Maxwell Leadership Podcast: The Difference Between Successful and Unsuccessful People
What’s the difference between successful and unsuccessful people? Success and failure are two of the most powerful motivators in a leader’s life. We all strive to become successful in our own ways, but sometimes it can seem like we’re doomed to fail no matter what we do.
So, in this episode John Maxwell teaches the three major differences between successful and unsuccessful people. Then Becky Bursell and Mark Cole dig deeper into John’s lesson and why this lesson is valuable for anyone who is looking to improve their outlook and understanding of what it takes to be successful. You’ll also gain invaluable application to help you put yourself on the path to success.
Our BONUS resource for this episode is the “Difference Between Successful and Unsuccessful People Worksheet,” which includes fill-in-the-blank notes from John’s teaching. You can download the worksheet by clicking “Download the Bonus Resource” below.
References:
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Relevant Episode: The Self-Aware Leader
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Read The Transcript
Mark Cole:
Welcome to today’s episode of the Maxwell Leadership Podcast. This is the podcast that adds value to leaders who multiply value to others. My name is Mark Cole. I get the privilege of being the CEO of Maxwell leadership, and today we’re talking about the difference between successful and unsuccessful people. Now, don’t go there. Don’t put yourself in one category and talk about the person listening to this with you in the other category, okay? This is not a comparison thing, but this is a question about success and failure, and those being two of the most powerful motivators in a leader’s life. We all strive to become successful in our own way, but sometimes it can seem like we’re doomed to fail no matter what we do, no matter how hard we try. So in this episode, John Maxwell teaches the three major differences between successful and unsuccessful people. Then my co-host, Becky Bursell, will help me dig deeper into John’s lesson and why this lesson is valuable for anyone, all of us, who is looking to improve our outlook and understand what it takes to be successful. You’re going to also gain some invaluable application that will help you put yourself and your leadership on a pathway to success.
If you’d like to watch this episode on YouTube, please visit maxwellpodcast.com/youtube. Also, if you’d like to download the free PDF worksheet for this episode, please visit maxwellpodcast.com/successful and click the bonus resource button. That’s it for now, now here is John Maxwell.
John Maxwell:
I want to share with you three major differences between successful and unsuccessful people. Number one is in the area of thinking. Here’s the difference. Successful people daily think realistically about their problems and positive ways to approach them. Very simply stated, successful people daily think realistically about their problems and positive ways to approach them. In fact, Max De Pree, a great leadership writer says, “The first responsibility of a leader is to define realism.” Now, successful people, what do they do? They think realistically about their problems and positive ways to approach them. Unsuccessful people, are you ready? Here’s the difference, it’s in the area of thinking. Unsuccessful people daily think unrealistically about their problems and hope that everything works out. They think unrealistically about their problems, and they just hope that everything works out. Let me just say here today, hope is not a strategy. Now, do you see the difference in thinking? Successful people think realistically about their problems and a positive way to approach them, unsuccessful people think unrealistically about their problems and hope that everything works out.
Let me give you the second area that’s different between successful and unsuccessful people. The first one was thinking, the second one is feeling. Let me give you the difference. There’s a difference in feeling. The feeling of a successful and the feeling of an unsuccessful person are drastically different. Successful people know that their behavior determines their feelings. Unsuccessful people allow their feelings to determine their behavior. You see the difference? Big difference, thinking, feeling, those are two major differences between successful and unsuccessful people, let me give you one more, doing.
Let’s talk about action for a moment. Doing. Successful people initiate and complete. In other words, successful people have the ability to start and finish. In fact, I call those the bookends of success. You got to have the ability to start, you have to have the willingness to finish. Unsuccessful people fail to do both, and there’s a huge difference between those two. That’s why I say in your notes 95% of achieving anything is knowing what you want and paying the price to get it. It’s almost always a price issue.
I have a wonderful friend named Van Crouch who’s written some good books, and one of them is entitled Winning 101, and this is not in your notes, so just sit back and relax for about a minute. Let me read you a few paragraphs from his book Winning 101 because this is so key to the habits that we create that allow us to be the successful or unsuccessful. Here’s what Van Crouch says, listen.
“An inspiring young writer once made an appointment to interview a well-known author, and the author asked him, ‘Why do you want to see me?’ and the young man responded, ‘Well, I’m a writer too, and I was hoping that you could share with me some of the keys to your success.'”
“‘Well, what have you written?’ the author asked.”
“‘Nothing,’ said the young man, ‘At least nothing that is finished.'”
“The writer rose from his chair and then asked, ‘Well, if you haven’t written anything, what are you writing?'”
“‘Well, I’m in school right now, so I’m hoping to find time to write down some ideas.'”
“The author began to walk slowly toward the door asking one final question as he showed the young man out, ‘Why do you call yourself a writer if you aren’t writing?’ When the young man gave no answer, the author said to him, ‘Writers write, composers compose, painters paint, workers work. What you do to a great extent defines what you become, and in turn, what you are gives rise to what you do. When what you do externally matches what you are internally, greatness will not be denied.'”
You know what the writer was saying to him that day? The writer was defining to him the difference between successful and unsuccessful people. This young aspiring writer wasn’t writing, but when he finished school, he would, or when the convenient time was he would or when the opportunity arose and he got that kind of a job, he would. And the writer was saying, “The only way that you ever learn to write is by writing and don’t wait for a convenient time to write, just start writing. Writers write, composers compose, workers work.” In other words, he was saying, “The only way that you’ll ever learn, the way that you’ll only grow, is to get in the habit of writing.” You see, people look at me and they just think there’s something mystical and magical about writing books, like someday I just sit in a wonderful leather chair in a beautiful office that looks out over the ocean and just out of thin air in a few hours produce a book. No.
In 1979, I wrote my first book called Think on These Things. Now, whenever you read that book, it’s still out, in fact, they just had a 20th edition of it, every chapter is very short, only about three pages per chapter. Somebody came up to me the other day and said, “Oh, that’s so clever to have short chapters,” and I said, “Clever nothing. I didn’t have anything else to say.” I did about three pages and ran out of gas.
I can remember still in Indiana one day as I was going to speak in the evening, I had all day to write, and I’m trying to write my first book, and I got my legal pad out in the hotel room and nobody was going to bother me and I thought, “I’ll have lunch brought in to my room so I can just keep writing and I’m just going to write all day,” and I had these visions at the end of the day of having a legal pad full of wisdom. At the end of the day, I had just a little bit more than one half page of a legal pad written and two waste paper baskets full of wadded up legal pages. I remember that day I looked at myself and I said, “I’m never going to be a writer. I’m never going to be able to do this. I’m not a good writer. I’m slow. What I write isn’t any good. Only my mother will buy this, and that’s if she has an off day.”
But I just kept writing, and the only way I’ve ever known how to write, this’ll just confound you amazingly, the only way I’ve ever learned how to write is one word at a time, and sometimes it’s two words, strike out three, and try it again. Forward a little bit, backward, forward some more, backward, forward some more, whether it’s writing or whether it’s leading. How do you learn to lead? By leading. Oh, that’s a thought, isn’t it? Just go out and do it.
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Mark Cole:
Hey, welcome back, Becky, you know how much I admire your success in all that you’ve done in life to help so many people. Today, podcast family. Don’t only just have my co-host, Becky, a person, a leader that I get to work alongside of, you get somebody that understands making not only success for themselves, but making success for so many people around us. Isn’t that what John has done? I think about this concept that John’s talking about today, and he gives us some really three key areas that you and I’ll dig into, but John has truly helped others be successful as life. It’s why we have the standout statement. We always have a standout statement for our podcast that just kind of hones all of us in and focuses us. Today it’s about success means nothing without others and I believe that. We can have all the success in the world, but if you don’t take somebody on the journey with you, it’s not a whole lot of success, to be honest with you.
Becky Bursell:
I agree and I think people that don’t feel that way, they probably haven’t gotten the bug yet, meaning that they’re probably still trying to figure that out with themselves and once you start that momentum ball rolling, you want other people with you that’s doing it. John is the perfect example but so are you, Mark. All of us love watching you get passionate, not just about an opportunity or a project or even the impact, but galvanizing everyone and everyone being a part of that when none of us want to go alone.
Mark Cole:
Yeah. Yeah, that’s exactly right. Digging into this, I love that John gives it into thinking, feeling, and doing, and I’ve had the privilege as you have in being in John’s ecosphere, just the level of players, the level of leaders that come in, and there really is something unique about the way they think, their outlook, the way that they perceive success and what success looks like.
Becky Bursell:
Yeah, and defining it and I think that’s different for everyone. I think it’s different for each of us, actually.
Mark Cole:
Yeah.
Becky Bursell:
I think how I defined success at 20 is not how I define it today at 47, it’s completely different. There was a time, I would say in my twenties when I was building a business and I was really focused on the dollars and the cents of it all, because it’s hard to gauge significance if you think about it. How do you put a number to that? How do you put a figure to it? But with success, it’s easier for people that are just thinking linear still, you’re able to gauge it like a bank account or a number or a goal. In my twenties it was more like wake up every day, money’s no longer a stress, and I get the freedom to do what I want with my 24 hours every single day. I still think that’s a great definition of success.
Mark Cole:
Yeah.
Becky Bursell:
But when you start to include a team, and again, given the difference between knowing success is what happens to you in John’s words and significance is what happens through you, you do get that bug where if you’re not making an impact on people or you’re not adding value or you’re not somehow being that river where things flow through you and it’s hitting for other people and making a difference for them, I don’t know, I don’t know that you wake up as purposeful anymore once you’ve tasted it. It’s like that idea, we always joke, if you’ve ever sat in first class and then you have to sit and coach, you’re ruined for life.
Mark Cole:
What just happened?
Becky Bursell:
Oh, I can’t go back. They’re eating brownies up there. I know they are. I want to be back up in first class. It’s kind of that feeling, obviously a little more impactful, but that feeling of tasting it and then you have to put yourself right back in it. Just making money isn’t quite as important anymore because you know you can do that. Now, what’s next?
Mark Cole:
Yeah. I love this quote John alluded to it in the teaching. It’s a quote by Max De Pree that I quote all the time, but today I want to include the entire quote because I always say the first responsibility of a leader to define reality, and we just kind of leave there. Leadership, leaders define reality in your organization. It’s important, it’s your role, it’s your responsibility, but the rest of the quote is, “The first responsibility of leaders to define reality. The last responsibility is to say thank you and in between the role of the leader is to be a servant.”
Becky Bursell:
Mm-hmm.
Mark Cole:
I’d never heard that full quote, but here’s why I did that is because here’s why I shared that is because Jake, right before, our podcast producer, I reference him quite often, he came in and he said, “It’s interesting,” we did a podcast recently that that was really dealing with this concept of how we shape leadership, how we affect leadership, and he was reminding us of that podcast, and really it was around vision. It was how leaders in the area of vision, they see and sculpt the future they see and sculpt. Jake made a comment that really struck me that he said, “Leaders shape reality.” Now, Max De Pree says that leaders define reality. I think it’s true. I think Jake is onto something when he was saying that because isn’t it true in the areas of success that you and I set the goals for the team.
Becky Bursell:
Right.
Mark Cole:
We can set goals low enough to where they feel successful, we can set goals so high enough that they never achieve it, that they feel unsuccessful, and I think what I was experiencing as Jake was talking in my mind and realizing the importance of a leader to create environments to where people can win, and that’s shaping this sense of reality.
I think we as leaders, when we think realistically, when we think unrealistically, we need to understand the responsibility that in that realistic and unrealistic thinking becomes an outcome of successful or unsuccessful diagnostic. We achieve or think we achieve success that often is shaped in the mind of a leader and sometimes we shape those things with unfounded expectation.
Becky Bursell:
Yeah, I agree.
Mark Cole:
I think it’s really important for us to realize that, that John’s saying, “Hey, successful people daily, think realistically, unsuccessful people daily think unrealistically.” We as leaders have to be really aware that we can create in our thinking a mindset of success or a mindset of unsuccess.
Becky Bursell:
Yeah, and if you think about it defining reality when he says that, that’s the first responsibility of a leader, and then everything that happens afterwards defining it, I think that is where the shaping comes afterwards. Think of how many times, even in this last year and a half, you’ve had to reinforce a vision. That was shaping our reality, whether we were focusing on something else or we were focusing on where you were, or sometimes we needed to catch up to you, or sometimes we took a hard left and you’re herding cats all back together again, but I think that’s all part of that shaping. It’s coming together and saying, “Even though you might see something else, this is where we’re focused,” and you’re shaping the reality of what needs to happen too. .
Mark Cole:
Yeah.
Becky Bursell:
You and I have this thing, both of us. I don’t know if it’s genetics, I don’t know if it’s because we grew up in competition, but we love to prove people wrong.
Mark Cole:
Yep. Yep.
Becky Bursell:
There’s something that happens with that when you can reaffirm to yourself, you become the prover of things, and I don’t know, sometimes it probably borderlines on a little bit of arrogance as well, but because it’s worked well for us of having a bigger vision and then knowing that somehow all the right people come together to help shape that, all the right players come together, you and I have witnessed that a lot in the lot last few years.
Mark Cole:
A lot, yep.
Becky Bursell:
John is kind of the walking epitome of that. When he says he prays for leaders and he attracts those kind of things in his life, he has kind of set his reality, and then through walking towards it, it starts to shape itself, and he’s proving it over and over and over again. I think that’s what we need more of in the world-
Mark Cole:
I agree.
Becky Bursell:
… is all the provers.
Mark Cole:
When John, the second point that John gives us is on feeling, successful people know their behavior determines their feelings, and then unsuccessful people allow their feelings to determine their behaviors. About six months ago, Becky, I was acutely aware and reminded that one of my top five values is passion.
Becky Bursell:
And it’s a strength.
Mark Cole:
And it’s a strength, right?
Becky Bursell:
Yes.
Mark Cole:
The minimizer of that as Liz Weisman tells us is intensity.
Becky Bursell:
Yes.
Mark Cole:
Well, somewhere in both of those is a whole lot of emotion. This passion is emotion, this intensity is emotion, and I realized that for the first time in my life, I felt that I had to be aware of not weaponizing my emotions.
Becky Bursell:
Yeah.
Mark Cole:
Now, I probably have used emotions way too loosely and incorrectly throughout my life, but it became aware most recently, and again about six or seven months ago, the importance of my emotions being more predictable. Now, I’m not good at this. I’m working on it. I don’t even know that I have it figured out yet. But it is a constant reminder and as John was teaching this the second point on feeling, I realize that as a leader, leading a group of highly passionate, highly emotional, highly charged leaders, that setting the tone emotionally in the area of feelings becomes a greater responsibility the more influence you gain in an organization with leaders.
Becky Bursell:
Yeah, absolutely.
Mark Cole:
I’m starting to begin to process, and I say this all the time. I get in trouble by my inner circle by people close to me. I go, “You know what? I have no emotion today. I’m going to keep this emotion [inaudible 00:20:47]” Number one, that’s not true.
Becky Bursell:
We don’t believe.
Mark Cole:
We don’t believe you. That’s exactly right.
Becky Bursell:
Good try, yes.
Mark Cole:
Good try to try to convince us that you’re not showing emotion while your face gets red, that’s another story. Then number two, stop because it’s a strength.
Becky Bursell:
It is.
Mark Cole:
I’m even laying this out there on this podcast that I haven’t figured this out yet, but I have determined that my ability to keep my emotions in check is very important to the level of success I am pursuing at this point.
Becky Bursell:
Yeah. I think just that awareness alone is huge, mark. I think most of us, if we all sat down and recognized, because we all want to recognize our strengths more than our weaknesses, but those strengths have a opposite effect. The pendulum will swing so when you’re up here on your highest of strength, that same strength can have an opposite effect. We’re not always conscious of it. I’ll give you an example, mine is like problem solving is an actual really high strength value for me. The problem with that is on the flip side, I’m really good at solving everybody else’s problems, and they never asked me to solve their problems.
Mark Cole:
Uninvited.
Becky Bursell:
Borderline controlling.
Mark Cole:
Yes.
Becky Bursell:
All of those things, even though it’s a strength in some areas where you’re recognizing, and I think most people have to, in order to have the connection with people they want, to be the leader that we want, all of those things is having the awareness that in what setting am I applying those strengths and what setting is it appropriate to not? Then that’s a whole nother level of control too, because nobody wants to harness the passion of Mark Cole. When you are on and in that passion mode, it’s infectious and we all benefit from it. It’s just learning, and I’m sure, again, in all of our journeys, it’s trying to balance those things.
Mark Cole:
Yeah.
Becky Bursell:
It’s trying to know when it’s the strength and when it’s working against us and holding us back.
Mark Cole:
I think it’s also, I think it’s really perfected in accountability as most things are.
Becky Bursell:
Yeah.
Mark Cole:
As you get this inner circle that I often talk about in this podcast, you get a group of people that can, I was teaching a session earlier today on how we develop ourselves as leaders is where I was going but I was talking about this concept of blind spots, and I heard this from John. I love people that say, “I’m really aware of my blind spots.” I go, “No, you’re not. They’re blind.”
Becky Bursell:
That’s the whole point.
Mark Cole:
That’s the whole point. You cannot address blind spots-
Becky Bursell:
You can’t.
Mark Cole:
… without somebody speaking into those.
Becky Bursell:
Yes.
Mark Cole:
I think that allows us and challenges us to work it out in a environment of accountability and an environment where we trust the people and the contributors in that environment to want the best for us, but yet they have enough confidence to speak with candid to the things that we can’t see.
Becky Bursell:
They do and I could definitely give you kudos for many, many things, but your willingness to surround yourself with people that tell you what you need to hear instead of want to hear is also a strength of yours and-
Mark Cole:
Can’t do it without them.
Becky Bursell:
Giving people permission is huge.
Mark Cole:
Yeah.
Becky Bursell:
Yeah.
Mark Cole:
Hey, let’s go to this doing.
Becky Bursell:
Let’s do it.
Mark Cole:
The first thing that I want to say on this is I often wake up early. I’m an early riser, a late to bed, or I’m all the above of not needing a whole lot of sleep, but I will wake up sometimes and without moving, I will try to solve a problem.
Becky Bursell:
Mm-hmm.
Mark Cole:
I have found as a leader, now, again, my sleep habits and all that are compliments of my just turned 94 aw year young mother. It’s all compliments of her so I have very little sleep needs, yet sometimes I’ll start trying to solve a problem just kind of lying there and trying to figure out, and I’m telling you, for me, there is something about swinging those feet out of the bed and getting to move that solves problems.
Becky Bursell:
Yeah.
Mark Cole:
I think that’s literal, that’s figurative but at the same time, it is absolutely a concrete way, leaders need to get moving. One of the things that I wanted to say, I love this. John has been, he even alluded to this in the teaching today that he started out not a very good writer.
Becky Bursell:
Which is so hard to believe.
Mark Cole:
I know.
Becky Bursell:
It’s so hard to believe.
Mark Cole:
Sometimes I’m kind of dismissive of that.
Becky Bursell:
I know.
Mark Cole:
Yeah. But he for years communicate, he would communicate his R and D was communicating an idea in front of an audience and watching their response. He’d watch their response, he would perfect it, he’d get a better response, and then he would take it to paper.
Becky Bursell:
Yes.
Mark Cole:
He’d go write on it. Well, I’m really excited today because John finally did something, and I’m just kidding. I got to tell him I said that in this podcast. But John finally did something in this. He took what he’s learned in the area of communication, and I’m not just talking about communicating from stage or communicating in a one-on-one, but I’m talking about communicating and making a difference in the lives of people. He’s taken all of that and he’s created a laws book. He’s written 21 laws, 17 Laws of Teamwork.
Becky Bursell:
As he should.
Mark Cole:
That’s right. 16 laws of Growth, and now we have, and I’m holding it in my hands, if you are listening or viewing, you can see a book that is releasing next week. This is release week. It’s a book called The 16 Undeniable Laws of Communication. John makes a promise. I love it. Apply them and make the most of your message.
Becky Bursell:
Yeah.
Mark Cole:
This book is coming out next week and so today you can order the book and get exclusive access to unreleased video teaching, sneak peeks into the book, get behind the scenes footage from our development team, and most importantly, a message from John Maxwell on the 16 laws and why and what is behind the writing of this book. You can go to 16laws.maxwellleadership.com. Again, 16lawsmaxwellleadership.com. Pre-order the book today. It will make an impact.
Here’s the reason I brought that up right now. Number one, I want you to get excited like we are that John’s written a book, the incredible communicator.
Becky Bursell:
Yes. But it’s not just a book.
Mark Cole:
It’s not just a book.
Becky Bursell:
It’s not.
Mark Cole:
What I love about it is, John at 76 is releasing a book on something he’s been doing for 50 years and that is communicating effectively.
Becky Bursell:
Yes.
Mark Cole:
It’s all about this concept of doing, successful people initiate and complete.
Becky Bursell:
Yeah, and when I think of the levels of the thinking, the feeling, doing, even John’s process for writing this book, we’ve spent a lot of time with him in the last few years where we’ve all been through a lot and watching him thinking about how this has affected everyone, feeling that internally he takes that weight on in his heart, everything in the world as far as hurt and pain and progression and leadership, he takes that on his shoulders like it’s his personal responsibility. And then he finds a way to share that. But then now to be at that level of doing where he gives people the tools that really can heal.
Mark Cole:
Yeah.
Becky Bursell:
When you follow John around for a day, the one thing you just wish and pray for is if I could communicate and connect with people, actually articulate what’s probably already inside of you, just wanting to say it better and be able to be received better, and he’s laying out 16 laws, undeniable laws, in order to be able to help us do that. He’s living out that level of equipping that he always teaches.
Mark Cole:
We were just recently, last month we were in Vietnam, and then we went to Dubai and I watched John. He had never worked with a translator and anytime you worked with a translator, the translator can be incredible.
Becky Bursell:
You never know.
Mark Cole:
Hey, by the way, all of my friends in Vietnam, because John had people raise their hands and half the room, Becky, raised their hands.
Becky Bursell:
I saw that picture. It was beautiful.
Mark Cole:
Listen to the podcast. We love it.
Becky Bursell:
Wow.
Mark Cole:
Some of them I think are almost Rosetta Stoning with our podcast. They’re learning English from it. Hello to all of you. It was so good to be with you last month.
But John had never worked with this translator. It’s a new place, it’s a new translator, it’s a language that John doesn’t understand. I watched John work with this brilliant, beautiful, wonderful translator and I watched him begin to learn her style, read the audience, and make sure that, to the point that he was initiating and completing a point. At first, the more they worked together, the more fluid it became, but at first, I watched a master communicator read the room, understand the newness of a translator and his relationship, and still connect in an incredible way. That’s what leaders do.
Becky Bursell:
They do.
Mark Cole:
Now we’re talking about John leading as a communicator, that’s because of the book. But leaders, John said this and he was reading the story or sharing the story about writers write, composers compose, workers work. I want one for one step further, all of you listening to the podcast, I believe leaders lead.
Becky Bursell:
Yep.
Mark Cole:
Now here’s what that means. I’ve always been a leader, so have you, Becky, you point back to this competitive thing that you were talking about a while ago and I think there’s something inbred in us that, man, we were just born to lead. I don’t think we were born leaders, but I think we were born to lead. That being said, no leader that is effective, no successful leader waits on a position to lead. No leader waits on being at the table to lead. They find a way to influence, to lead, no matter where they are.
My challenge to all of us in this idea of doing, as we kind of wrap up today, my challenge to all of us as we say things like, “Writers write, composers compose, workers work, and now leaders lead,” is that if you find yourself waiting on something or waiting on somebody for you to exercise a gifting in your life, you’re not as successful as you should be. I’m not saying you’re not successful, I don’t want to take away the accomplishments that so many of our podcast listeners have had, but I can tell you this. If you know have something within you and you’re not doing it, you are allowing yourself to be paralyzed in the very thing that you can be most effective, at the thing that you are probably called to do, and the thing that you were purposed to do in life.
I think that’s why John says, “Unsuccessful people fail to do both. They do not initiate and they do not complete.” My challenge to you, my challenge to me, my challenge to all of us, Becky, is if you are a leader, and I believe you are by listening to this podcast, but if you are a leader, if you’re somebody that really wants to pursue success, we talk about significance a lot. I am talking about success. You’re going to have to initiate and you’re going to have to complete, and you’re going to have to complete to the point that you may not be successful in that particular initiative, but you’re going to have to own the results. I think that’s the beautiful thing of leadership.
It reminds me, I love to wrap up our podcast every week with a comment because your comments are fuel for us, but they also keep us close. Today is a listener that heard the podcast, the Self-Aware Leader. We’ll put that in the show notes, you’re going to want to go back and listen to that.
Becky Bursell:
It’s a good one.
Mark Cole:
It’s a brilliant one.
Becky Bursell:
Yes.
Mark Cole:
It really is. Stuart, who listened to that podcast, he said, “This really breaks down some leadership questions I have had. I’m in a position to move into leadership for my company, and I was looking for wisdom on being the best leader I can be. Knowing myself is such a powerful start that I will learn and be more self-aware and willing to change to be the best me I can be for me and for others in my world.” Stuart, I almost wish you would’ve left his phone number, Becky, where we can call and say, “Okay, Stu, how’s it going right now, buddy?”
Becky Bursell:
Let’s do that.
Mark Cole:
“What’s happening?”
Becky Bursell:
Let’s call him right now.
Mark Cole:
Let’s call him right now, live on the podcast and say, “Okay, that was a great one when you listened to that podcast a few episodes ago. How are we doing right now?” Because here’s what I’ll tell you. It’s not just in the statement, and I applaud the thinking of Stuart. It’s not just in the feeling that you might be an emotional leader like me, Stuart, and this was an emotional moment for you, we awakened something, we pushed a button. But the real secret to this statement and this feedback is in the doing and the being consistent, and that’s true for all of us. Isn’t there a cause worth being consistent about? Because isn’t it true that powerful, positive change, powerful, positive leadership is what the world needs, and everyone deserves to be led well. We’ll see you again next week.
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