Maxwell Leadership Podcast: How to be a REAL Success (Part 2)

Mark Cole:
Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership podcast. Those of you that are just consistent listeners and viewers, even those of you that are new, I bet you know that John Maxwell has been influenced by Zig Ziglar. Zig Ziglar often said, your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude. And I can still hear Zig Ziglar in that southern drawl because I have one of those. I can still hear him with that infectious smile, or I can see him with that infectious smile making that statement. And everybody in the audience go, ooh. Ah. Well, today I’m going to help you and give you a gift, because today you’re right in the middle of a two part series that John Maxwell has taught on how to be a real success.

Mark Cole:
I mentioned this in part one, that John gets asked many questions, hundreds of questions a week. And 90% of those questions are, how can I be more successful at you? Fill in the blank. And so last week we started a two part podcast on how to become successful. And we talked about relationships. We talked about equipping. Today we’re going to finish with two more talking about attitude and leadership. We call it how to be a real r e a l success. Now, in John’s teaching today, he will give you a recap of two areas and then teach you two more areas that will help you improve.

Mark Cole:
It’ll help you improve your business. It’ll help you improve your leadership. And as he finishes up today after the lesson, Chris Robinson, Mister Attitude. I’ll talk more about that in a minute. Mister attitude is going to help me talk about those areas and how you and I can use some things taken from today’s lesson and apply them to our life and leadership and become more successful. Now go to maxwellpodcast.com/realsuccess. You’ll see a bonus resource there. You’ll see how you can watch us on YouTube.

Mark Cole:
We’ll throw some other things in there throughout the show that will help you become more successful. Are you ready? I am. Here is Jon Maxwell.

John Maxwell:
Let’s go to the a. The third thing that we need to do to be a real success, and that a stands for attitude. Attitude isn’t everything, but it’s the main thing. In fact, it’s so important in your life and in my life that it’s what I call the difference maker. And let me explain to you what I mean by that. If you were hiring somebody in your practice and the two people you were looking at, they both had good experience, they both seemed to have the skill set, and you kind of were wondering well, which one of them do I pick? They’re very equal. But let’s say one had a terrific attitude and the other one did not. Who you gonna hire? You’re gonna hire the person that has a good spirit, a good attitude.

John Maxwell:
Now, all of a sudden, when all things are equal, attitude makes all the difference in the world. And I think all of us know that. Coming through. Covid-19 our attitude, our positive life stance is going to be absolutely essential for us if we’re truly going to overcome adversity, such as what we have gone through in our life. And what’s powerful about attitude is that it’s a choice. You and I get to choose it. When I see a person that doesn’t have a good attitude, honestly, I really don’t feel sorry for them because they chose that. The attitude that you have right now, the attitude that I have right now, it’s a personal choice.

John Maxwell:
The good news is, if we want to, we can change it. Several years ago, I decided to develop what I call a positive life stance. And a positive life stance goes something like this. Life is filled with good and bad. That’s a fact. And some of the good and some of the bad I cannot control. It’s just life. And some of the good and some of the bad’s going to find me.

John Maxwell:
Trust me, it will. Good will find me. Bad will find me. Now here’s where the difference begins to form. If I have a positive life stance about not only good, but bad, both the good and the bad will get a little bit better, just as if I have a negative life stance about the good and the bad, the good and the bad will get a little worse. And so, therefore, once I understand the power of the attitude, I choose a positive life stance. And I can promise you what happens to me doesn’t have to determine what happens within me. I can’t control everything that happens to me, but I can control my attitude the way that I think the thing that happens within me attitude essential for success.

John Maxwell:
Now let’s just review for a moment before I give you the last part of success. Relationships so important to your success, the ability to get along with people equipping honestly, it’s the only way that you can compound your business by training and equipping the other people around you so they can help you carry this load that you have. Attitude how I think, how I think about myself, how I think about you, how I think about my clients, my employees, how I think about adversity determines so much whether I grow from it or I don’t. So the last thing I want to talk to you about, the letter l in the word l, relationships equipping attitude, and you’ve guessed it. You know what the l is all about? It’s about leadership. I’m known as. As the leadership expert. I’ve written dozens and dozens of books on leadership.

John Maxwell:
In fact, it’s now a fact that I’ve written more material on leadership than any person who’s ever lived in the history of the world. I live leadership. I love leadership. I teach leadership. And here’s why. The reason I started training leaders is because in my twenties, I came to a very important conclusion of which, 50 years later, the conclusion I had as a young man is stronger today as an older man. Here’s what I concluded 50 years ago. Everything rises and falls on leadership.

John Maxwell:
That’s a fact. Not some things, not most things. Everything. Leadership has the ability to make things better. Or to be honest with you, bad leadership makes things worse. There’s a rising with good leadership, and there’s a falling with bad leadership. Let me close with this leadership thought in my book, the 21 irrefutable laws of leadership. The first law that you read about as you open the pages of that book is the law of the lid.

John Maxwell:
L I d. And the law of the lid just simply says, how well you lead determines how well you succeed. That’s a fact. So let me illustrate it visually. Let’s say I’m an average leader from a one to a ten. Let’s say I’m a five. Okay? And let’s say this hand represents my leadership. Liddy.

John Maxwell:
This is the leadership skill level of John Maxwell. These are my leadership gifts. Okay? This is my lid. This is how well I lead. It’s a five. It’s not a six. It’s not a six. It’s just an average.

John Maxwell:
I’m a five. If this is my leadership lid, and this hand represents my business, my business will come under. But never go higher. Never go higher than my leadership lid. In other words, if my leadership is a five, my business, it’s going to be a four. That’s a fact, you say. But you know what? I’m very skilled in my work. You perhaps are.

John Maxwell:
But your leadership lid is going to determine the size of your business. Now, often I’m having people ask me, and during Q and A, they’ll say, john, our leaders born. And whenever they ask me that question, I always give them the same answer. Of course they are. Just think about that question. Every leader I know is born. They’re not really asking the question, are leaders born? They’re really asking, are there some people that they’re born with leadership gifts and skills, and so they go to the front of the line, and there are people that are born without them, and they go to the back of the line. That’s what they’re really asking.

John Maxwell:
Is there such a thing as a born leader? And there are leaders that have what I would call. There are people that are born that would have intuitive leadership gifts to them, just like some people are born with musical gifts. So it’s possible you could be born with some gifts that would help you to become a good leader. But what I really know is that you can learn how to lead. That’s a fact. Because leadership is influence. Nothing more, nothing less. And the moment people break down leadership as influence and ask themselves, how do I develop and gain influence in my life? To be honest with you, at that point, they’re going to be very, very successful.

John Maxwell:
So if you can develop yourself as a leader, let’s go back to the illustration I gave a moment ago. From a one to a ten. If I’m an average leader and my leadership lid is a five, my business is going to be a four. But if I can develop and grow my leadership, I can go from a five to a six. You see, now I’m starting to raise my lid. I can maybe go to be a seven. And the moment that I raise my leadership lid, what happens to my business now? It has room to grow. It has nothing hindering.

John Maxwell:
It can go from a four to a five to a six. You see, as my leadership grows, so does my business. That’s a fact. And we’ve talked about how to be a real success. We’ve talked about relationships, equipping, attitude and leadership. You can do these four things and improve your business, your practice, the lives of people around you. And when you do that, remember, my name is John and I’m your friend.

Maxwell Leadership Certified Team:
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Mark Cole:
Hey, I’m so excited to have you back. And Chris, man, we’re getting so many good reviews about you doing this podcast. Chris, Goede and Traci better look out, man, here comes, here comes Robinson. But, man, I not only love to work around you and get to influence people around you, but I love talking leadership with you. I know it’s been such a good series here last week. If you haven’t listened to it, you need to go back and listen to it, because there’s four parts to John’s opinion, a formula, if you will, on becoming successful. And last week was two, and we’re gonna cover two more this week, but this first one we’re gonna talk about is attitude. And I’m really excited.

Mark Cole:
Again, Jake knows what he’s doing, who produces this podcast? Because having you help me with this two part series is incredible, because you have been successful. You’re incredibly successful. You’re successful at multiplying in the world. You got six kids. You were quite successful at that. You’ve got an incredible relationship. I love being around you. And, Janae, you’re a brilliant business leader.

Mark Cole:
You’ve started business, is, you know, what success tastes like, smells like, feels like, how to reproduce it. I think one of those is because of your attitude. In fact, several years ago now, John and I decided that we wanted to create a personal growth platform on how people can become successful at growing themselves. And I asked John, I said, john, what does that look like? You’ve been talking about real for all of your life, but how did you design and develop your content? He said, mark, I have five pillars to all of my content, whether I’m speaking, whether I’m writing, whether I’m blogging, whatever I’m doing. And he said, the real five pillars are communication, leadership, equipping, attitude and relationships. Communicating, leading, equipping, attitude and relationships. And you know how my mind works. It’s like your Chris, everything’s marketable.

Mark Cole:
Just how can I do it? And I went, hey, that’s clear. C l E a R. That’s clear. And so anyway, we decided to get experts, people that John knew that would be powerful in those five areas. And when we were talking about attitude, John said, mark, the person that impacts me the most every time I’m around them is how consistent, how positive, how uplifting his attitude is, is Chris Robinson. And so we asked you to become a guide for this clear program. It’s a growth program that is available to you. In fact, all you need to do, you can go find out more at growth dot maxwellleadership.com, and you’ll find out how I can help you with leadership, how Chris can help you with attitude.

Mark Cole:
And, and then we’ve got thought leaders and communicators on the other three as well. But I want to dig into this podcast on attitude because I agree with John. I’ve never met someone whose attitude is more consistent, even in the most difficult times as yours. So kind of walk me back the development of that, because you were successful before I asked you to lead beside me, you were already successful, and your attitude was great back then. I knew you before you came on the leadership team. So talk to me about how you found out that attitude was so important and then maybe a story or two of how you made attitude a choice in your life.

Chris Robinson:
Yeah, you know, I mean, you talk about success, but a lot more failure than success. You know, throughout my life, I think most people, when you look at, you know, yep, they’ve achieved something, we’ve all done something, but way more failure than success. And, you know, developing an attitude was really built around failure. I think failure shapes your attitude of your benda towards life. And, you know, it was starting out with failures. I mean, my goodness, we talk about college. I got kicked out of college six times. And I know you all are asking how in the world you get kicked out of college six times.

Chris Robinson:
I mean, the better question is, how did I get back in five times? I had an undeveloped skill set, and I’m consistent, okay? I’m consistent for the reasons I got kicked out, for the reasons I got back in. But after getting kicked out of college, I now had a choice to make. What do I do now? And I began to go out, and I got my very first job selling perfume and cologne on the street.

Mark Cole:
Wow.

Chris Robinson:
I was excited about this because I responded to an ad that said, do you like to travel? Would you like to make some money in a fun environment? I said, hey, that’s me. I respond to this ad, and then at the beginning of each day, they’d hand us a box of cologne, and at the end of the day, you had to come back with Cologne or cash, one or the other. Now, this was one of the best and the worst times of my life. But it was in that environment where every day before we would go out to sell perfume and claw on the street, we would read from Napoleon Hills, think, and grow rich.

Mark Cole:
Wow.

Chris Robinson:
And it was a shaping of attitude. And that was actually the very first book that I had ever read. And attitude became something that you had to do to get through the day of selling some perfume and cologne. You know what I mean? Throughout the day, I’m trying to walk up to you, spray you like I’m Mason you and all types of stuff. It was great because it taught me how to deal with people. It taught me how to interact with and deal with rejection, which is what people fear so much when it comes to sales. And it just taught me the importance of developing myself as well, too. Now, after that really didn’t work out for me, I decided, hey, I got to go back to school.

Chris Robinson:
So I go back to a community college. And at that community college, I then get an internship at a financial planning firm. Now, I think this is going to be great, because now I’m going to get this title of financial advisor. I’m going to become a stockbroker. But I had this little, bitty, tiny office that they gave me. That was the storage room. And in there, they had some boxes, and I had to remove all the stuff out of there. And in that box, I picked up a tape.

Chris Robinson:
I picked up a tape, and it was from Keith Harrell. Keith Harrell was a phenomenal motivational speaker. And that tape I would listen to every single day for years to come. That tape was, attitude is everything. And I believe, not only from growing up, I saw attitude modeled from my mom and from my dad. My mom’s got a phenomenal attitude, can figure out a way to navigate through anything, through failures that I had, through starting that personal growth journey with that tape in the car. And really hearing about attitude over and over again has really shaped me. But, you know, again, coming into John’s work, it talks about attitude again.

Chris Robinson:
It shaped me. So, just like leadership, attitude, I believe, is a learnable skill, that if you can employ this in your life and say, you know, like you said, it’s not everything, but it’s the main thing. It’s the difference maker. Now, attitude’s not going to make up for a lack of being competent. It’s not going to make up for skills or abilities that you don’t have. But with the perspective and with someone having to choose between you or someone else, the person with a better attitude is going to always win, and life is just better with a better attitude.

Mark Cole:
Well, and we talked about Chris three episodes ago. I believe it was back early October 1, last of September. If you’re live and current with us, we talked about abundance, and that whole concept, that attitude truly shapes everything. You know, John makes a statement that says everything rises and falls on leadership. Right? And we love that statement. I’m listening to you and going, well, maybe Jon was wrong. Maybe everything rises and falls on attitude. Now, I’m gonna let you tell Jon Maxwell that he’s wrong, Chris.

Mark Cole:
But I’m sitting here because truly you have you attribute everything back to that cassette tape, by the way. I appreciate a 45 year old man saying cassette tape, by the way, it makes me feel a little younger. Goes back to that decision that you’ve made and how everything in your life goes back to shaping your decision making around what attitude you’re going to choose, right?

Chris Robinson:
Yeah, well, I won’t go back and try to prove John wrong on attitude. You know, I tried this with one other philosophy that he had.

Mark Cole:
Pickleball.

Chris Robinson:
No, no, not that one. Not that one. But, you know, John at the statement, we’ll transition to leadership here, but he says that there’s no two good days in a row in a leader’s life, and I’m mister positive attitude. I’m like, john wrong. I gotta get. I can get two. Like, that’s no big deal. Let me tell you.

Chris Robinson:
It is hard to. To get two in a row. So I haven’t given up the good fight, but, man, I don’t want to go and touch the principle.

Mark Cole:
So before we go to leadership, and I want to go there. Cause it’s the last one and it’s the one that John’s most known for, but I want to stay right here. There’s no two good consecutive days in a leader’s life. And you challenging John with that, and the more leadership you get, the more you go. Yeah, that might have been true before I was leading, but now that I’m really leading, maybe he’s right. You don’t have a good day. Your perspective is every day is a good day. How do you reconcile not having a good day? And leaders reconcile.

Mark Cole:
I mean, believers know that. But how do you reconcile not having a good day but still having a good attitude?

Chris Robinson:
Yeah, well, I mean, it’s not. I would never say that an entire day is bad. You’ll never get me to come and say, well, did you have a bad day? And no, there may have been some bad things that happened in the day, but what I’m looking to do in that moment when the bad comes in that day is what’s the next right choice? You see? Because it’s in that moment that this next choice that you make can dictate whether this bad moment continues on and prolongs itself or you take it in a different direction. And so, anytime that something goes off track, all I’m simply asking is, what’s the next best choice? And if you can instantly get that into your mind, you can take a seemingly bad day and turn into a good day just by choosing to make the next best choice.

Mark Cole:
That’s beautiful. That’s beautiful. That helps, you know, let’s do talk leadership. I love what you and I get to do, and I love how you lead. So I’d love to talk some leadership.

Chris Robinson:
This is incredible. And I pinch myself daily when it comes to this, because, and I gotta say it in this way because it’s the truth of the matter. You lead the largest leadership organization on the planet, like, on planet Earth. We’ve got 54,000 coaches around the world. We’re inside of multiple different countries being invited in by the president of these countries in order to come in and teach value based roundtables where those are being spread throughout hundreds, hundreds of thousands of people, millions of people that the principals are going to and through. And you get the honor of leading that. And so, I mean, you’ve got a great deal of success, you know, personally, you’ve got a great deal of success leading this organization, carrying the baton on a personal level about how just leadership has helped you in general.

Mark Cole:
Well, let me. Let me say this. The longer you talked right there, the heavier I felt with realizing the heaviness of my weight. So, thanks for that realization. The second thing that I would say, and John would say the same thing, I don’t lead it by myself. It’s people like you, Chris, and I’m glad you recognize the pinch myself moment. And I’ve heard you say that multiple times before, when you realize 52,000, 53,000 people, Chris, look to you to ask them, to help them lead, better, be a better entrepreneur. And I never want to take that for granted.

Mark Cole:
But I would say this, first of all, the only way, the only way I quote, unquote, lead an iconic leadership brand like Maxwell leadership is with leaders around me. If the dream is big enough for me to carry it by myself, it’s not a very big dream, and I don’t carry it by myself. But I would tell you that my story always flashes before my eyes when I asked a question similar to that. What’s it like leading beside John? What’s it like to make the day to day decisions of seven multimillion dollar companies? What’s it like? And I always go back to how I started at Maxwell leadership. Now, as we’re recording and this is being played live 24 and a half years ago, and I go back and, Chris, you’ve heard me tell this story, but I had two things that I brought to this organization. Both of them were vows of what I was not going to do. I was never going to let somebody get close to me again and have a meaningful, close relationship. I’d failed at that.

Mark Cole:
I had burned that. I had been misused with that. I just wanted nothing to do with close personal relationships with John Maxwell, who hugs everybody. I’m not gonna have a close relationship. And the second one was, I never won a leadership position again.

Chris Robinson:
Wow.

Mark Cole:
I came into this environment with no belief, not low belief, no belief that I should be leading anything. What happens when you’re around great leaders is they begin to lift your capacity beyond what you even envision your capacity to be. I long for that to be true of my leadership, just like it’s true of John’s leadership, and just like it’s true of all the leaders I’ve worked with. For. I say for. John doesn’t like me to say that of the leaders that I have worked for, with in the last 25 years, they’ve all believed more in me than I could even believe myself. And I’m a pretty high belief person. I believe in a lot of big things.

Mark Cole:
But nothing compares when you surround yourself with women and men that will see more in you than you can even see in yourself. That’s true for me. I’ve heard you say that is true for you, and that’s true even for John. I mean, John truly is blown away when people bring him in. I think the biggest thing that I would tell you about my own personal leadership journey from a vow to never lead again, to an acceptance of John saying, hey, will you own this thing and carry it on well beyond my life? Somewhere in between that two moments of my life, of my leadership, was an understanding that leadership is nothing unless it first starts with leading yourself. It’s John’s book, developing the leader within you 2.0. I’ve read that before there was a 2.0 developing the leader within you. And I believe what John says, that everything rises and falls on leadership.

Mark Cole:
There is a rising with good leadership and there’s a falling with bad leadership. And I want everybody to stop, pause, think. Whoa, stop. If you’re running on a treadmill, step over to the edge for a minute. How are you leading yourself right now? Are you giving good leadership? Are you giving bad leadership? Is your attitude raunchy? Are your relationships terrible? Are you not equipping anybody? How are you leading yourself? Are you equipping yourself? We have all these different offerings, every single podcast family. I give you something to invest in, to better yourself. Why? Because we need you to buy another book. No, John sold 36 million.

Mark Cole:
We’re doing okay. Why? Because we need you to buy this digital product. No, we’ve sold a few digital products. We’re going to be okay. Why? Because you need to equip yourself. You cannot give what you do not have. It starts with your commitment to equip yourself. How do you like yourself talking about relationships? John says this statement lately, and I love it every time he says it, by the way, I think of you.

Mark Cole:
John says, I’m my own best friend. I imagine Robinson getting in his car. We could talk about car stories forever. But I imagine Chris Robinson looking in his rearview mirror, popping it down, saying, you’re my best friend, Chris Robinson. Because great leaders start first with how they relate with themselves. An insecure leader is going to breed insecurity. A leader that has a poor self perception is going to create poor perception of one another around the team. A leader that is not equipping him or herself is not going to equip the people around them.

Mark Cole:
How are we leading ourself? And this is what I can tell you. Call it luck, call it great raising by my parents, who were brilliant. Call it being at the right place at the right time, luck, call it providential, whatever you want to call it. The first question I can remember being asked when I come to Maxwell leadership was, how are you intentionally growing your leadership? Not growing leaders, growing your leadership. And too many times people say, oh, I’ve got a position, I’m a leader, you got a position. You, you better start developing yourself. You better start liking yourself. You better start believing in yourself.

Mark Cole:
And so by great fortune that I call providential because of my perception and how life works. I was asked that question and I took it seriously and I said, I’m going to lead myself better than I lead anyone else. And that commitment and that every, I’ve talked about a lot on the podcast, that annual re up that this year I’m going to lead myself first, has been a difference maker in being where I am now.

Chris Robinson:
Yeah. And I love that question. You know, I love John said, hey, my own best friend. But the first question, and I love this question that I learned from John. He said, the first question every leader has to ask is, would I follow me yeah. You know, so when I, when you said that, and I’m looking in the mirror, that’s the question I’m asking is, would I follow me? And if we don’t get a resounding yes to that question, we’ve got some work to do because we have to work first, hardest, and longest on ourselves. Now, we use this language in our culture of having a growth plan and growing as a leader and developing as a leader. But give me the practical application of this.

Chris Robinson:
I am just starting out. I know that I have some ability. I know that I want more than I have right now. What does a personal growth plan look like? How do I get started on that? And what does it look like for me to get started growing myself as a leader?

Mark Cole:
I’m going to speak, I’m going to put it on the lowest, bottom shelf right now. If you’ve listened to this podcast often, or if you’ll go to the end of the year, the episodes at the end of the year, in any given year, I go very in depth in a sophisticated approach to a growth plan.

Chris Robinson:
That’s a low shelf. Give me a little, chef.

Mark Cole:
Give me a little, chef.

Chris Robinson:
Start me out.

Mark Cole:
I believe that anybody that doesn’t have a growth plan or it’s been a long time since you had one, you need to focus on three things. Whose voice matters in your life and listen to everything they do. So who is mentoring you? Is really the real question. Who’s mentoring you? You need to have somebody that is challenging your thinking, your actions, your behaviors, your attitudes. We want it to be Maxwell leadership, by the way. We want it to be John. I want it to be Chris Robinson on attitude. I want you to go get the personal growth platform, the plan.

Mark Cole:
But you need somebody, you need to be able to answer the question, who is leading me? Who is influencing me now? I’m going to go one more layer. So I’m still on the bottom shelf. And how am I going to interact with them? Where are they speaking? How am I going to, how am I going to hear them live? How am I going to hear them virtually? How am I going to get access to them? Because a plan without a, without a tangible step, you love this statement. I’m going to borrow it. Learn a little bit, do a little bit, right? And anybody that’s a Maxwell leadership family member, you know exactly where I was going with it. Learn a little bit, do a little bit. You gotta have the do. So it’s not just saying, oh, I like that, Chris Robinson.

Mark Cole:
I’m gonna learn from him. And then I don’t put an action behind it. I’m not learning from him. I’m just putting him up on a shelf and not even using it. So who am I learning from? Mentoring. Where am I learning from? Experiences. So who’s mentoring me? Where am I going to be challenged? See, I believe that leadership is a laboratory. You learn by hands on.

Mark Cole:
So every year I have experiences that I engage in that I make sure I’m going to learn. I will tell you this. There will be times traveling with John. I travel with John 80% of the time, Chris, there will be times I’ll set the mindset and say, okay, I’m working through this particular challenge. So today, while John is speaking, I’m not going to make sure his water, his chair is set up right and all that stuff. I’m not going to do work over here on the side so I can keep the wheels of industry going. Today I’m going as a student because I’m working on this. And I know the lesson John’s given because I’ve heard it 15 times.

Mark Cole:
But today I’m taking on a posture of a student and I’m putting it on. I’m going to learn. I have multiple times a month that I go to our own event as a student, not as a facilitator or a driver. So what are the experiences I’m going to learn from? And three, what are the content I’m going to consume? Many of you are like me. You love books. You don’t even like digital books, man. You go back 55 years ago and say, digital sucks. I want the real thing in my hand.

Chris Robinson:
Hey, that’s me. I’m there.

Mark Cole:
I’m there. The cassette tape. You talk about cassette tape. What are the audio, the visual, the literary stuff that you are going to consume with an intentionality? And again, with every one of these, learn a little bit, do a little bit. Every one of these have to have a target and have to have an action plan to engage that target. There’s your growth plan. It’s not any more. It’s not any more complicated than that.

Chris Robinson:
I love it. I love it. And I haven’t heard you lay this out like this in this framework before, you know, with this simplicity, and I absolutely love it. It’s actionable for someone to go out and implement today. So for those of you that are watching, listening in whatever the case may be, you know, figure out who you want to learn from. And this coming up next, 30, 60, 90 days, how are you going to interact with them. And I love that. Because today we live in a time where I think when prior we would have a book, but there’d be no chance to ever meet the author.

Chris Robinson:
Today we live in a world where the authors are out speaking, the authors are on podcasts, the authors are on tv. I mean, we got all these different places that we can engage with them. But then the experiences, I think is important because when we get into other environments with like minded people that lift us out of our daily environment, man, our mind opens up. We can truly grow. And then being specific on this content consumption, I’ll give you two pathways for the content consumption as you’re listening out there. And this is how I filter all the books that I read through. I read in two areas, either a problem that I’m trying to solve or a passion that I have. When you focus on reading and going through content specific to problems that you have, you get through it faster.

Chris Robinson:
When you’re focusing on a passion that you have, you get through it fast.

Mark Cole:
That’s brilliant.

Chris Robinson:
It makes it easier for you to implement. Love this stuff, man.

Mark Cole:
So let me. So we’ve been talking for two weeks. We don’t do a lot of two week, two episode series, but we’ve been talking about, really, this concept of how to be successful and what John says is a real success. And we gave you four categories. And I want to finish with a very personal plea to you, but I’m going to try to do it with credibility because you too, you listen to these podcasts and sometimes you hear, even with my southern drawl or how wonderful and articulate that Robinson is, and you go, wow, I could never be X. Maybe it’s John Maxwell. That’s a pretty high North Star force or a Mark Cole or Chris Robinson. And I beg to differ with that thinking, because I was just recently I was meeting with the guy that hired me that gave me an opportunity at Maxwell leadership 24 and a half years years ago.

Mark Cole:
And he reminded me that my references stunk. Even my references said I wouldn’t hire him. One said, because of character. Another says, because of something else. My references that I gave said, don’t hire him. I didn’t have anything, I’m telling you, I had to borrow gas money to drive to work I did not have. And I had two vows. I’m going to work for a leadership organization, but I hate leadership.

Mark Cole:
I don’t want to lead. I had nothing when I came into this environment. Now, by my own account, you don’t even have to agree with me. You might go, Mark, you are not my icon. But by my own account, I am more successful than I ever dreamt in the first 30, in the first 40 years of my life. I never dreamt that before I came into studio today, I would be talking with somebody that wants to partner with me on a hundred million dollar idea, wants to be a part of what I am leading right now that will impact literally not 1 million, not 10 million, but a hundred million people a year wants to partner with me like that. And I go pretty darn successful right now having this conversation. My point in saying I’m darn successful is that truly by my own account and my own aspirations, I have accomplished more through the Lord’s help.

Mark Cole:
Because of my faith, reverence, and working alongside people like Chris and belief with people like John. I’ve accomplished more than I ever thought I would, more than I ever dreamt I could not dream this big. Now, how is that? It’s because of the relationships that I have. It’s because of a commitment that I’m going to equip myself and equip others. It’s because of a decision I made being around Chris Robinson. I am going to constantly improve and enhance my abundant attitude. And leadership is the answer. Self leadership, leadership of others.

Mark Cole:
It’s that simple. I wish we wouldn’t mystify Mark Cole, running a podcast listened to by millions of people. I wish we wouldn’t mystify that. Chris. I wish you wouldn’t mystify that because it really is that simple. A growth plan, a passionate pursuit of things as simple as relationships, equipping, attitude and leadership can make a success factor difference for you as well. Now, I don’t normally talk about myself like that, but it’s, I was voted the most likely. David Hoyt is who I was talking about.

Mark Cole:
David told me, he said, man, you were voted the most likely not to make it. And I went, why did you hire me? Nobody said to hire me. My references were sucky. I had nothing to offer. Why did you hire me? And he said, man, I just saw something different. And I said, man, I’m glad you didn’t agree with the vote. Most likely not to make it. So anyway, we hope that that adds value to you.

Mark Cole:
Today we talked about the growth platform. We want you to be a part of that. We have a 15 laws of growth, personal growth. It is gold. It’s typically a digital product that costs $499. We’re making that available to you. Dollar 99, that’s in the show notes. I close like I always like to close with one of our listeners in Salem.

Mark Cole:
Listen to the podcast ten traits successful leaders possessed and he said, thank you Mark and Chris. What you do in your podcast is eye opening and very insightful. Please keep it. Please keep doing this as it really adds a lot of value to me. Salem, if nobody else listens today and you do, that’s why we do what we do. Thanks for listening. Go multiply value to others because everyone deserves to be led well.

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