Maxwell Leadership Podcast: Overcoming Instead of Being Overcome (Part 2)

Mark Cole:
Hello, and welcome back to a new episode of the Maxwell Leadership podcast. We exist to add value to leaders who multiply value to others. My name is Mark Cole, and today we’re continuing a two part series where John Maxwell is teaching us about how we can be leaders who overcome instead of being overcome. Now, last week, episode one, I hope you got it. In fact, if you did and you want to listen to it, John talked about the internal factors that stop us from being an overcomer. He talked about regret. He talked about resentment. Please go back and listen to that because I promise you it will help you.

Mark Cole:
Today, he’s going to share with us on two external factors that stop leaders from being an overcomer. I’m excited about this. It was an incredible first episode. Today will be no different after John is done, my friend Traci Morrow joins me, and we talk about a few standout statements, and we’ll give you some practical ways to apply this to your life and leadership. So grab a pen, grab a paper, because here we go with John Maxwell, part two.

John Maxwell:
Now, I’ve gotten through the first two r’s so that I could get to the third r, which is resistance. If you’ve ever been a leader, you understand resistance. Isn’t that true? The leader is always the one who takes the flak. So we, anybody in the leadership position understands very quickly what I call resistance. When you talk about momentum, anyone, once an organization has momentum, anyone can get out in front and enjoy the thrust that momentum gives to organization. But what happens when the organization’s going the wrong way? So you have to stop that negative momentum. Then you have to build momentum and turn it around and get it going. And now we’re talking about a whole different, whole different deal.

John Maxwell:
Okay? So how do. How do you handle resistance? This will be the practical part of this. Lesson number one, expect resistance. Let’s all start there. Let’s all understand. We’re gonna have problems. We’re gonna have resistance. In fact, motion causes friction.

John Maxwell:
Now, in resistance, how you reduce resistance is by coming up with answers that people have not figured out. Leaders have to. Leaders have to see farther than people. They have to see more than people. Okay, now, so let me give you this acrostic, because I want to tell you this. You’re going to use this the rest of your life. I promise you. This is one of those things.

John Maxwell:
If this is going to be worth your whole day, right here, the letter pull. Let’s start. There stands for predetermine, your course of action. What you do is you have to sit down and basically say, where do I want to end up? So out there somewhere, two years, five years, ten years, you say, this is what I want my life to look like there. Okay. Predetermine, your course of action. The letter l stands for lay out your goals. After you predetermine where you want to go, you begin to lay out your goals.

John Maxwell:
And by the way, your goals are stepping stones to get to that predetermined course of action, what you want to accomplish. The letter a stands for adjust your priorities. The moment that you begin to lay out your goals, you’re going to find out that there’s a lot of things you’re spending money on, time, on effort, on that you need to get rid of for you to be able to accomplish the objective that you have. So you adjust your priorities. The letter n stands for notify key personnel. Now you begin to bring the key players around. You begin to share with them your dream. When you begin to let them add value to that dream, you even let them, they begin to tweak the dream so that it becomes, they begin to have ownership of it.

John Maxwell:
The letter a in the word ahead stands for allow time for acceptance. Any new thought needs time for people to have incubation and be able to accept what you’re giving them. So you allow time for acceptance. The letter h stands for head into action. Now, here’s where the resistance comes in. Remember, motion causes friction. The moment you head into action, the letter e kicks in. Expect problems.

John Maxwell:
As long as the train’s not moving, you don’t have a problem. But once the train begins to pull out of the depot, there’s all kind of people. There are people sitting around the even say, well, I want it on the train. There are people say, well, I want off the train. Other people say, well, I want to go this way and you’re going that way. Okay, so expect problems. Now, in expecting problems, that’s, don’t feel bad about it. That’s part of life.

John Maxwell:
In fact, in the emotional soul of a leader, one of the reasons leaders are successful is they have the ability to handle emotionally a myriad of problems. If you don’t want to have problems, don’t ever want to be a leader. If you don’t want to have problems, let somebody else be a leader and let them handle all of your problems for you. You just be a follower. And every morning get up and do hut, two, three, four, where’s the line? If you’re going to be a leader, I promise you you’ll increase the number of problems that you’re going to so expect problems. And that’s okay. Nothing wrong with that. It’s like the kid who flunked out of school and he sent a telegram home to his mom, flunked all my courses, been kicked out of college.

John Maxwell:
Prepare prop, which he got telegrammed the next day from his mother. Pop prepared. Prepare yourself. It’s spec prop. The letter a, always point to your successes. Always point to your successes. And the letter d, daily review your progress. Now, I want to tell you something.

John Maxwell:
I have just given you an acrostic on planning that if you’ll just make it a part of your life, laminate it. That’s what you need. You laminate this if you make this a part of your life, this will help you through the process of helping people through resistance and all those things. But just expect resistance because you’re going to have it. Now, the second thing in handling resistance is remember the 2050 30 rule? And the 2030 50 rule says that 20% of the people are what I call change friendly. When you say let’s change, let’s change. 50% of the people sit on the fence and 30% of the people are what I call resistors. Now, the next paragraph under these statistics is very key.

John Maxwell:
Giving resisters your attention often just reinforces problem behavior. Try to woo the fence sitters and attend to the 20% who drive the change. Let squeaky wills squeak. Save your grease for the quieter wheels who are carrying the load. Don’t try to get everybody on the boat. Don’t try to get everybody on the train. In fact, stop for a moment. You don’t want everybody on the boat.

John Maxwell:
Aren’t there some people, once they get in your organization, say, oh, dear Lord, what did I do? Let’s move the train and let’s not tell them, okay? In handling resistance, number three, explain the rationale for change. What happens in leading people is they, when they resist, you remember this. It’s in your paragraph. Resistance often is rooted in a lack of understanding. Many times, people withhold support simply because they haven’t figured out the situation. And education and communication is the first step of helping everybody get with the program. Number four, provide a clear target. Resistance to change climbs fast when people can’t figure out where they’re headed.

John Maxwell:
The more vague the destination, the fewer the volunteers that you’ll find eager to go there. Number five, take care of the me issues. Me. The me issues. And here’s what I’m saying. The first question a person asks regarding change is, how will this affect me? So if you’re going to overcome other issues, you got to handle regret in your life. You got to handle resentment. You got to handle resistance of others, and then you got to handle rejection.

John Maxwell:
So, how do you respond to rejection? Number one, understand the dynamics of rejection. And the dynamics basically are this simple. You should feel bad when you’re rejected. I hear these people say, well, you know, don’t let it worry you when you’re rejected. Can I tell you something? That’s not natural. There’s not a person in this room that likes to be rejected. If you like to be rejected, you have other issues we need to deal with. And I’ve got a therapist for you.

John Maxwell:
You know what I’m saying? It doesn’t bother me. I don’t care what people think. You are a liar. You’re not in touch with who you are. You haven’t had a realistic day with your feelings. So the dynamics of rejection is a couple things going on. One is you will get rejected in life. And number two is you will not feel good.

John Maxwell:
If you feel good, then we’ve got to talk about other issues. Don’t worry about that. Number two, share your feelings with someone. What I have found is that what’s necessary when rejected is you have to have a place to venture. The third area in handling rejection is to look at the person who rejected you. And the reason I say that is, I learned a long time ago that hurting people hurt people. So when somebody rejects me or somebody is unkind to me, my first question is not why. My first question is, I want to look at them and see if they’re hurting people.

John Maxwell:
And if they’re hurting people, I realize that many times, I just happen to be the person that was around them when their hurt showed up. And so therefore, I got the grenade. Okay, number four, look at yourself. And the reason you want to look at yourself is, well, you know, I found the enemy, and it’s me. We have to look and say, am I doing things that cause people to reject me? Number five, do what is right. Just do what is right. Successful people do what unsuccessful people won’t do. The paradoxical commandments of leadership.

John Maxwell:
It says people are illogical, unreasonable, and self centered. Love them anyway. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Do good anyway. If you’re successful, you’ll win. False friends and true enemies succeed anyway. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.

John Maxwell:
Honesty and frightenedness make you vulnerable, but be honest and frank anyway. The biggest men with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men with the smallest minds. Think big anyway. People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs. Fight for a few underdogs anyway. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway. People really need help, but may attack you if you help them.

John Maxwell:
Help them anyway. Give the world the best that you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway. But I just want you to know this. The only people that ever finished the race are the people that keep on keeping on. The only people that ever hear the well done now good and faithful servant are the ones who decide to run one more mile. The world is handed to people not because of their brilliance, not because of their expertise, but because of their persistence and tenacity and their ability and their willingness to discipline themselves. Focus on tomorrow and take one more step today.

John Maxwell:
That’s what I wish for you.

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Mark Cole:
Hey, welcome back. I want to tell you, Traci, I’m like, I’m ready to charge the hill. I’m ready to. I’m ready to run through a troop. I’m ready to jump over a wall. I’m ready to do something. John, kind of finish the lesson today, making me a believer that I’m an overcomer. And I’m so excited to go in and talk about this.

Mark Cole:
I’m reminded of Nelson Mandela’s quote that says, the greatest glory in living lies not in never failing, but in rising every time we fail. And some of you I know listen to this podcast, chances are thousands and thousands of you listening, chances are some of you are feeling like a failure today. Some of you have perhaps overcome the two things that we talked about in episode one of regret and resentment. But these external factors, these things you can’t control, is really wearing you down. And so that’s what Traci and I are gonna help you with today. I’m very excited about it. Let’s get ready to jump through a troop run over a wall. And I know I said that wrong, but I said it on purpose because I’m just ready to do something today.

Traci Morrow:
Fired up. I love this side of you. I love that so much. And I love how John will always talk about how the value of setting expectations on the front end is so important. So if we are going to expect resistance, then we are not going to be surprised when it shows up. And I thought that was something that is very important because I think when, when it does show up and we’re surprised by it, it feels so much stronger. And maybe we might take it in as a failure on our part if we didn’t see it coming. But if we’re expecting it and it shows up, it’s kind of like, ah, there it is.

Traci Morrow:
I was expecting you. You’re a part of the journey. You’re not a surprise to the journey. And I think a lot of people, a lot of leaders get. I know I certainly did as a young leader. This was a very soothing thing to learn from John because it made failure a part of the journey, not in contrast to the journey. So I have a couple questions for you. As he went through his plan ahead, acrostic, he said that now, when he got to head into action, he kind of highlighted that that was the first part where action came in.

Traci Morrow:
But I saw kind of a sneaky first place where there was action. And that was when you notify your key personnel, because that really is where it comes out of your head and to other people and where your first resistance can show up. So that’s really where motion goes away from you to other people. And so I was curious, Mark, how you prepare for those first two levels of resistance. How do you prepare for the first resistance with notifying key personnel? And then the second level is when it moves beyond key personnel and they’re all on board. How do you mentally, emotionally, spiritually prepare for the resistance as it heads into action and you start having that traction, which motion causes friction and you start to feel that friction?

Mark Cole:
Well, it’s so interesting. Just today I was meeting with several of our team, our entire staff. We have these state of the culture meetings, and I had one today. And we started a journey of a turnaround on some particular things that we’re working on. And we knew it was going to be a long journey. And so, in fact, our CFO forecasted that it was going to take us 18 months to do this particular turnaround. And we’re twelve months in. Today was the landmark of when we really started making difficult decisions that was creating traction.

Mark Cole:
And we were twelve months in and I told them something that I’ll tell you as podcast listeners, and then I’m going to come back and talk about this, notify key personnel and start to head into action. Because John said it in the lesson today. He alluded to it last week in episode one when he said leaders responsibility is to see more. And before, in other words, when we’re trying something audacious, we’re in the middle of an 18 month process right now. When you’re starting into something, it’s extremely important that periodically along the way, you remind people what you said at the beginning as it relates to resistance, so that they don’t wake up one day and go, what’s wrong with us? They don’t lose heart, lose persistence to keep pushing. Today was one of those days. I just needed to remind everybody, hey, we are making extremely great progress. But don’t forget we started an 18 month journey twelve months ago.

Mark Cole:
That’s true as it relates to resistance. And this is even, even talking about resistance with our team. But it’s true when you walk into something big, when you walk into something that is going to be a change, when you introduce something for the first time, you are going to have resistance. It’s not because you’re a bad leader. It’s not because it’s a bad plan. It’s not because your people are deadbeats and don’t want to do anything hard. It’s because resistance happens. As leaders, not only do we have to expect it, we have to level set resistance with our team.

Mark Cole:
That’s why the point that you’re asking about Traci is so important. You’ve got to notify key leaders. You know what I did before my meeting today? Sat down with one of our key leaders and I said, okay, this is the message I’m delivering today. What is going to sound new, unusual, or challenging to the teams that you’ve been meeting on a weekly basis? I’m just getting back from an international trip. I’ve been out of the office for a while. I needed my key teammates to give insight to me on how to even communicate. The reminder that resistance was expected. That’s the value of meeting with your key leaders first before you even head into action, as I did today.

Mark Cole:
With a meeting, it’s important to get the key leaders to give you input. Why? Because you let them know it’s okay. Two, you get a perspective that’s bigger than the one you’re currently carrying. Three, you get ambassadors after the meeting because I brought that leader in on the front end. Now that leader and the leadership team will drive the behaviors on the backend.

Traci Morrow:
Okay. So I’m going to follow this storyline a little bit to bring it into my next question. And hopefully our listeners are kind of not just listening to your storyline, but comparing it, hopefully, and applying it to what they’re dealing with in their leadership journey as well, because that’s what we do on this podcast. Right. So one of the things that you said was that it’s not necessarily because it’s a bad plan. So that’s because you’re twelve months into an 18 month plan. But let’s go back a little bit to the beginning of the 18 month plan when you first laid this out to your team. Okay.

Traci Morrow:
By now you’ve found and you’ve tweaked and you’ve worked the plan and you found that it’s not a bad plan, it’s a good plan. You’re on track, you’ve got some, some great traction, but let’s take it back a little bit. So I moving forward into when John talks about 20% of the people are change friendly, 50% of the people sit on the fence, and the 30% of the people are resistors. So I would say that I am change friendly, but I have also been known and could be considered sometimes to be a resistor a little bit, depending on the project or the event, because I’m not just going to be change friendly for the sake of change. I want it to be good change. I want it to be a good plan. Just going to go along with any plan. As a member of the team, I want it to be the best plan for the team.

Traci Morrow:
So can you talk about when you’re first bringing this to your team? Some leaders are like, this is the plan. This is the way it is. I don’t want to hear back from the team. We’re trying to move this forward. And can you talk about the differences between hearing from a squeaky wheel versus a discerner? Someone who has the discerning genius from. Let’s talk about Pat Lincioni’s book, the six types of working genius. A discerner who isn’t necessarily a squeaky wheel but is discerning, maybe to point out some gaps. Some leaders might not hear the difference between a squeaky wheel and who actually is a discerner on their leadership team.

Traci Morrow:
Does that make sense, that question?

Mark Cole:
It does. It does. And I’ll tell, I think a leader has to go and check themselves because too often when I’m presenting a new idea, I’m presenting it as a convincer rather than a listener. Great leaders don’t present new ideas and convince people in the first time they hear about it. They give their idea and listen for what they might be missing. So you, the discerner, let’s call you a discerner, hopefully, and not a resistor. Cause you don’t want to be in that 30% of getting left behind. Let’s say you’re intuitive and you’re really not trying to be a resistor, but you’re trying to use your intuitiveness to make sure that things are not being missed.

Mark Cole:
A great leader is going to take your intuition and they’re going to catch the things that you are bringing up in a listening tour when they first bring it up. Here’s where you really can turn. You can determine a resistor. To an intuitive individual, it’s when you feel heard. Let’s, again, let’s use you, Traci. You feel heard. You feel like you were absolutely heard, you feel like you were responded to. And the leader still feels like it’s something she or he wants to do.

Mark Cole:
At that point, when they have done you the justice of listening, they have done you the justice of responding, and they still feel like it’s the direction you need to check yourself because you may be in being a resistor and not intuitive.

Traci Morrow:
Yeah, that’s true.

Mark Cole:
Because an intuitive person just wants to make sure their intuition is heard, monitored, and valued. And by the way, your intuition might be right and the leader still went the wrong way. That’s okay. Leaders make mistakes. I have found too many intuitive people that hide behind intuition when really they’re just a resistor. They don’t want to go that way anyway. And I’ve met too many leaders that improperly label intuition as resistance and therefore miss key indicators from key relationship people on the team.

Traci Morrow:
I think that is so important for both the leader, but also for the discerning team member, because they need to be able to communicate clearly with one another and for the leader to be mature enough to hear from the discerner and then the discerner to be okay with still going on board with the plan, even if it goes against what maybe they brought to the table. And the leader says, you know what? I’ve heard what you have to say and we’re going to go ahead with it anyway.

Mark Cole:
I was on a call just a little week ago. Every week I do a call for our Maxwell leadership certified team members. They call with their leadership questions. They call with their client proposal questions. They call with personal growth questions. And me and five other people that John has selected does these daily calls for our certified team members. And so anyway, I was on a call with Jose, and Jose was telling me, he said, mark, I have this group of people that are very passionate about the future. And then I have these people that I’m counseling on what went wrong in the past.

Mark Cole:
He said, how do I bring those people and get them all on the same page? I said, you don’t. You keep the people that still want to be counseled in the counseling session. And I’m not saying you don’t empathize with them. You don’t reach out to them. And I’m not saying you immediately leave them behind. But I’m telling you that if you’re spending time with two groups of people, the people that want to stay in the past are going to hinder the people that want to go forward with you in the future. And furthermore, leaders, what I told Jose, I said, jose, you need to figure out if you’re a counselor or you’re a visionary. And I’m not saying either one is right or wrong.

Mark Cole:
We need both. But if you’re a visionary and you spend all your time with the counseling, you are going to lose your visionary perspective. Jose called me, thanked me, went and implemented that and created two separate groups that really helped his leadership appetite, but it really helped the people get in groups that where they could serve each other best. And I share that because it’s really important now, as I’m sharing that, Traci, I’m realizing that last week I told people how to find out more information about joining that tribe where you can get a daily call you can be a part of betting on yourself and building something. And we showed a video to our youtubers. We played a little small clip for those on audio, and I’d like to do that again this week. For those of you that missed it, we had an incredible response last week, and I want to give you an opportunity. Check this out and we’ll come back and continue the conversation afterwards.

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Mark Cole:
Hey, welcome back, Traci. You constantly add value to people. Thanks for letting me share that story about Jose. And thanks for all of you that just caught that link and you’re gonna go check out that website and be a part of it. Traci, don’t let. Here’s my whole point in all of that. You’re going to get resistance. You need to get in communities that help you get beyond resistance as you live your best life.

Traci Morrow:
Well, let’s move on to rejection. Dun dun dun dun.

Mark Cole:
Yeah, exactly.

Traci Morrow:
It’s gonna happen. It’s gonna happen. So can you talk about a time, let’s get real here. Let’s get real and honest, because you’re so good at that with our audience. But talk about a time when you’ve navigated rejection and what you’ve learned through venting, maybe with John or people close with you, close in your inner circle, so that you’re able to process it properly, so that it doesn’t move into what we talked about last week. And that is where you have bitterness and resentment so that you can, in a healthy way, vent your rejection towards healing with John, maybe in a way that he’s processed with you so that you don’t become a resentful leader.

Mark Cole:
Well, what’s so interesting is I love when John tells the story about rejection. He talks about his, like his first, I think it was his first church, maybe his second church. He had 50 people that was voting on him to be the pastor. 48 said yes, one said no, and one abstained. So again, 48 said yes. One said, heck no, we don’t want this guy. And another person said, I’m not sure which really means no way. I just am too embarrassed to say it.

Mark Cole:
Right? John said for four weeks, I think it was four weeks. Three, four, five weeks. Every time he would get on stage to speak, all he could think about was watching people’s body language and their facial expression to find out who the no and the abstaining vote was. It really captured him that he didn’t get 100%. And all he could think about is two people is out there listening to me today, and one of them didn’t have the guts to vote, and one of them voted against me. He said it so captured me that my communication was terrible. I have found for my leadership cause I’m a positive person, and I have a little bit of woo. And in team meetings, I can get a lot of momentum with my, with my vulnerability and my charisma.

Mark Cole:
I can move a team. I have found that for me, I have to build in resistance. In other words, I surround myself with contrarians. The first eight years of my CEO leadership role, I had intentionally a CFO that would serve as a contrarian to me. We’re great friends. If I. If something happened to me, he would take care of Stephanie. He’s just a great friend, but in a business setting, I paid him to disagree with me publicly because here’s why.

Mark Cole:
I can woo a room with my influential and my inspiration. And I needed somebody to slow me down to make sure that resistance would keep me honest in really believing the vision and the direction of the organization. Now, I’m not saying everybody needs to do that. That’s just what I needed. I needed people around me to tell me why something might not work. It frustrated me. I wanted to pull out my hair, then I wanted to pull out his hair, and then I wanted to look for other people to pull their hair out. It was not fun.

Mark Cole:
It slowed me down, but it kept me in an environment that was most effective for me and my temperament. I like resistance. I like contrarian because it makes me better. Now that I. It may be time to tell you that I won in debate class in high school. I was good at debating. So I love that conversation that sharpens you because it makes your thinking better. If that’s not you and resistance, rejection, that, that whole thing, you take resistance as rejection, then now we’ve really got to talk about you and how you lead.

Mark Cole:
I didn’t take resistance as rejection. I took it as a friend, to me. But if when you start feeling rejection, like we were talking about with John, and it begins to capture your thinking and it begins to be more than someone that might disagree with you, a contrarian, as I said. And now it becomes someone that gets to determine your value in how you see yourself. You’ve really got to get some help with that.

Traci Morrow:
I love that. I love when you speak to the reality of what we are dealing with, whether that’s something that you personally deal with or not. I appreciate that.

Mark Cole:
Traci, can I say one more thing right here?

Traci Morrow:
Yeah.

Mark Cole:
Before you go to that last question for me, I have found that most rejection is because you’re not self secure in the area you feel rejected. I can remember. I’ll get really personal with you. For those of you that watch YouTube, I used to be redhead. Now I think I’m gray headed. It’s coming. It’s coming in too fast, Traci. And I need some hair consulting right here because it’s getting gray quick.

Mark Cole:
But I can remember as a kid when my hair started going from blond and straight to red and curly at about 11, 12, 13 years of age when your whole body is freaking out. And I can remember for the first four or five years people saying, I’d rather be dead than red on the head. Nobody else in my family was redheaded. And they would say, you’re not even a part of the family. You were adopted. My older brother, he’s meant, he’s very mean. I’m just kidding. He was mean.

Mark Cole:
I can remember for about four years, Traci, that destroying me because I had not settled insecure of myself. And I’ve watched too many people deal with insecurities within themselves and allow others to do what other people just do. And that’s carelessly walk through life and say careless things and that speak rejection. And it’s really not rejection at all. It is a lack of self confidence in an area, and you interpret it as rejection. So, number one, people that reject you for where you really are and want to go, you probably shouldn’t give them too much credibility in your voice in your life. Rather. Secondly, make sure that rejection really is not an indicator that you need to get some self security in a particular area.

Traci Morrow:
That right there is for every one of us, no matter our age or stage of life, that could be your height, that could be your weight, that could be the color of your eyes, the color of your hair, that could be something that happened to you or something that you continually carry with you, that is that running tape in the back of your head that just plays, and every time someone points it out to you, it’s confirmation to you that that is right. And we need to get that that settled, that, because every time someone says it outside of our head, it confirms what we say to ourselves inside of our head. And what we say to ourselves matters, and we need to deal with that. And so I appreciate you. Do we have time for one more question?

Mark Cole:
Yeah.

Traci Morrow:
Okay, great. Okay, so part of just talking about, you know, being rejected and from just, from a business perspective, part of being a leader is letting people go. And also people, you know, just having to release them from the team for good reasons or for not so great reasons, but also people flying from the team going to the next thing, people who you really wanted to stay on the team who you saw as a valued member of the team. People don’t always leave for bad reasons. Sometimes people leave because they see something else in their future and you’re heartsick because they go. And so how do you walk through those processes in your mind so that you don’t see that you can operate in those situations, that you don’t view them as a rejection, or that you don’t set it up so that it’s a rejection of the person who you’re having to release, even if it’s a sticky or uncomfortable situation?

Mark Cole:
Well, I won’t make a transition in or even agree to a transition. You have people come and say, hey, I want to soar to the next spot, or, hey, I want to leave this nest because I’m not sure what’s next, but I need some space to figure out what’s next. I need your blessing. I want your blessing. In other words, what they’re saying is, I want your approval. I want you to endorse this idea. And whether I’m transitioning people or people are transitioning themselves for good reason or unexplainable reason, I never settle and, quote, give my blessing or make a decision to transition somebody until I can settle within myself that no matter what the other individual says or thinks, this is for their best. I can remember years and years and years ago that I made a decision to transition somebody because I felt like it was best for the organization.

Mark Cole:
And not only did I not handle that one correctly, I’ve often wished that I would have handled that differently. I think the person should have been transitioned. I think all of that was good, but I didn’t settle. And what I did say, I didn’t settle that it was best for them. I settled that it was best for the organization. And I don’t run organizations. I run. I run people, if you’ll allow me to use this terminology, I run people that make up an organization.

Mark Cole:
And too often, and this is not just for people, leaders. I’m a people oriented. I’m a people person, but leaders that are not even people people. When you begin to dehumanize your organization, to make best decisions for the organization, you inadvertently devalue people. And that’s a fundamental flaw of a leader. You’ve got to value people first, and then the organization will take care of itself. And so the first thing that I’ll tell you, there’s been many transitions that I have both accepted because they were leaving anyway, are transitions that I have made because it was right for the person that people don’t agree with. It’s not about agreement.

Mark Cole:
It’s about a leadership settleness that says, I am making this decision and it is best for the individual, and one day it’ll make a lot more sense. And I think that ability to do that allows, oftentimes, not every time. Please don’t confuse it. Oftentimes, it allows the relational aspect to rework itself out down the road. And I have become great friends with people that I have transitioned when in the moment, they did not agree with me and did not like it. And yet eventually it made sense. And as leaders, I think we have to do that, because the rejection mindset, I never want to communicate rejection, although most of the time when a transition happens, it communicates rejection to somebody. But when I settle within myself that it is best for the person, I don’t listen to the lie of rejection, because it’s not rejection.

Mark Cole:
It’s actually acceleration to the life you were intended to live. It comes back, Traci, I believe this, and we’ll close with this. It absolutely in my mind comes back to a mindset thing. You have got to get clear and settled in your mindset in the whole thing. We’re talking about overcoming instead of being overcome. This whole concept really starts with your thinking. It starts with your mental perspective. That’s why we had great response last week, and I want to make it available again this week.

Mark Cole:
It’s the mindset mastery playbook. This is free. Yes, you heard that correctly. This is free. And it’s something we’ve developed, a mindset mastery playbook, a four step process to turn overwhelm, doubt and stress into growth and momentum. We’ll put it in the show notes. We’ll tell you how to get it. It’s yours free.

Mark Cole:
We want you to have it. I think it goes along well with what we’ve been talking about for the last two episodes. Take advantage of that. Hey, Salem, listen to high road leadership part four. By the way, if you didn’t hear the four part series that John and I did on high road leadership, you need to go back and check those four podcasts out. Incredible. Salem was listening to part four and said, that is big emotional capacity makes a difference in leadership in dark times, and that defines a leaders hour to rise at that moment. Salem, you said, thank you for growing us.

Mark Cole:
I say thank you for growing together. Proud to be on the team with you. Hey, go bring powerful, positive change to the world around you, because everyone deserves to be led well.