says in point number three, how we view things, will determine how we do things.

Chris Robinson:
Yeah. Wow. I love that. I love that. Another point that he talks about here that we’re going to move down to is limiting time with scarcity, people. Now, this is something that I know that I’ve implemented many, many years ago with my calendar. And I realized that when I was doing a lot of coaching sessions, I would find myself going, ah, man, I don’t know if I really want to do this. And so I began to get highly intentional about who I would allow on my calendar.

Chris Robinson:
And I also looked at people, places, and events. And what I began to do is I began to color code it with red, yellow, green. And what my intent was to do was to stack my calendar every single day with green people, you know, those were the people that were you get around them, you have a great time. You’re talking about big ideas, and they.

Mark Cole:
Take you up, not bring you down. Right.

Chris Robinson:
And so I was pursuing greens, then I was then would highlight people yellow. Nothing good happened. Nothing bad happened. I’m not going to block those relationships, but I’m not going to pursue them. And then you got your reds, where every time you get around them, it’s that negative scarcity thinking, and they just drag you down. And so when I got more intentional about that, that’s where I began to see more abundance in my joy, in my peace, and in my time, wherever I implemented that strategy in my life. Talk to me about some of the things that you’ve done to eliminate or remove nothing. Get rid of people, but love people from a distance to limit your time with scarcity people.

Mark Cole:
Well, first I gotta ask you, am I red, yellow or green?

Chris Robinson:
Well, you got red hair. You got red hair. No.

Mark Cole:
I’m in trouble with the podcast family. Now I know why Chris won’t meet with me. I love that, by the way. I’ve never heard you say that, and that’s so practical in whether you don’t ever meet with reds or not, which could be the summation of this whole podcast. Knowing whether people are lifting you, not adding anything to you or taking you down, is a real good assessment not to judge people. I would never create a podcast to tell you how to judge people, but I would tell you how to protect yourself. And some people are bent on bringing other people down to the level of their positivity, and there is no positivity. Let me tell you another slant on that, if you will.

Mark Cole:
I’m a super positive person. In fact, one of the things that I love about leading beside you is when I keep hearing, da da da da da da da, this is bad. The sky’s falling. I just call you and you go, mark, it’s not that bad. I just promised you there’s a better perspective. I cannot remember calling you ever and you going, oh, this, the sky’s falling, mark, this sucks. This is terrible. I can’t remember that.

Mark Cole:
I can recall calling you sometimes when I went, man, it really sucks. But I want somebody that believes it doesn’t suck because I thought it was stinking. But let me capitalize on this, because I’m a positive person, too, and I thrive in positivity, and I don’t thrive in challenges or negativity. I work hard at those. Yet I’ve learned in my positivity, pragmatism, that realism is a missing link sometimes to my leadership. Right. I’m sure you can relate to that. I can remember I added a teammate, very high level, an executive level teammate, several years ago to my team.

Mark Cole:
By the way, don’t try to guess who this is. They’re no longer on the team, not because of what I’m getting ready to say, but because they had a brilliant opportunity that pulled them away. But I hired somebody on my team in a finance position that was a contrarian. That’s the way I described him. I said, let me tell you one of the things I love the most about you, and this. He remains a very good friend of mine at this point. And I still say this sometimes you brought a different perspective than mine almost every time we were discussing something. Now, some leaders can see that as a negativity.

Mark Cole:
They want the rubber stamp. They want the red. I needed that in my life to level my pragmatism, my opportunistic Mindset, to become a little more realistic. And we were a brilliant team together for many years before. Again, he got an incredible opportunity that he no way could say no to. And I look back sometimes still to that point, because I’ve never had a more contrarian. I’m telling you, if I wanted to level my mind on how good an opportunity was, I just needed to make that phone call. Because he would tell me all the things that was wrong with it.

Mark Cole:
But I loved it. I coveted it because my personality is very powerful, very convincing. And his was just as powerful and as convincing. And I found that it really leveled me. So as you deduct what Chris and I are saying right here, now, I’m gonna tell you, you need to assess the people that lift you and the people that take you. John says that you got the elevator people, they’re either gonna take you up, they’re gonna take you to the basement. And John says, like, chris, don’t be around the basement dwellers. Get rid of them.

Mark Cole:
And I would tell you that’s true. I really would. I would also tell you that some of us leaders type a driven, optimistic on compare, probably putting some people around you that will level you, will help you. But never ever let someone take the abundance and the opportunistic side out of you. Because that’s lifeblood right there, right now.

Chris Robinson:
I do want to add to that from, because I think I don’t want people to get the message that is often taught out there is you need to get opposites of you. You need to get opposites of you. And I made that mistake as a very young leader going, well, I want to hire people that are completely opposite of me. And it didn’t work well for me because I had one nuance wrong that I learned from John Maxwell on the 21 laws. He says that hire people that are gifted differently than you are, but value, you have the same values, but they think differently than you. Because when I would hire people that were opposites, there might be a value mismatch. There might be a thought mismatch as well, too, like they’re real. But we also didn’t value the same thing.

Chris Robinson:
So he says, hire people that are think differently than you, but share the same values. How would you add that to the mix? Because I think people go, bipolar, where going, I gotta hire an opposite in order to level me out.

Mark Cole:
Good grief, Jake, extend the time. We gotta, we gotta have a lot more time here because let me tell you why I love this right here. And we made even wrap with this because this is such a brilliant pull out that you’re doing right here. Chris, I’ve told this story before on the podcast, and so some of you will remember that our new people may not. Your question reminds me of a story about Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City. Now, I’m not endorsing his politics. I’m not endorsing his character. He’s come under a lot of fire politically and character things that he’s done in recent years.

Mark Cole:
I do endorse the way he led New York City in a very difficult time. And he went in and he said, we’re going to reduce the crime rate by half. We’re going to go in and we’re going to clean up our court systems, we’re going to clean up our streets, and we’re going to empower police officers to do what we’ve asked them to do. And he had five existing leaders on his team that had been there from the previous mayor, and they all looked at him like, who are you? What did you, what truck did you just fall off of? And is it a concussion or just a really bad headbang? And he said, okay, wait just a minute. I gotta ask you a question. If you don’t agree with this and you don’t agree that we can cut it in the next four years, during my first term, 50%, and we can clean up the streets, clean up the mindset of New York. He said, I want to know right now. And two people raised their hand and said, it’s not possible.

Mark Cole:
He said, okay, let’s talk about your termination. Is it a resignation? Is it a termination? How do we do this? The three that said I can do it are the people, I think, on vision, on values, on optimism, which is what we’re talking about, abundance. You can’t go that hole. I need somebody that’s pessimistic. Oh, I need somebody that don’t believe in the vision. That is bogus. And so back to your question, which is a brilliant question. I want people that philosophically look different than me and think different than me to lead beside me.

Mark Cole:
I don’t want people that are skeptical of the vision and skeptical of the potential of making powerful, positive change in the world world around me, because they will take me down in values, in vision. You got to get people aligned in administrative and operations and whether it’s done with execution or ourselves, boy, I want different people around me like that.

Chris Robinson:
I love it.

Mark Cole:
I do, too. So let me ask you one more question, because I came into this podcast really wanting to ask you this. John says one of the greatest ways to increase your abundance is to be generous. Now, John just recently wrote a book. I try to talk about this book every chance that I get. The book is called High Road Leadership. If you don’t have it yet, podcast family, please get that book. In fact, Jake, can we put that book in as a special? We’ll give you a discount for this.

Mark Cole:
I want to make that book available to you because John wrote a chapter in the. It’s chapter five for those of you that already have the book called give more than you take. And now for a gift giver like you and like John, I’ll never forget one of the greatest gifts I’ve ever getten. We’ll talk about it at another time. I think we did talk about it on a podcast. One of the greatest gifts I ever got was from you, and I really wish we had time to talk about it. But you’re a brilliant. You’re constantly thinking of ways to express love, appreciation, and value of others through gift.

Mark Cole:
And so this idea of giving more than you take a that John talks about, how do you increase your abundance? You share things with people that increase their value. And outside of John, because he’s extremely good at it. Outside of John, I don’t know if I know of somebody any better than you. And I want you to talk to our podcast listeners about how you do this, increasing your abundance by being generous. And then I’ll do some show notes.

Chris Robinson:
And wrap up a little bit. I mean, you know, he talks about giving more of what you want. And I think initially, you know, when I started out as trying to give, I think I was giving to get like, oh, like it was some type of lottery, but there was a joy that came from giving, and then it just became a way of life. And so I love, love, love gift giving. I love doing it abundantly because it just, it just brings joy, opens up doors. But I’m highly intentional with it, so I’m not going to get just a gift for the sake of giving one. I want something that’s unique. I want something that’s special.

Chris Robinson:
I want to create an experience for you that you cannot have on your own. You know, this is all things that John does and that I’ve seen him do. And so for me, it’s just the discipline of doing that. I think about, you know, a book that I think really helped me out on this. He’s a friend of yours, friend of the company that just recently passed away, John Rulandhorne. He’s got a great book called Giftology. And that book was just, it gave tangible words to some of the things I was wanting to do for people. And it’s all about gift giving now.

Chris Robinson:
This abundant mindset that I have when it comes to giving just doesn’t come for physical gifts. But every single time that I’m talking with an individual, they’re sitting in front of me. I’m thinking of, what resources could I give them? Who could I introduce them to? What problem can I help them solve? Is there a podcast that I can send them? Is there a book that I can send them? You know, is there something that they wish that they could have, but they may not go out and do on their own because of their circumstances? And so I’m just consistent. Look, every time I talk to someone, I see faces, I see resources, and I’m looking for how I can add value. And, I mean, I just love it. I enjoy it.

Mark Cole:
It’s brilliant, it’s practical. And it’s not just something to say. You do it in incredible ways. There’s been more people exposed to green rooms, back rooms, on stages, to an experience they could have never had because you wake up and do that intentionally. Hey, we need you to help us get better. Podcast family. In fact, our team has developed a survey that’s just going to help us get better in several areas at Maxwell leadership. And I’d love, I told our team, I said, I guarantee you, if we want good, honest feedback, let’s go to our podcast family.

Mark Cole:
And they’ll give it to us. And so we’re going to put in our show notes, a survey that we would love for you to take. And we’re not just going to ask you to do something and give nothing. We’re going to give you a free digital resource for your feedback. So you can even be nasty. You can be flat out negative, no abundance whatsoever. And you’ll still get the free digital resource because we do want to add value to you. And I know you won’t be nasty.

Mark Cole:
We just learned a lesson on abundance. But every once in a while, anything that we’re doing, we just want to take a moment and hear from you. That’s what we do every week. In fact, this week we heard from JJ. JJ listened to the podcast become a leader communicator. By the way, we’ll put that podcast in the show notes because it was brilliant. And this is what JJ said. Really good conversation today with lots of pointers.

Mark Cole:
Thanks for that abundance thinking there. JJ. Could you do a more clarifying podcast on the connection of authenticity and how it connects to preparedness? Example, when you go to a friend’s house, you don’t prepare to have a conversation or interaction. You just go and be relatable. So how is it different from doing and being authentic things when being prepared to. To speak to an audience or going to a business meeting, a podcast, or an online meeting? Here was JJ’s question. How prepared is to prepared to also have authenticity? I love this question. By the way, JJ, you inspired me to look at the rest of my podcast family, especially you viewers watching on YouTube, and then those of you listening and saying, where are the rest of your questions? I have access to one of the greatest leadership experts in the world, and we want your questions, and we’ll answer them on this podcast.

Mark Cole:
So send in your questions. JJ, did JJ, this question on how prepared is too prepared to also have authenticity comes in the form of being authentic. John was asked the question one time, hey, will you write a book on business ethics? John says, I can’t write a book on business ethics. There’s no such thing as business ethics. And the publisher that was asking John that said, what do you mean there’s no such thing as business ethics? John said, there’s only ethics. You either have them or you don’t. And when you have ethics, they work in business. So happy day.

Mark Cole:
When you don’t have ethics, they don’t work in business or life. What I would tell you, no matter how prepared you are or unprepared you are, you can never lose authenticity. You don’t prepare authenticity. You live authenticity. You don’t. You don’t want to be more authentic at your friend’s house than you are on stage speaking to 5000 people. Authenticity is a core character, a core competency, a core reality to how anyone should communicate, meet with major leaders, or relate with a friend. And so, JJ, we will take you up.

Mark Cole:
Jake, you got to grab this. We will take you up on talking more about authenticity compared to preparedness. But just to answer your question, go be authentic wherever you are. Be there and be you. Because, JJ, you and every other one of our podcast listeners, we need to bring powerful, positive change to the world around us because everyone deserves to be led well.

High Road Leadership Book:
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