Maxwell Leadership Podcast: How to Gather Great People Around You

Mark Cole:

Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Podcast. This is the podcast that adds value to leaders who multiply value to others. I’m Mark Cole, and today I’m looking forward to the lesson that John is going to share with us. Because as many of you know, tomorrow is Thanksgiving in the US. In fact, if you’re listening to this episode on the day it releases, today is one of the biggest travel days of the year. So be careful. There’s some crazy people out there. That’s because so many people are gathering to be with friends, to be with family, to spend and celebrate the things they’re grateful for. You might even be in your car right now traveling to see one of your loved ones. We’re so glad you decided to listen to us during the ride.

Thanksgiving is actually my favorite holiday. And one of the things I’m extremely grateful for this year is the great people that I get to work around, my team. And so it got our podcast team thinking about what it takes to gather great people, great teammates around you. We’ve come up with a lesson from John on Nine Tips for Attracting Top Players on your team. After John’s lesson, I will be joined by one of my great players, a great teammate, my co-host Traci Morrow, to talk about what practices to put in place so that you too can attract great people on your team.

This week we have a free PDF worksheet that a accompanies John’s lesson. This bonus resource is designed to help you take notes and capture ideas as you learn from one of the best team builders in the world, John Maxwell. To download this pdf, just go to maxwellpodcast.com/gather and then click the bonus resource button. Also, this episode is available on YouTube. If you’d like to watch the video, just go to maxwellpodcast.com/youtube. That’s it for now. Let’s go determine how to improve and have a great team. Here is John Maxwell.

John Maxwell:

In my book the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, I have one of the laws called the Law of Magnetism. The Law of Magnetism very simply says who you are is who you attract. Tens attract tens, eight attract sevens, and sixes attract fours, and fours attract ones. You see, the lower you go, the greater the gap. Always remember that.

Remember, the better you are, the more successful you are. The more you’re not threatened by other successful people of being around you. But the lower you go, the more the person in leadership wants to have a gap between them and the people that are under them. Doesn’t that make sense? So how do you gather better people around you? You don’t gather better people around you, [inaudible 00:02:52], I don’t want to gather people around you. You gather people around you by becoming a better person yourself first, always work on yourself first.

Who was it said that one time that, “Almost all the problems I’ve had in their life started with me?” So if you can just… One person said one time, “If I could kick the person most responsible for most of my failures in life, I wouldn’t be able to sit down for weeks.” Huh? So you work on yourself and then you gather those around you.

Now, how do you gather great people around you? Okay? I’m going to give you a whole bunch of stuff right now. Very simple. This is kind of team building now. This is how do you gather great people around you. This is very good for developing your team.

Okay, number one, get beyond yourself. And beside that, put the word ego. I’ve never seen people with a high ego that had great people around them. An egotist is a person who is always “me” deep in conversation. We know them, don’t we, huh? “Well, let’s just talk about me some more.” So if you’re going to gather great people around you, you got to get beyond yourself.

Number two, you have to grow beyond yourself. And beside that, put learning environment. In other words, you have to a learning environment to gather people around you. Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance of success is to think that what we did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow. Leaders must set the pace as both teachers and learners. And never forget your dual role. We’re always teaching, we’re always learning. And by the way, what are we teaching? We’re teaching what we’ve just learned. And it never ends. And by the way, the enemy of learning is knowing. Always remember that. When people are not growing and learning, it’s because they know. They know. That’s bad. The enemy of learning is always knowing.

Number three, now you got to get beyond yourself. And right beside that put this phrase, investment in others. You’ve got to begin to invest in other people. If you’re going to gather a great team around, you got to invest in them. Time given to leaders grows the organization today. Time given to potential leaders grows the organization tomorrow. By the way, you don’t ignore one for the other. You pour your life into the leaders today so you can continue to have the success of the day, but you pour your life into the potential leaders so you have the success of tomorrow.

Now what’s that mean? What that means in my organizations I have is that I have to spend a lot of time with the key players because spending key time with the key players multiplies success. You’ve got to spend time with them seeing how everything’s going. I mean, key players, strategic players. My schedule gets more and more filled up with… It’s interesting. My schedule gets more and more filled up with being spending time with my key players in the organization. Why? Because I’m interested in multiplying myself. And that’s where it’s going to be. If you’re going to together great team around you, you got to invest in them.

Number four, you have to share your dream obviously. Your dream should be bigger than you. And to achieve it, others must be included. Take that dream and share it with others. Build the dream and they will come, okay?

Number five, undergird your dream with strategy. By the way, thanking people really like this. I’ve always said, “If you can just give a dream and everybody loves it, you don’t have very many thinkers in the room because a thinker after the dream’s all done says just, “Excuse me, how are we going to get there?” You know what I’m saying? “If you don’t mind, I see this wonderful cloud out here, but what are the steps to achieve it?” So you have to undergird your dream with strategy.

And then you have to fill your dream, number six, with passion. You’re getting the picture now. You have to fill your dream with passion. And number seven, you have to recognize the contributions of others. One of the great ways to gather good people, great people around you, is by recognizing their contributions. And recognition should be given letter A immediately. The quicker the recognition, the more powerful is. I always say do it while the sweat is still on their brow. If the sweat dries off, you can still recognize them, but it won’t be as significant as is at that moment. Recognition letter B should be in front of others, especially peers and family. And number three, it should be in writing. Notes and plaques have a long life.

Now, nothing wrong with verbal recognition at all, but what I have found is a note written to somebody has much more significance than me just saying good job. Because now this is something they can hold with them. Put on the bulletin board or something that’s tangible that they can take with them.

And gathering a great team around you for significance, number eight, give your team a piece of the rock. Give them a piece of the rock. Say, “Look, if we do well to gather, guess what? You’re going to get a little bit of the fruit of what we’re doing well.”

And number nine, key positions must be held by great players. If you’re going gather a great team around you, your key positions have got to be by the tens. You may not have all tens in your organizations, but your key positions better have tens. We have key positions and I watch those key positions more than the others because if those key positions have quality leaders within them, all the rest of the organization will just take off. But you let one of those areas begin to get a seven or a six in there and all of a sudden you’ve got problems, okay? Simple enough.

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Mark Cole:

Hey, welcome back. I’m reminded Traci of a quote from Jim Collins that says, “Great vision without great people is irrelevant.”

John Maxwell:

Mm-hmm. That’s great.

Mark Cole:

Yeah. And then John always says a big dream without a great team is a nightmare. But truly today I feel like one of the most blessed leaders in the world because as John says, I’m working right now around some of the greatest teammates John and I have ever had on our team. You obviously would be one of those. We have a lead team. And so today I’m really teaching out of a great sense of appreciation. Tomorrow in the United States is a Thanksgiving and I have so much to be grateful for because truly I’ve been blessed to have some great teammates around and you’re absolutely one of them. I’m glad you’re on the podcast with me.

Traci Morrow:

Well, I am glad to be here, but I’m also so grateful to be a member of your team and to be teammates with you. And I think these nine points are a great checklist for not only myself, but for our listeners. And I hope that if you are driving, you will take a moment when you get to wherever you’re going to print out this worksheet because this list that John has given us, there are probably going to be some things that you have done well and some things that you go, “Wow, that’s something that hopefully I need to work on a little bit.”

So as we dive in, Mark, the first one that he said is to get beyond yourself. And one of the things he said was, “I’ve never seen someone with a high ego with great people around them.” And it really got me thinking maybe a little bit about the political environment. And this isn’t one way or the other, but just thinking about some of the leaders nationally, world leaders. There are good leaders around people with ego. So can you maybe dive in a little bit about what that means? Does it mean that they don’t stick around very long? What does that mean when you have an ego but you have good people around you? What is that experience for a good teammate around somebody with an ego?

Mark Cole:

Well, I think number one, understanding the power of an ego. And power’s not always a good thing, right? We’ve seen people misuse, abuse power. And when I think ego, number one, I think people with ego are really hiding something they’re insecure about. So I think if you’ve got… Now there’s a difference in my opinion of ego and confidence. I’m going to talk about that in a minute.

Traci Morrow:

Oh yeah.

Mark Cole:

But let’s talk about ego. I think when you are self-absorbed and you have this ego, couple of things I, is you do not foster an environment of great feedback because people’s too concerned or too nervous to bring up things to you because of the ego gets in the way.

Traci Morrow:

Right.

Mark Cole:

The second thing that a big ego does I think is great leaders around you won’t tolerate a person with a huge and obnoxious ego. So your ego is going to drive away great leaders because great leaders don’t fit in the second chair with people that have big egos.

So when John says you attract people, in fact, what John says, he says excellence attracts excellence. I don’t believe ego attracts ego because ego eats up other egos. I think if we’re we’re really going to understand a person with an ego, what John really is saying right here, is they’re really all about themselves. Now they can get away with an ego for a little while because they have confidence, they’re getting things done and people like to be on teams that get things done, but eventually that ego that essentially is all about themselves, a person with an ego, is going to drive good people away and is going to diminish people that are producing on the team because the ego is all about themselves.

I got a challenge for us, Traci, that I want to put out there right here at the beginning. I think this is a very humble, very non-ego thing to do. And I want you to do an inventory of the people around you. I taught with leaders all the time that say, “Man, I’d get this done, but my team. Do you know what, Mark? My biggest challenge is my team.” And I’m just going to tell you, John says excellence attracts excellence. So if you were in a place to where you’re frustrated and challenged and feel limited by your team, I’m going to ask you to assess what you feel is limiting about them and do an inventory to see how prevalent it is in you.

There’s your big assignment this week. You challenged with the people around you, you excited about the people around you. Do an inventory of what excites you or frustrates you and then try to find that reflective in yourself. And if you will do that very non-ego centric thing, I would bet you you’re going to find a lot of things in yourself that you are attributing as frustrations or appreciations in the team around you.

Traci Morrow:

That’s so good. I think some people might be a little nervous for that.

Mark Cole:

I think some cut it off and said, “Irrelevant.”

Traci Morrow:

“Let’s try another podcast.”

Mark Cole:

“We’ll see you next week.”

Traci Morrow:

“Let’s listen to a story podcast.”

Mark Cole:

I think others have cut us off and said, “You know what? That’s such a good exercise. I don’t care what else you do that save the rest of the time, I’m going to go do that.” Because I really did.

Traci Morrow:

Yeah. You’re exactly right. You’re exactly right. I feel like we could land on that one for… He gave us nine. I feel like we could stay on that for a long time because I do want to say before we go onto the next couple that one thing I see about you as somebody who works closely with you and on your team is that you really are a leader that doesn’t have an ego. And I’m so appreciative of that. You are really a leader who is open. Sometimes people turn this on, whether it’s YouTube or listening on a podcast, and they wonder, “Is the leader really what they say they are?”

Mark Cole:

Thank you.

Traci Morrow:

And I just want our podcast listeners to know that you really are not an ego-driven. You really do… You are open to people. You’ve done a lot of meetings in the last few weeks that have opened up your ears and your heart to hear from your team some hard things and you have listened with a very open posture and I just so appreciate being on your team.

Mark Cole:

Thank you. You’re very kind. It’s funny when I say, “I’ve got the best team ever” and then John says, “Excellence attracts excellence.” So basically what I’m saying is I’m a really good leader. And I’m just kidding

Traci Morrow:

And I’m on your team.

Mark Cole:

Yes, exactly.

Traci Morrow:

So I’m excellent too.

Mark Cole:

You’re excellent too.

Traci Morrow:

That’s good.

Mark Cole:

Let me give you a real vulnerable moment because of all the compliments that I get about our podcast on our segment, on my segment, is the vulnerability with which I lead. And so you just said some really nice things to me, and rather than creating a success gap perhaps with some of you that are watching… By the way, I hope you are watching and enjoying the podcast visually, or if you’re listening, I want to tell you, I really appreciate the kind of things that you said, but there’s times that all of us get self-absorbed in an ego.

Recently, I was certain that my vision was intact, that my values were obvious and that I had a team issue of not being able to repeat my vision. And I had a team issue of not being all in like I’m all in. So I went to my mentor. You just heard from my mentor eight minutes ago, John Maxwell. And I went to him on some plane rides. We were on a lot of plane rides a few weeks ago. And I said, “John, I think I got a vision problem. I can’t get my leaders to repeat my vision.” And we talked about it. We talked about it and he said, “I don’t know if you do.” I said, “Well then, I’ve got a values problem. Everybody’s not valuing the things that I’m valuing.”

Now, listen to all I’m saying. It’s all ego, Traci. You just gave me a great compliment, but I’m sitting here going, “My team’s the problem, John.” And John came back to me after about literally six and a half, seven hours of plane talk, plane ride talk of me really opening up to him trying to assess the problem that I was sensing in the organization. He said, “You don’t have either one of those. You don’t have a vision problem. You don’t have a heart problem. Your people love the vision, Mark. Your vision is bigger than my vision. And I now work for your vision.” Now that’s very humbling. Let’s not even go there.

He says, “You don’t have a values problem. You have more loyalty and more passion from the teammates around you than any leader I’ve seen in a long time. You don’t have a values problem. You have a momentum problem. And Mark, momentum is the responsibility of the leader, not the leadership team. The leader has to manufacture momentum. The leadership team has to manage momentum.”

Traci Morrow:

That’s hard to hear.

Mark Cole:

I’m telling you, Traci. Now going back to your very nice compliments about my ego, I was convinced in my egocentric way that I had a problem with the people around me and John somehow dissected that and went, “No, joker. You’re the problem.”

Traci Morrow:

Right. Joker.

Mark Cole:

“And get your ego out of the way so we can fix the problem. Go manufacture momentum.” Now, the reason I shared that story right now is one, all of us, no matter how humble or perceived approachable you are, you will come across a time in your leadership, you will, to where ego becomes bigger than it should be. Every one of us. Every one of us. It’s a human reality. Secondly, you mentioned some great meetings that we had recently, some family rooms to where we just got really raw with one another. Our team and our leadership team just came together and we got raw with one another. That is an outcome of realizing what John was saying. “Mark, your ego needs to get in check. You need to manufacture momentum so that others can manage that momentum.”

Traci Morrow:

All of these checkpoints, and we’ll get to those in just a minute, but can you just maybe explain to us what it means to you to manufacture momentum?

Mark Cole:

I can. For years, for 22 years, I’ve been on John’s team for the last 12 years, I’ve been his CEO, I’ve been his right hand. He cast the vision. He goes and pray. He’s a person of faith. He prays about the vision. He sorts through what he feels in his spirit and his relationship with the Lord, what’s the vision for himself, the vision for the organization. Then he comes and shares that and then boom, I’m off to the races running it. That’s been our formula for 12 years. And I thought I was the manufacturer. I thought that I created momentum in the organization for John. And in fact, he attributes me as being able to create momentum in his organization in the last 12 years.

Well, I’ve now taken the responsibility of going and finding that vision. I’m a person of faith too so spending time with guide, “What’s the vision for John’s legacy? What’s the vision for our future? What’s the vision for our company?” And that’s now my responsibility. What I thought, that since I was that, I got the vision, I tell people around me the vision, I thought I was done. Wash my hands, go get on a golf course, I’m done. I found the vision. I cast the vision. Now y’all go chase the vision. And John said, “That’s not true. When you’re starting something new or when you’re reestablishing a different direction, the leader, and this all comes from the Law of the Big Mo in the 21 laws, number 16, the Law of the Big Mo says that momentum is the leader’s best friend. But number six, the sixth truth that John talks about in the book is momentum always starts with the leader. Not a leader. The leader.

In other words, when you’re casting vision, people can hear the vision, love the vision, embrace the vision, but still not know how to pursue the vision. The leader cannot leave a new vision or a greater vision without showing how to get momentum around that vision. Then once you show how, then it can be managed by the team around you. And I just wasn’t showing how to pursue the vision. I wasn’t showing momentum. And that starts with the leader. And then truth number seven is it starts within the leader on the inside.

So for all of us on the week of Thanksgiving, is 2022 going your way? On a personal, you’re the CEO of your personal life, do you have momentum inside you of where you want to go? It’s got to start with you. Quit blaming this, that and the other, maybe the family you’re going to see on this drive time. Quit putting responsibility for the momentum of your life on external factors. It starts within you, and then begin to prove itself out to others around you.

Traci Morrow:

I appreciate you diving deep into that a little bit because I think John has done such a great job of laying out this checklist. But I think hearing how you are really living that in your leadership journey right now, it helps it break it down for the people who are listening for their own journey as well. So we have spent a lot of time on that first point. I don’t want to pick. I’ll let you pick if there’s somewhere where you feel passionate. Is there one that you want to pick? I have plenty of questions for you, but is there one that you wanted to land on?

Mark Cole:

I don’t know if I want to land on this, but I do want to talk about number three. And you’ll appreciate this one too.

Traci Morrow:

Okay. Okay.

Mark Cole:

You’ll have something to say on it. But give beyond yourself. And it’s about the investment of others. One of the things that I have found in leadership, especially when you’re launching something new or you are pursuing something that feels different… So in my case, I’m privileged to be the leader of a very established brand. This brand does not need me, Traci. I mean this brand has impacted… John’s legacy is enormous in its impact around the globe. It doesn’t need me. John’s influence is on autopilot and that’s overplaying something perhaps. But hear my point. So many times when we as leaders we get so enthralled, almost egocentric in the vision that we feel that will take us to the next level of success or will launch success for those of us that are entrepreneurs. We get so captured in that that then we don’t realize that we’re not investing in those around us.

So in these recent family rooms that I was going through, I want to create momentum as the organization. What I found is our team feels like that they are running, chasing the vision more than being restored and valued as a teammate in the process. And I realized you can get so caught up as a leader in the vision that you can miss the point that investing in people is the only way you’ll get to that dream. We started out with a quote from Jim Collins, the quote from John Maxwell, “You cannot get to your dream if your dream is bigger than you. You cannot get to it without investing in others.” I can’t overstate the critical point of give beyond yourself.

Traci Morrow:

Mm-hmm. And so part of that, what he talked about was the time that you give and spending time with key players. So what does that look like in your team right now? What does your calendar look like as you are spending time? You have a huge team and it’s one team and it’s one dream. And as you are casting this vision and imparting this vision, it’s not just meetings that you’re having where you come with an agenda and you attack that agenda and you cast your vision and everyone goes away. You’re also having family meetings where you come and you’re listening. So can you maybe break that down so that a leader listening can know what that balance is between the family meeting, the family room meeting and the agenda meeting and then the time spent with key leaders?

Mark Cole:

Yeah. And the first thing I would say, it’s not profound, but it serves as a reminder to all of us right now. The first thing that I would say, it’s not how much time, it’s how you spend your time.

And so I just spent about 30 hours in groups of 10 to 15, meeting with every one of our staff members. It took me about 30 hours to get 90 minute meetings called family rooms and touch every one of our people in a very small environment. And I’ll tell you, that was a big time investment for my schedule. It was. Was it enough? No, I wish I’d have had two hours instead of 90 minutes. I wish every one of them could have gone much longer. But it wasn’t even just the amount of time, because that feels like a huge amount of time in my schedule right now, it was how we spent that time. And I shot videos before the meeting to set up the meeting. I sent questions out before the meeting so that we could make the most of our time. In other words, it’s not always the amount of time, it’s how intentional you are around that time here.

Here’s an interesting thing. John and I, John Maxwell and I was on a consulting call just yesterday. He was working with a group of people and somebody asked the question, “What’s the difference in living intentionally for the productivity of your life and living with goals and aspirations? It was such an interesting question. What’s the difference in intentionality and in setting goals? And I believe that intentionality is the why. Why are you setting goals? Why are you doing this? The intentionality of a goal or the intentionality of an aspiration that you have. The goal is the what. The intentionality is the why.

Sometimes we get so caught up in the goal that if we don’t hit the goal, we allow failure in thoughts of less than come into our life. When we set aspirations on intentionality, we don’t miss. We don’t call a missed goal a loss, we call it a lesson.

Traci Morrow:

Right.

Mark Cole:

And if we can bake our life into how we spend our time, these family rooms were powerful. You asked me when we sat down right before we started recording the podcast, you said, “Hey Mark, how do you feel like the family rooms went?” And I went, “They were exactly what I wanted. They yielded the exact fruit that I both expected, that I planned for and that I was hoping would help us become better as an organization.” That didn’t just happen because I spent 90 minutes 12 times with 10 to 14 of our people. That happened because of the intentionality we put into the plan. So it was at the time, although that was a lot of time, it was the intentionality of the time that gave us the results that we have hoped for.

Traci Morrow:

Mm-hmm. I love that. Well, let’s jump down to number seven if you don’t mind. I love this one because personally I think it’s something that I have struggled with. I’m just curious, what does recognition… It’s recognizing the contributions of others. So what does recognition look like in your organization? John talks about recognizing people while the sweat is still on their brow.

Mark Cole:

I love that.

Traci Morrow:

But do you have a system for identifying like a love language or a recognition language in your team and for executing, recognizing your team members right there on the spot or in front of other people, or he said to make sure it’s written and public.

Mark Cole:

Yeah. So number one, I don’t do this well, but I don’t know many organizations that do, because how can you consider doing well at celebrating your people? I mean, we do an adequate job, I hope. We certainly make it an attempt of ours for certain. But do we do it enough? I don’t think you can celebrate people enough.

Traci Morrow:

Yeah.

Mark Cole:

I’m a little bit like you. Man, I just want everybody to feel celebrated. Let me tell you a couple things that we do. I got really impacted by one of our non-profit board members because he has a culture champion award that he gives every year. We do that. It’s a big trophy. I mean, think of any sporting event trophy, the Vince Lombardi Trophy. Just think of any trophy that’s given. And we’ve got this huge trophy that we pass from person to person every year and they get to keep it at home, in their office, wherever they want, and it’s our Culture Champion Award, our Most Valuable Culture Champion is what we call it. Now we give them a very significant bonus. We give them some time off, we give them the trophy and we make a huge deal about that every year at my state of the culture address that I give to our entire company.

Another thing that we really do try to do is when the sweat is still on the brow… You were just recently at Exchange. One of the things that we do, I bring people up at leadership open at some of our big events. The people that are out there sweating, I bring up on stage somehow. I want them to be seen and celebrated. They don’t want to be public speakers. They’re not necessarily public speakers, but I want their voice to be heard, which is a recognition that while the sweat is on the brow, we are letting them be seen in the spotlight holding a microphone. Try really hard to do that, don’t do it enough. To my team that listens to the podcast, I got to do a lot better job on this. But that’s another thing that’s really important.

And most recently, Traci, we’re a virtual team. Now, of all the questions John and I get asked in Q&A, it has moved from, “What are we going to do with these millennials? Oh my gosh, what are we going to be doing with these millennials?” By the way, if you want to know how to reach the next generation or the millennials, Tim Elmore has written a book called A New Kind of Diversity. It’s a brilliant book on diversity in the workplace around generations. Go pick it up. That’s not even my point today. But the real question now that we get asked is, how do I create connectivity in virtual teams? Because since the pandemic, we’ve all become virtual team members. People want it more than ever before.

Building these teams, Traci, around virtual experiences makes celebrating even harder because we like to do it when the sweat is on the brow, but we don’t know if they’re really sweaty because there’s Zoom pictures off. We don’t know what they’re doing. Are they even dressed?

Traci Morrow:

Are they even there?

Mark Cole:

Yeah. Are they there? I mean, did they sign up and then go to the coffee house? I don’t know. How do I celebrate them? “Hey, we want to celebrate you. Are you there? Are you there? Are you there? Okay, we’ll celebrate you next time.” I mean, zoom and virtual has made things really interesting.

Traci Morrow:

Challenging.

Mark Cole:

So one of the things we’ve just instituted into our leadership team is a way that we can celebrate our team so that they can be seen whether they’re in the office or not. And so I would just challenge all of us to find ways to tangibly recognize the contribution of others. Traci, I always hate when we run out of time, but I’m reminded today, I mentioned Tim Elmore’s book. That wasn’t even a special thing I want to do, but it is a great book. But I’m reminded of what another one of our thought leaders, Don Yaeger, created several years ago with a guy named David Ross.

Now, those of you that are watching via YouTube, you get the benefit not only of seeing Traci’s lovely smile, but you get the benefit of me holding up exhibits, which is what I’m doing now. I’m holding up a book called Teammate. It’s a journey in baseball and a journey toward the World Series for the ages. It’s by David Ross and our Maxwell Leadership thought leader, Don Yaeger. It’s such a book that I believe will help you gather great people around you. This book is one of the best books on teamwork, teammates, how to work effectively as a team. And it’s all built around the story of David Ross and how he went from truly an obnoxious teammate. Truly.

Traci Morrow:

Truly.

Mark Cole:

His words.

Traci Morrow:

Yes.

Mark Cole:

Because we had him at Exchange, to being one of the best seen teammates and all of major… It was a great turnaround. We see teams turnaround. This is about an individual teammate that turned around.

And I want to challenge you. We’re going to give you a 15% off with this. And so go to the link in the show notes. You’ll be able to put in PODCAST and you’ll be able to get 15% off. And we want you to have that book.

Hey, recently… I’ve got it down here. I’ve got to get this. Recently, I was in Pittsburgh and I met one of our podcast listeners. I was so blown away at this. He listens every week.

Traci Morrow:

I love that.

Mark Cole:

And it’s Cam.

Traci Morrow:

Oh.

Mark Cole:

Cam, he is a financial analyst. I met him in Cranberry Township. Just a few weeks ago, John and I were up there with one of our legacy partners with our nonprofit, and Cam came up to me and he said, “Hey, I commute to Pittsburgh 29 minutes every single day and you go with me now.”

Traci Morrow:

I love that.

Mark Cole:

Now, number one, it’s snowing in Pittsburgh today. So Cam, I’m glad I’m in the car with you and not physically up there with you. But Cam said, “Mark, the one podcast that really impacted me was the podcast when you told us about how you told your daughter she’s lovely and she’s worthy to be pursued.” And Cam, I’ll tell you, when you came up and told me that, it seriously inspired me because Cam said, “Mark, I not only listened to your podcast, I put it into practice.”

Traci Morrow:

I love that.

Mark Cole:

And he said, now I’m talking to my family, I’m talking to my daughters, I’m talking to my people-

Traci Morrow:

Oh, that’s wonderful.

Mark Cole:

… in much different way and your podcast is helping me absolutely as a financial analyst, but you’re helping us at the personal level too.

Traci Morrow:

I love that.

Mark Cole:

Cam, you gave me fuel.

Traci Morrow:

Way to go, Cam.

Mark Cole:

One other comment that I want to leave with as well is a comment from Anna. Anna listen to Impact Players with Liz Wiseman. And Jake, I hope we can put that link in the show notes too of Liz Wiseman and Impact Players. It’s great with great people around you. Anna said, “This is such a great session. I love, love the book.” Anna, I was expecting one more love, but we’ll settle with three. “There’s so much gold here. And one point that I really love,” there’s the fourth love.

Traci Morrow:

There it is.

Mark Cole:

“… is giving people permission to be an impact player, even as a new employee. This empowers people to make a difference where they see an opportunity and to think authentically and apply themselves to the fullest to serve those around them.”

Anna, you got the point. And for all of you that would like to listen to Liz Wiseman, the link to that is in the show notes. And by the way, leave us a comment. This, what we just heard from Anna, what we just heard from Cam, that’s fuel to us. It gives us strength to continue to bring value to you. Hey, go do something this week. Go be thankful and lead well.