Maxwell Leadership Podcast: Bonus: Be the One with Justin Prince

Mark Cole:

Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Podcast. This is the podcast that adds value to leaders who multiply value to others. And my name is Mark Cole, and it’s often that I kind of pinch myself and say, what is this that I get to do? And I just recently left John Maxwell in Cancun and came back. And today I’m in studio with a friend of mine. A friend that for some of you that are podcast listeners, because he’s been so close to John, he’s been a friend, he needs no introduction. His name is Justin Prince. But for those of you that have not heard Justin yet, by the end of this podcast, you are going to be googling Justin Prince. Because he’s not only a business leader, he’s not only a passionate provider of influence, he truly lends his influence day in and day out to tens of thousands of people so that they can go make a better life for themselves.

He’s an entrepreneur, he’s a networker. But I’ll tell you, and I’ll show you, demonstrate this in the podcast. He’s passionate about influencing his family and taking people on a journey to significance. It was on one of these trips that John and I just really connected with Justin. And it was on that trip, we’ll talk about this again in the podcast that we began to discover that there was a message in Justin that is important for you and I to hear. The message is be the one. And for those of you that are listening or viewing rather on YouTube, I’m already holding it up because Justin has just released a book called Be The One. Now, I’m proud because on the front is Justin’s name, who I will vouch for.

He’s an incredible leader. On the front is his name or the book name, Be The One. But on the back is Maxwell Leadership name. Our name, our insignia is on this book, being behind it, being a passionate provider of this book. The Forward was written by John Maxwell because John believes in Justin, he believes in this message. Now, if you would like today to follow along with us, we’re going to have a bonus resource for you. And you can click on the button and go to our podcast show Notes and you’ll be able to download that bonus resource. Also, if you would like to view on YouTube and watch Justin and I interact, you can go to Forward slash Be The One.

Again go to MaxwellPodcast.com/BeTheOne. You’ll be able to download the Bonus resource button. Also join us on YouTube. Justin, I am so glad that you’re with us today.

Justin Prince:

Mark, I was telling you, we were kind of starting, I was like, this is a little surreal for me. It’s surreal. When I saw John’s name on my book, that was surreal is doing The Forward with the impact he’s made in my life. And then I just have a deep love for you, a deep love for you have such a passion for life, a passion for people, a passion for leaders, a passion for service, and you have a vibrancy about you that I’ve always admired. And so to have this time with you is really cool for me. So just selfishly, I’m super honored and grateful. I’m confident that we’ll be able to serve and add value to all the people that listen. But just, I want you to know how much I appreciate it.

Mark Cole:

Yeah, likewise. I’ll never forget what you and Isaac and we’ll introduce everyone to Isaac in just a moment. But I’ll never forget you guys pulling me aside on a transformation trip and speaking incredible life, incredible boldness into my leadership journey. And podcast listeners, you’re very kind, you’re very considerate to me when I see you and I talk to you on the road when I’m traveling around. But it’s people like Justin that I stand on their shoulders because of words they said, belief that I have borrowed from them. And you’re going to get that with Justin today in this podcast. Justin, before we get started with some questions I have for you, talking about the book, talking about you, give us just 30 to 60 seconds on Justin Prince, what you do day in and day out. Just let us meet you for a moment.

Justin Prince:

Yeah, well, I think my backstory leads into why the book means this idea of be the one is so important. So I came from a divorced family at age twelve. I was the oldest at home with my mom. We moved 13 times in the teenage years from 13 to 19. I have no professional background. I was making pizzas, doing construction work. I worked at a mall kiosk, selling animated bible videos out of a mall kiosk, have no college education. Started my entrepreneurial journey.

Got enough courage to start a business at 25. Just went for it and the business failed. Left me below zero financially, back on credit cards, back on taxes. At one point I moved my pregnant wife into my now two babies in the loft above my wife’s parents garage. They slept in the closet. My wife and I slept in this little room. And you kind of wonder, is it possible for me, is this going to work for me? And I got enough courage to start a second business. I had two part time jobs at the time and just kind of grinded and ultimately you started to kind of figure it out a little bit.

And since that time gone on to build five different multimillion dollar businesses. My current business, over the last ten years, we’ve done over 2.5 billion in revenue. We’ve built a global community of leaders literally all over the world. We’ve paid out over a billion in commissions to folks that are out there sharing our message and our products. And so we built this incredible business. And I’ve had a chance now to share that story in 30 plus countries around the world. I’ve had a chance to work with people who are once mentors of mine. I used to listen to 21 irrefutable laws of leadership.

And then I remember meeting John and now considering having him write the Ford for your book or considering him a friend. Considering you a friend. And I now get to write my name on this proverbial list of people that get to remind your listeners that your dreams and your goals, that it’s possible, that it’s possible for you to create and to design an extraordinary life. People breathe that concept into me years ago, and now I get to be a guest with you to remind your listeners that their dreams and goals are possible as well.

Mark Cole:

I want to just spend the rest of the time talking about that introduction, but we’ve got some great stuff to share. But let me take you and the listeners back to a trip that you took with us. We call them transformational trips. It’s really a chance for John and his friends to go hang out and make an impact in countries. And you were on this trip, and I’ve heard you tell this part of your story, but I want you to tell our listeners on this trip, john gave you four words that changed your life. Tell us what those words were and kind of the significance of those words.

Justin Prince:

Yeah, it really was. And it’s interesting because it’s really one thing, but four simple words. And we were in Costa Rica, and on this trip, one of the things that you and John have done, wisely have done, is they go into the country through the centers of influence. So, for example, sports, healthcare, government, business, faith. So they start kind of leadership at the top, and then they work. So, for example, one of the stops was at the US. Embassy. I’m sitting there thinking to myself, like, it’s me, John Maxwell, the US.

Ambassador. I’m like, what is happening with my life right now? And we met with the local business owners at the famous theater. So I’m trying to give your audience a little bit of context of how unique this is. Well, one of the stops was at a local university out kind of in the Costa Rican countryside. There’s about 500 students. It’s in a theater style scene. So imagine like a movie theater where the seats are kind of coming up like this. And here’s John at the time.

He’s probably 74. But the point is, he’s in the later years of his life. He has silver hair. He’s been teaching leadership for, in this case, 50 plus years. And here’s these kids that are in college, so they’re what, 18 years old? 19 years old. 20 years old. So they’re beginning their careers and beginning their lives. And if you’ve ever watched John teach Mark, you’ll know this intimately.

But if you’ve ever watched John teach? He’ll sit oftentimes on a stool, and he’ll have kind of a high table next to him where he’ll put his iPad. And his content’s so rich and there’s so much depth to it that he could literally just teach, and you don’t have to bounce around the stage and do a bunch of theatrics it’s just people are writing literally, almost. It feels like you’re writing almost word for word. And then next to him is his interpreter, a guy named Juan Vraken. Juan is known as JB. Sometimes we’ll refer to him as, like, the Latin American John Maxwell. Juan’s the best. I mean, he’s the best.

His wife and his daughter as well, they’re just incredible people. So Juan not only is an incredible interpreter meaning the language, he’s an incredible interpreter meaning the movements and the pauses. And he knows John so well. They’ve worked so closely together that Juan knows how to work with them. So John’s teaching these students, doing kind of a normal flow, and all of a sudden, he stops almost mid sentence, kind of puts his hand on his chin, sits back in his chair like something hit him, like an idea with a ton of importance hit him. And then he finally leans forward, almost like a father would or a grandfather would to this next generation, right? These younger young men and young women. He says to him, he says, if there’s only one thing that I could share with you that would have the most impact in your life, it would be this one thing. And he kind of sits back in his chair.

So all of myself included, everyone kind of grabs their notes and leans forward and grabs their pen, going, what’s the one thing here’s? The world’s foremost authority on leadership? What’s the man? Only one thing. What’s the one thing? And he still doesn’t say anything. Then all of a sudden, he stands up out of his chair, and he walks to the edge of the room or to the edge of the stage, and he holds his right arm up, straight up in the air like this, but still hasn’t said anything. So 5 seconds past, maybe 10 seconds past, almost, kind of that awkward sense of what’s he doing. And what’s the one thing? Well, JV. Stands up and he walks next to John, and he holds his right arm up like this and still hasn’t said anything. And maybe 20 seconds, 30 seconds. You guys know how it is.

It feels like it’s five minutes, ten minutes, 30 seconds, 35 seconds. Well, a Costa Rican student, a young woman, maybe 18 years old, she stands up in the audience, and she just puts her straight arm straight up in the air, her right arm. And then another one did, another one did, another one did, another one did. All of a sudden, the whole audience is stand up, just kind of this impactful moment. So John holding his arm up in the air, says this, if there was only one thing I could share with you that would have the most impact in your life, it would be this live an intentional life. And then looking up at his arm, looking up at his hand up in the air, he says, all success is all uphill all the way. And he says, you don’t accidentally go up the hill. You only intentionally go up the hill.

And he said, Most people have uphill hopes and downhill habits. And he said, So live an intentional life. And here’s the question I would encourage all of us listening to ask ourselves, how intentional are you right now in your business or in your leadership growth, in your leadership journey? How intentional are you in your fitness? How intentional are you in your marriage? How intentional? When the kids left to school today, for example, were you with that interaction? Was it just kind of, all right, hey, you’re late, grab your lunch, or did you bring them in, give them a ten second hug, and say, I love you? Like, with intention, right? The sun has the general power to heat the Earth. The sun has the general power to give light to the whole Earth. I think most of us are generally focused, generally intentional. But if you’ll magnify the rays of the sun through a magnifying glass, the general power, when it’s magnified, can burn a hole through steel. And what I share with people is this focus, magnifies effort. And what do you want to get focused on? You want to get focused on living an intentional life? Most of us, you guys know how life is.

We almost live, like, in a world of reaction to the distractions versus a world of intentional creation. And when John said that, I just thought, you know what? I’m going to become intentional on living an intentional life in all of these key areas of my life. And that simple four words is a mantra that I both have shared with on stages I now get to share in my book, but I’ve shared with my teams and my family. But it’s a mantra that changed my whole life, is simply living an intentional life and leaving the world of reaction to the world of creation.

Mark Cole:

So I want everybody to capture focus, magnifies effort. If you get john gave four words. Justin just gave us three words that you can cut everything off. Don’t, but you can cut everything off. Go get busy. Because that absolutely is it. Now, I want to stay on this trip for one more second, because, Justin, I really, honestly, and I’ll say it publicly right here, I love you. I admire you.

I respect you. You are the man that I want to model in many ways in business and in family. And I want to stay right there because on this same trip, you brought Isaac with you to costa Rica, and I was forever marked by this young man. And I know he’s doing some really cool mission stuff right now, but I’m going to tell everybody, you watch for the name Isaac Prince. Because mark my words, a decade from now, the world’s going to be different because of him. And I guarantee you that. I’ve seen a lot of young people come and go. I’m watching Isaac do it.

But one of the things that Isaac did was made an unforgettable moment for John that trip. And we’re talking was he 16 at the time?

Justin Prince:

16, that’s right, 16.

Mark Cole:

We’re talking about a 16 year old young man sitting in rooms like Justin just described, having an unforgettable moment, but he made an unforgettable moment for John. Take a couple of minutes right here and tell us about that part of the story.

Justin Prince:

Well, first of all, I appreciate the sweet word you said about him. We all love our children, and I love my son. But I’ll also tell you this. I think he’s a really special kid. He’s got like an old soul. He’s a really wise kid, and he’s a very special person. And so funny, Mark, just to lead into that, he’s doing some mission work right now. He’s in Eastern Kentucky.

And I talked to him on Monday and I told him I was going to be on this podcast with you, and he just lights up on the phone. Oh, my gosh, are you serious, dad? I love them. I love the Maxwell podcast. I listen to the Maxwell podcast all the time. I know how the intro works. I know how the outro works. I listen to John. I listen to Mark all the time.

He just got so excited because how many 1617 year old kids are waking up listening to the Maxwell podcast?

Mark Cole:

Exactly.

Justin Prince:

So, anyway, so we’re there together, and on the very first night, we’re having a steak dinner to see if I can set the tone for everyone. We’re having a steak dinner outside, kind of by the pool. See a palm tree swing. It’s dark, the lighting’s perfect. It’s just kind of a magical night, right? And there it goes. Me in the seats, me, John, and then my son Isaac. And then there’s a real intimate group of very, very successful, and they’re all in their own respects and own rights. And I look over at John, and he and Isaac are having this really intimate discussion.

One of the things I’ve really admired about John, I’ve seen him do this. I’ve seen him do this with heads of state, and I’ve seen him do this with 16 year old, 17 year old young men. But he was treating Isaac like he was the most important person on the planet. He was truly tuned into this kid. It wasn’t like, all right, kid, all right, whatever. Just enjoy your trip. He was really tuned into it. I thought it was very, very sweet as a great teaching lesson for all of us.

The importance of each individual person. So we go get in the elevator that night and Isaac looks at me with the most sincere eyes, this 1617 year old kid, and he says to me, says, dad, how can I add value to John Maxwell?

Mark Cole:

Brilliant question.

Justin Prince:

I wanted to say, Son, you can’t. I was just like, Just enjoy the trip, buddy. It’s all you’re. You’re a high school kid. He’s John Maxwell, you’re fine, just enjoy the trip. But he was so sincere and his eyes were so genuine that I knew I needed to give him a more thoughtful answer. So we got back to our room and we just sat there and thought. And I said, how about we do this? I said, what if you did this? What if you wrote him a that maybe you pick up a note on the hotel table in your room and maybe just write him a little note.

That’d be sweet. Because very few people write handwritten notes. So we kind of thought about that over the night. The rest of the trip, as we’re traveling around, I would see him pull away. When we were all together, he’d pull away and I could see him writing and he had his phone out and so on. I could see him writing. Well, long story short, on the very last night, we’re in the green room. John’s about to go speak to about 6000 people in the room next to us.

So this big kind of convention center. And we’re in the green room. And right before this happened, right before we kind of have the closing remarks isaac doesn’t give John a note. He gives him a letter. He wrote him like an eight by eleven letter. And the reason he had his phone out because he wanted to make sure he got all the spelling right of the words. So he really tried to pour into it the best he could. But he didn’t just write one to John.

He wrote what, ten letters. He wrote one to Mark, he wrote one to some other men. One of the other guys, there is a guy named Jeff Stewart. Jeff runs multiple Keller Williams Brokerages out in Asheville, North Carolina. So he hands these letters and it was really sweet. I took some pictures mark, I have some pictures of you and him. It’s just really sweet. It was thoughtful for this young man.

The people that got these thought, you know, thank you so much. Jeff Stewart pulled me aside and said Justin, he said, I have two young boys. If my sons ever write a letter like your son just wrote to me said it’ll be my proudest day as a father because I want you to know how much that letter meant to me. So anyway, so John pulls us aside, puts us in a little circle, him. And he said, I have one last piece of advice, by the way. This is great advice for all of us. He said, one last piece of advice before everyone heads. We do this speech and everyone heads their own directions tomorrow morning.

He said be unforgettable. Be unforgettable. He said, be unforgettable to your customers, be unforgettable to your clients. Be unforgettable to your partners. Be unforgettable to your employees. Be unforgettable to your spouse. Be unforgettable. And that was his kind of final note.

And then he opens up his jacket and he pulls out out of the pocket this letter. He says, Isaac, you were unforgettable. And it was so interesting for me to watch this, because I thought to myself, here’s the youngest kid there who didn’t rest on his laurels, and he looked to be unforgettable. Now, here’s the question. How do we become unforgettable? How do you and I become unforgettable to our customers and our spouse and to our clients and to our children and to our churches? How do we become unforgettable? Here’s the answer. We answer the question, or we ask the question Isaac asked, which is, how can I add value? Like, what can I do to add more value? And that’s what Isaac did to tie that whole story together. Check this out. About two weeks later, isaac gets a care package in the mail.

He opens it up, and it’s a Mont Blanc pen with his initials on it by Jeff Stewart, the owner of these Keller Williams brokerages out in North Carolina. And Jeff wrote him a handwritten letter saying how much his letter meant to him. That letter. Now, they’ve framed it and put it in all these different Keller Williams brokerages because they felt like it espoused the leadership values and a leadership culture of their brokerage. And he said, Isaac, we have everyone that walks into our offices, sees that letter that you wrote because it was so unforgettable to him. So that is the power, my friends, of being unforgettable, adding more value to people. And John, as we all know, because we all are part of his orbit, listening to his podcast and reading his books and so on, john’s lived an unforgettable life. John’s become the one for many of us.

He’s lived an unforgettable life because why? Because he’s added so much value to each of us. And so that’s really the secret to becoming unforgettable leaders.

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Mark Cole:

So I didn’t know the rest of that story with Isaac getting the Montblanc pen, the appreciation, his letter being plastered. But I can tell you I was in the room. And as I read your book, Justin, so I’m going to read the rest of them. I’ll hold it up again for YouTube. Those of you that have not joined us by YouTube, go to one. We’ll give you a link for the book. We’ll give a discount to the book, and you’ll get to join us by YouTube. But I’m holding up as soon as I saw the book many months ago when I saw the manuscript and the subtitle, the Universal Roadmap to Create, Design and Live an Unforgettable Life.

And we’re going to get into some of the content of the book in the rest of our time together. But I’m going to tell you whether you’re 76, like John, whether you’re 16, like Isaac, or whether you’re 36, 46, 56, like me and Justin, that’s all we’re going to say. Somewhere in those three decades is where Justin and I are. You can absolutely make a difference, like John Maxwell and like Isaac Prince. We’ve talked a little bit about where the book came from. You’ve just given a lot of that. I want to jump into this quote you have in the book that says, if you see yourself as a loser, you won’t play like a winner. If you see yourself as a winner, you won’t play like a loser.

What advice do you give to someone having a hard time seeing themselves as a winner? How do you get them first to see themselves as a winner so they can start playing like a winner?

Justin Prince:

Yeah. So the concept is this to start success is an identity process, and you’ll never outperform the way you see yourself. And so one of the first things we want to do is to update our identity, just like you update the software on your iPhone. You want to update your own personal identity, tell people you are not who you are. You are who you were born to be. And you are also not what you did. You are what you repeatedly do. We all make mistakes.

But you can update your identity and create new habits, new patterns, new thought patterns. So I’ll share a quick story of a dear friend of mine you want to know. It’s interesting, Mark. This dear friend of mine, his name is Jaime Molina, lives out in Southern California. One of the sweetest men you’ll ever meet. The last time Jaime and I were together, by the way, was in Orlando at the certification for the that’s not we actually have a selfie with him together the last time we were together. So he’s an avid John Maxwell fan as well. The only person sweeter, by the way, than Jaime is his wife, Ramona.

They’re very devout in their Catholic faith. Jaime’s in the financial services industry. He has four beautiful daughters. You would want your daughter to marry Jaime. Jaime’s one of those kind of men. Justin a good man, so one of the things he does is he works with a troubled youth in his community. And he tells the youth about a story about a man named E 9400. E 9400 was born on a border town with Mexico in the States, in Texas, El Paso.

At age eight, he was introduced to alcohol. At age nine, he was sexually abused and became sexually active at age nine. At age 14, he got into hard drugs. At 15, he became a mule for the cartel. At age 24, he was convicted of eleven federal felonies and served multiple years in San Quentin. Now, Mark, you don’t want to serve prison time anywhere, but you definitely don’t want to serve prison in San Quentin. This is a really terrible place where the harshest rapists and the harshest murderers go to serve their time. So Jaime asked the students, he says, Let me ask you a question.

What do you think happened to E 9400? Like, Mark, if we were doing a poll right, with our listeners, we do a poll, hey, is he an alcoholic? Is he on drugs? Is he in prison? Is he dead? Is he living his best life? Like, what are the odds of these different things? Remember, at age eight, he is introduced to alcohol. Nine, he gets abused and becomes sexually active. 14 is on hard drugs. 15 is a mule, serves and sand. Put Quentin through all of his 20s, what would be the odds? Well, one day he says to the students, he says, let me ask you a question. He goes, you guys remember, you tell him about E 9400? They go, yeah. He goes, I got a special guest here today. And they’re like, what? And he goes, E 9400 came here.

He goes, Let me go grab him in the hallway and grab him. Walks out, shuts the door behind him. The kids look around like the guy this is that story of this man he’s told us about. So Jaime walks in, but it’s just Jaime shuts the door, walks the front room. They’re thinking, Where’s E 9400? And he says I am e 9400. And my friends, Jaime Molina, you are not what you did. You are what you repeatedly do. And you are not who you are.

You are who you were born to become. Jaime is not E 9400. E 9400 was his prison number. It was a six digit prison number. That was his identity. That’s who he was. That’s how he was known for many, many years of his life. That’s not who he is.

Who he is is the person he was born to be, which is he was born to. Be Jaime Molina, the father of four, the man that runs Know financial services business, the man that’s a devout husband, the man that’s devouted in his faith, the man that’s devoted to his friends. That’s who he was born to. That’s so you start saying, who am? You know, and you start updating this. So James Clear I’ll give you an example. James Clear wrote the book atomic Habits. I know he just spoke I think it was was that Live to Lead? He just spoke at it was at.

Mark Cole:

IMC in August, and he was on the podcast about a month and a half, two months ago.

Justin Prince:

So he tells a story in Atomic Habits about two boys. One stole the candy, and he says to the first child, did you steal the candy? This little boy said, I didn’t steal it. They said to the second child, did you steal a candy? Little boy said, I don’t steal. I didn’t steal is an action. I don’t steal is an identity. You can update this stuff and say, who is the person I was born to be? And start acting as that one today?

Mark Cole:

So I just got to pause. I am thoroughly and I will tell you this when we’re done, I am so thoroughly enjoying this. I want all of you that listen, and we have a lot of people that work out drive commute while they’re listening. You said two things that cannot be overlooked, and I don’t have time to teach them. Justin has just killed it in teaching them. But one is update your identity. And every one of us need to update our identity. Even if your identity that you’re holding is pretty good, if it’s stale, you need to still update your identity.

I don’t care if it’s good. I don’t care if it’s great. I don’t care if you’re living in yesterday’s success. It’s time to update your identity. And then this statement that you said that you’re not what you did, you’re what you repeatedly do, that is mic drop brilliant. It is incredible. That is the kind of things that Justin is talking about in the book. Be the one you need to pick it up.

Let me go to something else you say in the book. You say high performers can state what they want to achieve and why it matters to them without delay. Unpack that a little bit for us.

Justin Prince:

Yeah. So there’s a 3D vision formula that I teach in the book, and this is very important, particularly in today’s world. We’re in a tough economy. Inflation is the highest it’s been in 40 years. Interest rates are high. We’re either in a recession or header in a recession, depending on kind of how you want to look at it. A lot of businesses are down. We’re having a lot of layoffs.

It’s a challenging time. So how do you get through challenge? How do you get through challenges in your marriage? How do you get through challenges in your business? How do you get through those personal challenges that you’re feeling in your own heart, your mental health in your own life? And the answer is you lead with vision. So let me share with you a 3D vision. First thing is you define your vision. So defining your vision is creating clarity. So Brendan Burchard wrote a book called High Performance Habits. It’s the largest study of high performers in human history. And he says, if you were to tap a high performer on the shoulder and you were to say to them, what’s your latest dream? What’s your latest goal? What’s your latest vision for your life? A high performer can answer that question seven to 10 seconds faster than the rest of the population.

Why? It’s because they’ve defined it. It’s a dominant thought. Your dreams in the back of your mind won’t motivate you. They have to be on the tip of your tongue. One of the things that I’ve seen from John Maxwell from behind the scenes, so this is stuff that I didn’t see on a book or listen to on an audio or even from a stage. I watched him behind the scenes. He’s in his seventy s and he has more passion than everyone else in the room. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

You say, why? Is it just because he’s superhuman? It’s because he has such clarity on the definition of his vision, of what he’s looking to accomplish. So your vision pulls you through hard times. So number one, you got to define it. Number two is you got to declare it. You declare the vision right? You don’t keep it in. You want the vision to be declared. One of the reasons why is because it allows you to line up your private integrity and your public integrity. Public integrity, as you know, is what everybody gets to see.

How you act private is when you’re just all by yourself. How do you act? Who are you when no one’s watching? When we declare our vision, we tell people, here’s what I’m looking to accomplish, here’s what I’m looking to do. I remember saying to Mark, mark, I’m going to go home and write a book. Well, man, that now holds me accountable to Mark. I don’t want Mark to say, how’s the book coming? I’m like, oh, crap. Now if it’s, if it’s only on myself, I might let myself down. I might not even hold myself enough accountable to it, even though I try and keep my word. But to yourself, it’s sometimes easy to break.

But when you declare it to other people, then that leads to number three, which is you dedicate your life to it. You dedicate your life to your vision. You define it, you declare it, you dedicate. And remember, my friends, vision answers a very important question. It’s a question that’s a subconscious question that your people, that are following you as a leader that they’re all asking during tough times. That your children. They’re all asking during tough times. That your spouse.

They’re all asking during tough times. Whenever times are tough, people are asking this question. They’re asking the question, will it always be this way? If the answer is it will always be this way, then people make very different decisions moving forward than, no, it will not always be this way. Things are going to change. The sun’s coming up in the east. There’s hope. The vision provides hope. The vision provides a destination that it’s not always going to be what we’re going through right now.

In other words, people can get through really challenging times if there’s what if there’s vision? That’s why one of the there’s an old Bible verse that says, where there is no vision, the people perish. And one of the reasons that’s so true is if it’s always going to be this way, no one wants to keep pushing, but, man, if it’s not always going to be this way, if there’s some hope, there’s some vision, there’s some life ahead of us, then we’re willing to move through it. So the way you get there is you define it, you declare it to people, and then you dedicate your life to it. Brilliant.

Mark Cole:

Brilliant. I’ve got to get into one more segment of content before we run out of time, because you talk about the three C’s to success, and I can give you the three C’s because it was profound to me. It was very helpful. But I’m going to let you give the three C’s. Talk a little bit about that. Unpack it for us.

Justin Prince:

Yeah, it’s one of my favorite things. So the first C is confidence. So it’s a success loop. They loop together like this. You can spin these. They loop, and you’ll notice you can create momentum with these. It’s a success loop. The three C success loops.

The first one is confidence. The foundation of your success is believing in yourself. It’s hard to get everyone else to believe in you if you won’t even believe in you. It’s hard to get everyone else to see what you see if you won’t even see success in you. So you want to say to yourself, I’ve been through some hard things. I’ve overcome some challenges. Like, I have some confidence in myself when my spouse looks across me at the room and says with her eyes, I love you. Thanks for providing a great life for me.

I appreciate you. There’s reasons you should have confidence that should give you confidence. When your children tell you, hey, mom. Hey, dad, I love you, when the teams that you build and that you lead, these organizations that you lead, when they say, hey, thank you so much for the great work you do, the value you provide, that should reinforce the confidence that you should have in yourself. So the foundation of your success is believing yourself. Number two is commitment. Where there is no confidence, there is no commitment. Think about it this way.

How committed are we to things we have no confidence in? My confidence level is a 0%. We’re going to win. Well, I’m not that committed to this. And my friends, there’s no lukewarm winners. You’re either in or you’re out. And if you’re going to be in, be all in. If you’re going to be out, be all out. Zig Ziglar once said, most people have the commitment level of a Kamikaze pilot on their 47th mission.

I mean, the point is, they’re just kind of in and out and out and in. Build the confidence. I’m going to go for it. I believe in myself. And then get fully committed, go all in. And then the commitment leads to competence. So what is competence? Competence is our skill sets. Competence is improving, growing.

One of the reasons I love John and one of the reasons I love you listening to John, because you and I are kindred souls. Our commitment to want to grow. And what growing is, is we’re building skills above our talent. Your talent, your floor. Your skills are your ceiling. And I use the example in the book about Michael Jordan. So my brother and I, I was doing a personal development event in Orlando. This is last year, it’s in September.

My brother calls me and says, Are you still in Florida? I said, yeah, I was in Miami. I was in Miami, not Orlando. I’m sorry, I was in Miami. And he says to me, come over to Tampa for to Gainesville. Pardon me. The Florida Gators? The swamp. And he said, I’ll meet you there because my beloved University of Utah Utes are playing there. So we go to the game.

My assistant buys us tickets and she gets us literally front row, 50 yard line on the Gator side, right on the Florida side. So they call it the Swamp. And this place is an iconic place. So one of the things that hit me, though, as I’m there enjoying the game is the Florida team, and I’m talking trainers, coaches, players, they have all have the jumpman logo, the Michael Jordan jumpman logo. So on their shoulder pads, on their pants, on their towels, on their know, and their shoes are cleats. And I just thought to myself, how interesting is this? Jordan played basketball, not football. Jordan was known for his professional prowess, not college prowess, necessarily. Jordan played 30 years ago.

Here’s all these kids, and it’s cool to wear the jumpman logo. And I thought, Why? It’s because Jordan is the goat. What made him the goat? The greatest of all time that he built skill above the talent. He was very talented. He could jump, he was quick, he could run, the whole thing. But he didn’t rely on talent. He built the skills. He’s one of the most fundamentally sound players ever.

He was all defense and all offense. He built all these new skills above the talent. As leaders, we have to do the same thing. It’s one of the reasons I loved what John teaches, john provides, John Maxwell coaching and so on. Why? Because it builds new skills. So we don’t just have to rely on our baseline talent. Now, what happens when our competency increases? Well, man, the more competent we become, the more confident we become. The more confident we become more committed.

We become more committed, we become more competent and we just start to spin the loop. So let me ask one last question before I’ll throw it back to you, mark on this one. What do you do if today you’re not feeling a lot of confidence? Like you’re like, hey, that all makes sense to me, but I’m having a hard time believing in myself right now. Okay, it’s still a C word. I’ll give you kind of a bonus C word. And it’s courage, my friends. Lean into your courage. Your courage precedes confidence.

Courage is taking the step. When you don’t have a lot of confidence, you know what to do. Courage is starting the business when you’re not totally confident that it’s going to pan out. Courage is saying I’m sorry or I love you when you’re not sure how this one’s going to work. Right? That’s courage. Your courage precedes the confidence. You lean into courage and that will build to where you can get into the success loop of my confidence builds my commitment, which leads to my confidence, which leads to more confidence, and you start to spin it. But today your home needs more courage.

Your business needs more courage. Your team needs a leader with courage. Our country needs more people to have courage. So lean today into your courage if you don’t yet feel that strength and your confidence.

Mark Cole:

So honestly, in my notes, I want to talk about rule 33, how to amplify your associations. We’re not going to on the podcast. So this is a shameless hook to get you to go pick up this book and to buy one for one of your teammates, at least one, because that whole rule 33 is just powerful. But I do want to throw one last question to you, Justin, before we run out of time. John talks a lot about legacy in his book 21 Laws. He talks about legacy. We’ve been talking about his legacy on this podcast for years. I love how you end the book talking about legacy.

How will being the one give our listeners a chance to make their life last longer than the span of their life?

Justin Prince:

Yeah. So let me share this, my friends. If you take your parents, by the way, I want you to think of your parents real quick. Like think of their faces, think of your grandmother or your grandfather or your great grand. Those of you that didn’t know your great grand grandparents just think of your mom for a moment. Your dad think of their faces. And here’s what I want you to think about if you go back twelve generations. So grandma great grandma, great great twelve generations, it was about 400 years and the ancestral mass says it was 4094 people.

So 4094 people from all over the world came together to create you. You’re listening to this discussion right now. Wherever you are, car at the gym, wherever you are, you’re listening to this discussion. You made an appointment to be here. Every decision you’ve ever made your whole life puts you on this moment right now. 4094 people from all over the world lived and bled and died and had triumphs and had tragedies and had strengths and had weaknesses and had wins and had losses, had tears and had joy. For you to have this moment, your life has value and purpose and meaning. Your life matters.

You are the one that they did all this for. Now, here’s the second part, though. The book is not meant just to inspire you. The book says, how do you be that person today? How do you be the one you were born to be today? Starting it today. And so it’s a tactical roadmap.

Mark Cole:

It’s like step by step by step.

Justin Prince:

Roadmap to create and to design and to live an unforgettable life to where when future generations of kids that are maybe even yet unborn, when they look up into that family lineage, they say, it was him. It was her. She’s the one. She’s the one. The abuse stopped with her. The addiction, it stopped with him. The financial principles that set our family completely free through these lines. It was my great great grandpa.

It was my great great great grandma. And they’re telling your story. Your life matters. Your life is unforgettable to them. I tell the story as Mark in the book of my fifth great grandpa and the legacy and the heritage and I know his story and I know his wife’s story. And I’ve pulled strength and meaning from that story and I’ve pulled inspiration from that. I’ve made life decisions based on the faith and the courage and the resilience that he had. And we can be that one that makes a generational reverberation impact down through future generations of children yet unborn.

And we do that by today recognizing you’re the one, the identity of who I really am. And two, by being that person know listeners.

Mark Cole:

I can’t recall a time to where I’ve just sit here and longed that a podcast didn’t have to end. And I mean that. Justin and I will reiterate that in just a moment when we say a quick goodbye. But this book be the one. There’s a reason John Maxwell did the forward on this book. Because the message and the messenger is the one that has been impacted or impacting to John has been impacting to what we’re doing in countries around the world. It’s the universal roadmap to create, design, and live an unforgettable life. He’s doing it in his profession, he’s doing it in his family.

He’s doing it with his son. He did it today on the podcast. He is the one I always love to highlight, just a listener. And so, Diego, you’re the guy today. Diego listened to the podcast. How leaders make the tough call. We’ll put that in the Show Notes for those of you that missed that. But he said, can someone say thank you to John Maxwell for me, please? The way he structured his board meetings and the way he engaged his board was so helpful to me.

I made the change today. And Diego, I did tell John Maxwell that just like I told him that I was going to be on the podcast with Justin Prince today and he kind of got frustrated with me about both. He said, why can’t I be the one saying, you’re welcome to Diego and why can’t I be in the studio today with Justin? But John Maxwell, you’ll be listening to this podcast I know. And Justin, you added tremendous value today. Thank you for joining us, brother.

Justin Prince:

I love you and I respect you. A, your passion for life and your desire to serve is a true inspiration to me. And John was one of those people, I didn’t even know who John Maxwell was. I remember listening to one of his audio series, 21 Year Field Boss Leader. So this has got to be 20 years ago. Remember listening to it and just being like, it just got my head in the right place when I was going to quit and give up. And so I’m just honored to be on with you, man. I appreciate you, I respect you.

I honor the great work that you do, the impact that you do, by the way, not just the business impact, but the human impact and the spiritual faith impact that you guys make is truly special. And you’re doing some of the great work in the world. So I just really value and appreciate you.

Mark Cole:

Thank you. And podcast listeners, podcast viewers, do like Diego. Let us know how you enjoyed today’s podcast. In fact, if you want to hear more from Justin Prince, just kind of let us know that in the comments as well. Go visit, go google Justin, go pick up the book. It’s in the show notes. We’ve got a discount there for you. Use the podcast code or use the Passcode podcast and we’ll give you a discount.

Hey, I do want to encourage you to be the one. Be the one in your family. Be the one in your business. Be the one in your community. Be the one in the next on one conversation that you have. Because after all, everyone deserves to be led well.