Maxwell Leadership Podcast: Momentum Breakers vs. Momentum Makers (Part 2)

Mark Cole:
As a leader, one of the most tempting things, I feel, is the need to do it all. You’re probably like that, too. We put this enormous pressure on ourselves to accomplish more today than we did yesterday. I want to earn more than I did last year. And somehow along the way, we want to be present and available in all of our personal relationships. But something has to give. Doing it all is a myth. Doing it all is a terrible myth in leadership.

Mark Cole:
In fact, the best leaders are the ones who know their limits, operate in their strengths, and set others up around them to do the same. If you want to find that kind of freedom, Belay can help. See, belay pairs busy leaders with highly vetted, us based virtual assistants to save them from the administrative slog and to get that leader back to working on the things that matter most. To help you get started, Belay is offering Maxwell podcast listeners a free download of their ultimate guide to working with a virtual assistant. This resource has everything you need to get started, to start growing, and to succeed with your new virtual assistant. Just text Maxwell to 55123 to download this resource today. That’s Maxwell to 55123. All right, like me, let’s get ready to accomplish more and juggle less with Belay.

Mark Cole:
Welcome to 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 we’re continuing a two part series on momentum. Now, I have to tell you, if you’ve missed last week, I probably would pause, go listen to last week and come back and pick us up right here. Because in this series, John Maxwell teaches us ten momentum breakers and momentum makers that will help you create the momentum in your own leadership, in your own life, in your own relationships, and dare I say, with the team that you lead. Last week, John covered points one through five, so this week he’ll cover six through ten. Now, after John’s lesson, my buddy, my coworker, my co leader, Chris Goede, and I are going to continue a conversation of putting this lesson into practical application for you. We’re going to dive deeper into John’s lesson, and we’re going to challenge you to lead with better momentum.

Mark Cole:
If you’d like to watch this episode on YouTube, or maybe even download the free bonus resource for this episode, visit maxwellpodcast.com/momentummaker now, as I said last week, it’s set again this week. Now to one of the best momentum makers I’ve ever met. Here is John Maxwell.

John Maxwell:
Number six momentum breaker is apathy. Momentum maker is passion. You see, momentum is developed when passion is at the center of your life, and momentum is drained when apathy is at the center of your life. I have come to believe that if you have courage, you will influence people based on your convictions. If you lack courage, you will influence people based on your comfort zone. Let me ask you a question. Are you influencing people based on your comfort zones or are influencing people based upon your convictions? One person with passion is greater than 99 who have no interest. Momentum breaker number seven.

John Maxwell:
Dishonesty. Momentum maker. Character. I learned a long time ago momentum is developed when the followers trust their leader, and momentum is drained when followers distrust their leader. Let me give you my favorite character quotes. I went through about 150 of them to give you these ten number one. What you are determines what you see, and what you see determines what you do. If you follow that equation all the way out, what you do is a result of what you are.

John Maxwell:
Always has been, always will be. Number two. Character is the sum total of our everyday choices. The choices that you have, the choices that I have. Character is the sum total of our everyday choices. Number three. A person never discloses his own character so clearly as when he describes another person. Number four.

John Maxwell:
This is a Beecher quote. A person is rich according to what he is, not according to what he has. Five. Some men succeed by what they know. Some men succeed by what they do. A few succeed by what they are. Number six. Most of the significant things done in the world were done by persons who were either too busy or too sick.

John Maxwell:
There are a few ideal and leisurely settings for the disciplines of growth. Teddy Roosevelt said it another way, which is number 790 percent of the work done in this country is done by people who don’t feel well. Isn’t that right? Aren’t those great character quotes? Number eight. This is a covey quote. You’ve heard this, I’m sure. Private victories precede public victories. If you haven’t had any private victories in your life, you’re not going to have any public ones. Number nine.

John Maxwell:
Cowardice. Ask the question. Is it safe? Consensus. Ask the question. Is it popular? Character asked the question, is it right? Number ten. Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there. And I believe that with all of my heart. The 8th momentum breaker in an organization is conformity doing what everybody else is doing because everybody else is doing it.

John Maxwell:
Momentum makers, though a momentum maker, is change. You see, momentum is developed when change helps growth and momentum is drained when conformity hinders growth. Kennedy said conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth. Let me do a little greek on you. The word nostalgia is derived from two greek words. One, to return home, and two, a painful condition. And if there has been no sense of loss and no resistance, there has been no change. Momentum breaker number nine is ingratitude, and momentum maker is giving or gratitude or grace.

John Maxwell:
You see, momentum is developed when a spirit of giving fills the organization and is drained when an ungrateful spirit fills the organization. Quote in your notes, Anne Frank said, how wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world don’t need to wait a bit of momentum breaker number ten, indecision. Momentum maker action. You see, momentum is developed by taking the risk and moving ahead, even when there are significant obstacles that remain. And momentum is drained by succumbing to the paralysis of analysis. Creative abstract thinking is another ability that is often found in leaders. They are prone to get somewhere in their minds long before their followers do. In my view, this ability is mostly innate, but the capacity to do something with an idea is what distinguishes a leader from others.

John Maxwell:
We ought to adopt and this is in your notes. This as our motto of life. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on. How many people I know go to the kitchen sink and wonder why the water didn’t flow. Turn that sucker on. Nothing is great of an idea until we act on it. So what I did is I put some of my favorite action quotes in here. Let me give you some action thoughts, such as, you don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.

John Maxwell:
Number two, some people dream of worthy accomplishments while others stay awake and do them. Number three, here’s a great quote by John Holcomb. You must get involved to have impact. No one is impressed with the one lost record of a referee. Does anybody who brags about what he’s going to do tomorrow probably did the same thing? Yes, sir. Number six, a person is never what he ought to be until he is doing what he ought to be doing. I want to tell you something. I am really never impressed with idea people.

John Maxwell:
I really am not anyone again that takes a long shower can get a good idea. What I’m really impressed is with a person who has the tenacity and discipline to take the idea and put it into action. I have learned and let me just stop here long enough before I finish this lesson with you. I have learned to be an implementer. I am a major implementer. I want to tell you what when I hear people talking and it’s a good idea while they’re sitting over there discussing the whys, the hows, the whens, and the wheres, I’m over the corner with my legal pad and im getting ready to put next. Now the reason I know that is because I learned a long time ago, watch this, that there are a lot of smart people in the world, so im not always going to have the best ideas. So I decided to be smart and quick.

John Maxwell:
And I learned a long time ago, its the quick that gets you to the top, not the smartest. There is nothing more common than geniuses on the shelf of life. But it’s the person that takes the idea and does something with it. The higher a person’s influence, the greater the momentum will be broken or made. And when followers break momentum, it hurts. And when leaders do it, it sometimes is fatal.

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Mark Cole:
Hey, welcome. I want to get right in because when Chris, when Chris shows up, guys, he’s back two weeks in a row, and I’m just really, really excited about it. But when he shows up, we have so much talk. We work together so much and have worked together for so long. Chris, that boy talking about any subject from a point of application. We’ve heard John probably as much as anybody because you traveled with him forever. I’ve traveled with him forever. And now we apply it on a database.

Mark Cole:
So I want to jump right in because this is so good. So last week, five momentum makers, five counter momentum breakers. This week, five more. And I can’t wait to talk to you more about it.

Chris Goede:
I love it. And leaders, the responsibility of creating momentum is yours, right? And Mark talked about it in the opening, personally, professionally, whatever it might be, it’s on you to create that, that momentum as we were listening, just so you know what we do is we get the chance to, right before we record, Jake turns the lesson on. We listen, you react, and then we go. And during us listening to the lesson, Mark literally was like, oh, my gosh, that is amazing. We got to talk about that. So I’m going to go right to the show notes, and I’m going to direct you to go to the show notes. We’re going to start right here, where John starts at number six, where he says the momentum breaker is apathy and momentum maker is passion. And the two things that really stood out to Mark that I want to bring to your attention, that we’re going to dive in to some personal application for Mark, is the question he poses where he says, are you influencing people based on your comfort zone, or are you influencing people based on your convictions? Now, if you don’t have the show notes, I want you to pause, rewind.

Chris Goede:
I want you to write that sentence down, and I want you to go think on that because I know the way you reacted, I kind of glanced over it, to be honest with you, and then I heard you and I looked. I was like, oh, I got to think about this. Like, I got to think him. Am I just leading? Am I just trying to create momentum because I’ve done this for a while, or am I really convicted about it? Right? Am I really, is that really where I’m at and what my calling is on life, which we’re going to get to in just a minute. Then right after that, he says, one person with passion is greater than 99 that have no interest. I have worked for one of those 99 in the past. I think we all have. Right? And I’m like, what am I doing here? Like, they’re not interested, so I’m not interested, so there’s no momentum.

Chris Goede:
We’re going to talk about 180 degrees different than that. We’re going to talk about your passion.

Mark Cole:
Yeah.

Chris Goede:
Right. Because I know. And the people that are watching on YouTube or listening, they know what your calling is and they know that you’re extremely passionate about it. And when we talk about your convictions and you lead with that passion, it is a double whammy for those that have ever been in the room or on the other side of it. And oftentimes you have, you’ve had to tell us, hey, guys, guys, listen. I want to make sure you understand I’m convicted by this. This is my calling. We’re going to create momentum, and I’m going to do it because of the passion I have for what we’re doing.

Chris Goede:
And then you say, make sure you don’t mistake my passion for the intensity. You often say to us, hey, don’t mistake my passion for intensity, because when we’re on the receiving end of it, you probably look at us and you can read a room really well. You’re probably like, they’re all about to walk out of the building right now. Cause they think I’m coming, right? And we talked about last week even being critical, right. Intensity and critical could come together. Talk to us a little bit about how you’ve had to temper that at times. But also, man, like, that’s how you create momentum. You, again, I’ve seen you do it with teams, saw you do it earlier in the week, and you’re just like, you guys are gonna hear from me.

Chris Goede:
My passion, my calling, and out of that room creates momentum. So just give us a little bit of lens behind your leadership and the power of that. But also how you’ve had to temper that a little bit at times, too, for momentum’s sake.

Mark Cole:
To understand me and to understand the perspective that I’m going to answer your question. You got to know, Chris, when your team, we’ve got a team of highly trained, highly gifted coaches, facilitators that go out and train companies, it’s a part of our business. One of our exercises is the values exercise. It’s a deck of about 40 plus cards. Great exercise. And you have to distill down these 40 cards first to the values that speak to you, the values that don’t, then the top ten, then the top five, and then you narrow it down. Everybody needs to understand from day one. From day one, maybe in my mother’s womb, from day one, I’ve known passion is in my top five.

Mark Cole:
I think anything worth doing is worth doing with passion. That’s. I love that. So just know that I really talk about that. But I oversubscribe to passion at times. And that’s the problem, because oversubscribed passion is intensity. And people can’t handle your intensity even if they’re passionate about the same things, because they can’t tell if you’re happy, sad, mad, glad they don’t know what it is because your intensity will sometimes overwhelm people. Now, trust me, some of you out there listening and watching the podcast, you need to get a dose of intensity.

Mark Cole:
We wonder if you care. In fact, you mentioned this while ago. Have you ever worked for a leader that you cared more about their performance than they cared about it?

Chris Goede:
Right?

Mark Cole:
That’s right. Miserable experience. But when, when we talk, Chris, and what gave me. I mean, it almost gave me chill bumps when John says a person, I prefer a one person with passion, more than 99 without passion. And that is because when we begin to understand the importance of our work, the importance of our influence, there should awaken something within us. And every leader that’s a servant based leader, that’s about making the, the people around her or him better. There’s something that should awaken in us and stir us to go do something with passion. Here’s where we get into a little bit of trouble.

Mark Cole:
Now we’re talking about a demotivator or a momentum breaker being apathy. Okay. Don’t care. Whatever happens, whatever goes, goes. Don’t, whatever. It’ll be good. Everything will work itself out and feels no responsibility to work it out. Oh, my goodness.

Mark Cole:
Drives me crazy. But here’s what John says. This is what really struck me in this point. John says that consistency compounds. In fact, he says one of the most desirable traits in a leader is a leader that is consistent. And often people get no change. Status quo, average and consistent, confused. That’s not what we’re talking about.

Chris Goede:
That’s right.

Mark Cole:
Consistency is not predictability in the sense of passion. You need to be passionate about your conviction. You’re, you’re a guy, man. Podcast family. He looks good, doesn’t he? Losing weight, looking good. And I’m being dead serious about that, man. This has been a long time where you changed your eating habits, you changed your workout habits, you changed what you said no to. The consistency looks good because you have been passionate about being consistent.

Mark Cole:
Don’t get confused with apathy and consistency. Don’t get confused with comfort zone and consistency. Consistency does compound, but consistency without passion is not effective.

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Mark Cole:
And we as leaders want to look for effective. You need to even be passionate in your consistency. I remember training, and I’ll be really quick here. I remember training for my first two or three marathons. I mean, every day I’d come in and say, yeah, I killed that 5 miles. Oh, yeah, I ran 7 miles today. Oh, man, that was such a. It was so hard to run that the passion was as much for me to get consistency as it was to inspire some other people to come run a marathon with me.

Mark Cole:
Don’t confuse apathy and consistency. Don’t confuse consistency with comfort zone. You need to be consistent with passion.

Chris Goede:
Yeah. And I love that. The clarification you just had right there and the reason I was thinking about it, why I wanted to pull this out of you today, is because I think that oftentimes when you think about this, people can take intensity and it, to your point, be a demotivator. And you’re very clear with us. And I, and I wanted people to understand that it’s not one or the other. To Mark’s point, you probably have a little bit of it. Just be aware of it, and you’re aware of it in your leadership, and you’re able to communicate like, no, no, this is my passion. And now that we understand that as working together on a team, we all feel that.

Chris Goede:
And what does that do then that creates momentum. So I love that John talked about that there. Number six, let’s go now to number eight, that he talks about the word change. And oftentimes in organizations or your personal development, whatever that might look like, change is not easy, and, but you have to have it in order to continue to grow. And then I would say you have to have it to create momentum. And we were talking recently and you and I were discussing certain situations, and you’re like, hey, we need to create a little bit of change here in order to drive momentum. We’ve got to be able to do that to be able to avoid a little bit of regression. But that takes an impact in a toll on the team.

Chris Goede:
And so people are like, well, the first thing that comes up when people will go through change is, how does that affect me? And all of a sudden they, does that slow down their momentum? Your view and your vision on that as a leader is, no, no, no. We’ve got to do that periodically then, to continue to drive momentum and not just stay the status quo. You know, ho home is what we’ve done. So just talk to us a little bit about that and the importance of you leading and driving that to keep momentum going.

Mark Cole:
You and I both, Chris, have worked on a team to where conforming was expected. They wanted to protect yesterday’s systems or yesterday’s processes. What happens with conformity is conformity breeds this sense of entitlement, the sense of, well, if I do what I did yesterday, I’ll get the same results. Now, number one, you don’t want the same results as yesterday. We’re a growth environment. There are organizations, and perhaps even you’re working on a team that they would just be happy with yesterday’s results. They’re just pleased there’s not this drive. I would challenge you even if you’re happy with yesterday’s results.

Mark Cole:
It was productive enough, it was profitable enough, it was effective enough that even doing what you did yesterday will nothing breed yesterday’s results? Agree, because conformity begins to build this sense of entitlement. Well, I know it’ll happen because it happened before. And when you get into this concept that you don’t need to constantly be challenging yourself, I will tell you, you’re not in danger of stagnation. You’re in danger of retreat, of diminished, because the sameness does not breed the same results. The sameness actually gets a mindset of expectation that I don’t need to challenge myself or create myself. I think that’s why John counters conformity with change. John says the only guarantee that a better tomorrow is going to happen is growth slash change today. Why he can say that after 77 years of life, after 55 years of pursuing expertise, thought around leadership, is because he realizes the only way that you’re going to become better is when you change something about what you’re doing today.

Mark Cole:
Now, some of us, I could be guilty of this. We think that gives us an excuse to change everything every day. And then it goes back to the point I was just making. Chris, there is no consistency with that. I would tell you that, um, my greatest challenge today, as I step into leadership meetings, as I did recently, uh, my greatest challenge is to make sure that the change that is happening to me personally is not an expectation of the same change that’s happening to other people around me. And we get too caught up. That comes back to what you said a while ago, where I get into trouble with my passion, which becomes intensity, is when I expect people to feel about my message the same way I feel about it. And the intensity begins to be overbearing, as my 18 year old daughter now tells me I am the change, the expectation becomes intensity, and people go, if it takes that much passion and that much energy, I don’t know if I’m able to do it.

Mark Cole:
And so people check out before they ever checked in 100%, and we don’t want that. And that’s why I’m so glad you pulled out that intensity. But you’ve got to be passionate about enough change that the team doesn’t become entitled.

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Mark Cole:
So not as much change as the leader’s going through. Leaders see more and before. John says that they should change more and before, too, by the way. So I don’t expect people to change at my pace, but I better have them to expect a pace of change.

Chris Goede:
Love that. That’s great.

Mark Cole:
And that’s our big challenge.

Chris Goede:
Yeah, I love that. It’s a great statement. I was actually, while you were just talking, this was thinking about in regards to that pace of change, is that, um, those that are listening to the podcast, that have been fans of ours, that download it, that share with their teams and talk about it, you’re changing. And by the way, your personal growth journey is creating change. That’s creating momentum, and that’s what John’s talking about. That’s the example you brought out about him chasing that leadership over time, chasing change. You didn’t want to conform to one way of doing things. And by the way, that has created a lot of momentum for him, for Maxwell, leadership, for us, for those that he’s impacted around the world because he chose to change personally.

Chris Goede:
The other thing I want to say about that is when we’re talking about creating momentum, I love your example about, hey, leaders, if you have the privilege to lead a team, don’t expect them to be moving at the change that you are. You should be going first. You should be growing faster, to Mark’s point. But what I want you to understand is when you share what you’re learning and you’re growing through that change, like you do with our team, with our organization, that creates momentum. So there’s lots of. This is a, this is a really deep point right here that I think you could really unpack many, many different ways and understand the fact that when change is said, a lot of people have a negative connotation about it. But if we break it down into its simplest form, you’re listening to this podcast today because you’re willing to change. And by the way, I have a feeling that’s going to create some type of momentum in your life because you decided to do that.

Mark Cole:
Change is not natural. Not even for leaders. No, because change is natural for me to want to have for you, Chris, because right now I have this role of casting the vision. I want you to change. Let’s go do this like this. Be excited about this. But when I’m having to change my stuff or somebody, John Maxwell is asking me to change. Nobody likes somebody else’s idea of change, so get over yourself.

Mark Cole:
That’s, that’s natural. But what we’ve got to do is challenge ourselves. Am I in an environment that is requiring me to change? It’s why last week I got super passionate. I was talking about Jesse Cole. You’ll remember the care team that you put around. Go back and listen to it. But when I was done with that, I said, we’ve got to get our podcast family to understand they need to invest in change environments. That’s going to make them better.

Mark Cole:
And leaders, I’m just going to tell you, whether you’re watching on YouTube, whether you’re listening. You need to invest in an environment this year. You still have five months this year. Invest in yourself and invest in an environment that will challenge you to change. You’ll lead better. One environment that we do is a two and a half day dive deep with John Maxwell and only about 110 other people in Austin, Texas. And we want to invite you out to exchange podcast family. I want you to be there.

Mark Cole:
I want you to be one of the 120 that’s going to be in the room. Chris, just one little reminder. Step on that and then tell them how to go find more information on that.

Chris Goede:
Yeah. Love this event. Every year we’ll be on a waiting list. It’s one of John and Mark’s favorite events. Very intimate. And it’s really about how this year’s gonna be about leading through change. What does that look like? We’re gonna bring some. Some speakers in and we’re gonna talk about that.

Chris Goede:
Kendra Scott. We’re gonna talk about. Daryl ease is gonna talk about how do you use and innovate technology and YouTube and strategy around growing your business. And we’re gonna do some Austin experiences. I’m gonna leave it at that. We always like to have a little bit of fun with that, so we’re super excited. But that’s an environment and we, you and John, you called it exchange.

Mark Cole:
Yeah.

Chris Goede:
Right. We’re exchanging ideas and experiences so that you will then go change, by the way, which will then create momentum.

Mark Cole:
Yeah. So give us the website.

Chris Goede:
Yeah. Maxwellleadership.com. exchange. And you can fill out a form. Our team will follow back up and.

Mark Cole:
We’Ll put that in the show notes for those of you that are driving right now.

Chris Goede:
Next point. You and I both know that this is. This is one area of John when it comes to making decisions and taking action. By the way. Let me just pause for a minute. Mark just blew right by, and I don’t think he’s told our podcast family that his daughter of 18, she has a lot of thoughts around how Mark creates momentum in his leadership. We’re not going to talk about that, although she’s. The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree, so we’ll leave it there.

Chris Goede:
But congratulations, even though this is very hard for me to say.

Mark Cole:
Oh, lord. You’re going to put this on podcast?

Chris Goede:
I’m putting it out there because you made choices when my kids made choices to announce it. And I feel like you owe this. We live here in Atlanta. We are bulldog fans and Mark Cole’s daughter. I’m not sure if this creating momentum. I think it’s breaking momentum. Chose to attend the University of Florida. The University of Florida, the Gators.

Chris Goede:
But congratulations.

Mark Cole:
Thank you. She had a chance to go to UGF. All of my gator friends, I love you. In fact, I’m one of you. I’m in the tribe now. You are my money.

Chris Goede:
Going there. Yeah.

Mark Cole:
But she had a chance to go to UgA, which you and I have grown up and loved all her life. She had a chance to come be with your son, who’s playing football at Georgia Tech. She had a scholarship to go to Georgia Tech, and she goes to the gate. Yes, she did. But she’s got good reasons.

Chris Goede:
That’s right. So I just wanted to take a minute. Cause I was thinking about decisions, and she made a pretty quick decision. Right. You tried to walk her through that process. You did a really good job. But when it comes to creating momentum and making decisions, man, Jon, there’s nobody better that we’ve seen Jon do that. And when we’ve sat back and we’ve watched him, sometimes we go, whoa, that was a little bit too fast.

Chris Goede:
And I love his illustration. He’s like, I’m over in the corner. That’s a true story, by the way. And then what he’ll do is take that yellow pad of paper and he gives it to Mark and says, here’s where we’re going. And people are still sitting there listening to the, to the speaker. But when you do that, right, it gives you that competitive advantage, and he tells some great stories around that allows you to capitalize on some opportunities, personally and professionally. I think it also reduces uncertainty because you make that decision and you go. And so it creates quick wins, all those things.

Chris Goede:
And you and I both tend to be a little bit more of a processor. We’ll talk about this in a minute. How have you developed your leadership, your personal growth, your professional growth, the organization, Maxwell leadership’s growth into making quicker decisions? And how do you manage that in order to take action right away to create momentum and just give us some examples of what that’s looked like in your leadership.

Mark Cole:
You know, I gotta go. Full disclosure on this. Okay? Okay. One of the things I love when I go out and I meet the podcast family, and it’s hardly a room I don’t go in now that somebody doesn’t come up and say, hey, thank you for what you said there. I love the podcast. Just in some rooms this past week, a little while ago that we were doing, and people said I came in and I’m a part of this event because I knew you were going to be here in the podcast. I’m always honored with that. But then here’s what they say.

Mark Cole:
Thanks for being so vulnerable. What they’re really saying is thank you for not having a podcast personality. That doesn’t give us hope because you make so many mistakes. Right? So, full disclosure, I went back after John was done teaching today, and I was listening here in studio. I went back and looked at every momentum maker and breaker, all ten of them, and I went back and looked and in full disclosure, I’ve got to tell you, this is the one I struggle with the most. Now, I think you or I one’s going to give them an exercise before we end today and maybe challenge you to do the same thing. But I’ve got to tell you, this is my biggest challenge because I find big decisions impossible for me to make. Almost impossible.

Mark Cole:
Let me say it like that. John Maxwell would be proud that I’ve moved off of impossible, almost impossible for me to make until I have a piece, that it’s the right decision. Now, I don’t mind the right decision turning out wrong. I don’t mind the right decision coming and biting me in the butt. I honestly don’t mind any of that, but I have to start it out with a piece. John’s peace is that he’s moving and it’ll come to him.

Chris Goede:
He wrote it down and had it.

Mark Cole:
Too, on the way. That’s exactly right. He’s told me this. We’ve had this conversation long and hard. He is at peace because he’s going to find out if it’s right rather than knowing whether it’s right. And I get a peace that I know it’s right for today. I could care less if it fails tomorrow. But I got to know that it’s the right decision to make today.

Mark Cole:
And John says, you got to get peace in action, not in indecisiveness. And oftentimes I have to remind my team team, I am not as indecisive as you think I am. I am actually getting peace that we’re moving in the right direction. I’m not proud of that, nor sad about that. I really, it works for me. But to be more like my mentor John, I’m going to tell you that. But I realized that a momentum breaker of indecision or pause or patience or weight has the ability to slow everybody down when really everybody’s amped and wants to run. And so I will tell you this.

Mark Cole:
I’m working on it. That’s what I’m gonna tell you. I’m gonna tell you. It’s the hardest momentum breaker maker. I’m gonna be honest with you that. But now let me talk about John Maxwell. He is kind. He said something the other day, and I told you this, I think, before last week’s show.

Mark Cole:
He said something to me the other day. He said, mark, I am not scared of what I find out. I’m not scared of knowledge.

Chris Goede:
That’s a great statement.

Mark Cole:
And he said, I’m not scared that I don’t know something. I’m not scared of what I find out when I do know something. What I’m scared is I am not pursuing, finding out. He said, I don’t care. I’m not scared about knowledge. I’m not scared about that I don’t know something. So I got to go get the knowledge. I’m scared that I will find myself one day not pursuing, finding out.

Mark Cole:
Chris, when I told you that you did exactly what you just did there, because we’ve been around him a long time, I never heard him articulate that. Here’s what he’s saying. I am more passionate about action toward wins or losses than I am about whether I know it’s going to be a win or a loss before I start. It’s brilliant.

Chris Goede:
It’s brilliant. It is. And I love that you share that example because I hadn’t heard it. I heard you say it last week. I didn’t write it down this week. I just wrote it down because that is an extremely strong statement. Um, and shows his DNA around this. What I love about what you shared is there are people that are listening, that are watching us.

Chris Goede:
They sit on both sides of the camp, and. And so we’re not encouraging you to go from where you’re at to making hasty decisions and make mistakes. Mark has a process, and he’s trying to refine that process and get a little bit quicker because John says right here, man, nothing happens of an idea. Nothing happens great of an idea until you take action on it. And I’m going to. I’m going to close and I’ll throw it back to mark with this one illustration. That may be an exercise that you can actually do. Actually, you know what? I’m going to give you two.

Chris Goede:
Number one is I want you to go through these ten that John gave us over the last two weeks. So. So there was six through ten today. If you missed one through five, I want to encourage you to go back to last week’s. You don’t want to miss that one. And then I want you to take all of them. And I want to do exactly what Mark did. He just modeled it for us.

Chris Goede:
He said, hey, when I look back over the ten, this is the one that I feel like may be the one that is stopping momentum, that is breaking the momentum of my growth, my team’s growth. Um, you know, what do you think about that? So what we want to encourage you to do is say, hey, love that. Give this to your team and say, hey, of these four things, these ten things, where am I breaking momentum of this team, of what we’re trying to accomplish? And let them give you feedback. And I’d encourage you to look at yourself as well, but don’t tell them your answer until you get theirs back. I love that, because then you want to look at the gap. I’m gonna close with this one. You gave me an exercise one time that was extremely powerful. Mark and I are very closely aligned in how we lead, how we make decisions.

Chris Goede:
And so when Mark was telling you it was mine, too, right? I’m like, you know, my wife, she makes decisions and fires before she even aims. And then she’s like, God, what did we do? I’m the opposite. I aim, and then I missed the opportunity, and she’s like, what did you do? Okay, that’s a whole nother podcast for Mark. And I talk about, you came into my office one time, and you’re like, man, why are you not moving on that? Like, what’s taking you so long? Decision. And you said, here’s what I want you to do. And this is a great exercise, very practical. When an opportunity comes, a decision needs to be made, whatever it is. He said, I want you to write your answer down.

Chris Goede:
And then he said, put it in your desk. And then whenever you get done with your two week decision making process on that very simple decision, I want you to come back and I want you to look at that piece of paper and just write several of them down. So I did. I wrote about ten down, and I let it sit in there, and it came back about two weeks later, and I was like, oh, here’s the decision I made here. I acted quick on this is what I did. I didn’t act on this one, but I did make that. And it was amazing because I think nine out of ten things that you challenged me to write down, I ended up making the same decision. But I may have missed an opportunity for the organization, for my team, or my leadership, because I didn’t act quick enough, not hastily, because I have a process.

Chris Goede:
I need to improve it. And that has dramatically changed the way that I look at things and try to act right. You got to cause yourself to be able to make a decision to create momentum. So I want to share that because you did that years ago.

Mark Cole:
I remember doing that, but I’d forgotten that exercise. I need to take my own medicine right now.

Chris Goede:
So, Mark, I have some advice for you. Mark, if you would go get that drawer. And I’m going to be a little more dramatic when you take two months later and you finally make the decision. I’m just kidding. But man, what a great opportunity to talk about momentum.

Mark Cole:
So, yeah, and speaking of acting and investing in yourself and creating some momentum, I talked about exchange. I really do want all the podcast family to go check that out. You will love it. That website is Maxwell leadership. It’s in the show notes. The other thing, some of you will look at that and say, hey, that’s not for me yet. It’s going to become a bucket list for you. Okay, put it as a bucket list family there.

Mark Cole:
But some of you can right now, you can invest $99 in yourself. And we have a product there that is designed just for your growth. It’s a digital product. It’s normally dollar 499. We’re making it available because I’m telling you, it’s a momentum maker. And you need to not just listen to the content, you need to act out the content. It’s 15 laws of growth. You’ll see it there.

Mark Cole:
It’s special for our podcast family, and I want you to take advantage of that look in the show notes. I want to close today with John. John was listening to the podcast how to lead in difficult times, and he said, thanks for the powerful episode. It’s very relevant on many fronts. Going through crisis with one of my team members and I was able to share this with them and keep inspiring them to hope. And all I want to say to this john is one, thank you for the feedback. We value it. But I’m going to say to the rest of us, how many of the rest of us need to take this podcast and get some, one of our teammates or whole members of our team to listen to the podcast and sit down and discuss it and inspire? The reason I want you to do that is because everyone deserves to be led.

Mark Cole:
Well.

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