Maxwell Leadership Podcast: What All Leaders Have in Common
All leaders have two things in common: they see more, and they see before. In today’s episode, John Maxwell is going to give you 4 takeaways that will help you to learn how to expand your leadership vision so you can equip your team for the big picture!
After his lesson, Mark Cole and Chris Robinson sit down to have a conversation on how you can apply what John has taught to your life and leadership.
Key takeaways:
- All leaders see more than others see and they see before others see.
- Leaders show where the light is, and they lead their people to that light.
- When you become bigger on the inside, you can become bigger on the outside.
Our BONUS resource for this episode is the What All Leaders Have in Common Worksheet, which includes fill-in-the-blank notes from John’s teaching. You can download the worksheet by clicking “Download the Bonus Resource” below.
Take the next step in your growth journey and become a Maxwell Leadership Certified Team Member. Click here
References:
Watch this episode on YouTube!
Enroll in the 21 Laws of Leadership Online Course for just $199 (reg. $1050)
Join the Maxwell Leadership Certified Team
Sign up for the Maxwell Leadership Growth Plan
Shop the Maxwell Leadership Online Store
Read The Transcript
Mark Cole:
Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Podcast. We always want to add value to you so you will multiply value to others. My name is Mark Cole, and today I’m going to be joined by a special co host, a special individual, Chris Robinson. He and I are going to talk to you about what all leaders have in common. John Maxwell has done a lesson recently about this very topic, what all leaders have in common. And so John’s going to share the lesson. Chris and I will come back here. Here’s why I’m so excited about this lesson today.
Mark Cole:
I’m excited because we’re finishing up a season to where political leaders, world leaders, have talked more about what is different about a leader or what is better about their leadership compared to something bad about another person’s leader. And that’s not where we are today. Where we are today is wanting to show you the commonality that is in every leader and how they should be effective at pulling out that similarity and making the people around them better. So get ready to take notes because John’s going to do an incredible job. By the way, if you would love to watch this podcast, you can go to maxwellpodcast.com/AllLeaders and you’ll be able to click on the link to watch us on YouTube or download the bonus resource there for this episode. All right, grab a pen and paper. If you’re sitting by somebody, look at them and say, hey, we’re more alike than you know. Here is John Maxwell.
John Maxwell:
I’ve discovered that all leaders have just one thing in common. I mean, they come from different cultures, different backgrounds, but there’s one thing that they all have in common. And that’s what I want to talk to you about. And that is all leaders, they see more than others see. In other words, they see a bigger picture. They see more than others see, and they see before others see. Now, when I started off as a leader, you didn’t need to see before others see. You just needed to see the big picture.
John Maxwell:
Things didn’t move as quickly as they move now. Today, you not only need to see a bigger picture, but you need to see that bigger picture quicker. So how do you and I do this? How do we begin to expand our leadership eyes and our vision to see more than others see? And how do we see before others see? That’s what I want to talk to you about. Because at this time in our world, we really need leaders to give hope. But what happens in a crisis is a crisis causes us to just pretty much see the problem at hand. It causes us to go Inward. And when we go inward, we say, oh, my gosh, wow, this is the worst of times. And it’s been the most difficult time of my life.
John Maxwell:
And what happens, a crisis causes the picture normally in most eyes to get smaller. And what I’m sharing with you today is instead of having your picture as a leader to go smaller, I want it to grow larger. And not only do I want you to be able to see more, have a bigger picture, I want you to be able to see before. I want you to see it quicker. So how does that happen? Let me share with you some real practical leadership principles and points that’ll help you to see more and before. Number one is I want you to know that there’s more and more out there. Okay? And I want you to know there’s more before out there. In other words, to see a bigger picture and to see a better picture and to see a quicker picture, you have to have an abundance mindset.
John Maxwell:
In fact, there are two words. I want you to just write them down because these two words describe an abundance mindset. And the first one is creativity, and the second one is flexibility. When I think of creativity, what I’m wanting you to know is that there’s always an answer. No matter how difficult the situation, there is always an answer. Now, the moment I know there’s always an answer, it keeps me in the game. You see, if I don’t think there’s an answer, I’ll quit. But when I know there’s an answer, it keeps me in the game, and I’m looking around for that answer, which allows me to see it before others.
John Maxwell:
Because you go first, you’re able to get the game started quicker. If you know there’s an answer and you’re already looking for it, that anticipation gives you a head start. But the second word is flexibility. There’s more than one answer, and that answers the more question. The moment that I realized that there is more than one answer, I began to expand my picture. And I want you both to see that. So I want you to know beyond any doubt that in a time of very difficult situations, there’s more out there and there’s more before out there. Leaders show where the light is, and they lead their people to that light.
John Maxwell:
So I just want you to know, as we’re trying to expand our more and our before as leaders, that I just want you to know with great certainty there’s more and more out there, and there’s more before out there. So don’t get a scarcity mindset. Trust Me, even in a scarcity time, a time of great fear. Don’t frame your leadership life with fear. Frame it with faith and understand there are answers out there. There’s a way. Trust me. The second thing that will help you to begin to have that picture that we want of a leader of knowing that we can see more and we can see before others, is that there’s a process for you to find that more out there.
John Maxwell:
There’s a process, and I call it the cycle of success. I call it a cycle of success. Because in this cycle, there are five things that we continually repeat. It’s not a journey. In a journey of success, we pass something and may never see it again. In a cycle, we continually, over and over, repeat the process. There are five parts of this cycle of success. Number one, test.
John Maxwell:
If you really want to discover more out there, if you wanna see before others see, you’ve gotta get out on the edge. And you have to test. You have to be a pioneer, you have to be a visionary. You have to go where others are not willing to go. You have to be willing to try things that others are not willing to try. And this is huge. So at the top of the cycle, this test, we’re always trying out new things. Well, if you test a lot, the second part of the cycle is just natural.
John Maxwell:
You will fail a lot. So we go from test to fail. Now, why do we fail so much? Because we’re trying things that we’ve never done before. And we’re learning some work, some don’t work. In fact, I can tell you, we test and try things more than anyone I know. And because we test and try a lot of things, we have a lot of failures, we have a lot of misses, we have a lot of strikeouts, we have a lot of oops, okay? And that’s okay because we understand that failure is important to be on the path to success. You see, the problem is we separate failure and success. We put success over here, failure over there.
John Maxwell:
We say, let’s always be successful, let’s never fail. That’s not realistic. Success and failure do not belong apart. We don’t separate them. That’s a unrealistic, idealistic word. We put them together. We understand that with success comes failures. And out of our failures, we learn lessons that make us more successful.
John Maxwell:
And so we kind of fail forward in our journey to success. And in our cycle of success, we really do well of not only testing, but we have a lot of misses, we have a lot of failures, we have a lot of losses. But that’s okay, because the third part of our cycle of success is to learn. And learning is the fruit of failure. So when somebody comes and they says, john, you know, I’ve really messed up, I’ve failed a lot. So they talk to me about their failure, and it’s okay, I’m listening. But I can hardly wait for them to finish because I don’t want to focus on their loss. I don’t want to focus on their failure.
John Maxwell:
I want to ask them a question. And so when they’re finished telling me about their failure story, I have one question to ask you. I have one question to ask myself. I have one question to ask anybody. What did you learn? The fruit of failure is learning. I know this to be a fact that our greatest learning experiences come out of our most difficult hours. So notice how this success cycle works. Because we test a lot, we fail a lot.
John Maxwell:
And because we fail a lot, we learn a lot. Oh, can you see it already? We learn a lot more than other people in a shorter time. Spanish because we’re not afraid of the cycle. We’re not afraid to test, we’re not afraid to fail. Because that, that gets us quickly to the learning. It’s learning where everything begins to change. It’s the learning that’s the fruit of failure. And what is exciting about the learning process is we’ve allowed ourself to test and fail.
John Maxwell:
So we learn things that other people that don’t allow that process to happen never learn. So if you want to get to your learning faster, do more testing and do more failing and test quicker and fail quicker so that you can learn quicker. Now, learning is overrated. If we just stop at learning, I mean, it’s not like I learned something, so therefore I’m better. You see, the value of learning, just like the fruit of failure is learning, the fruit of learning, the value of learning is improving. So we test, fail, learn, improve. You see, out of our learning experience, we ask ourself, now that we know this, we didn’t know this before, how do we apply this to our life? How do we take action on this? How does this change us so that we can be better? Now, it’s very important to understand the quicker you can get through this cycle, the better it’s going to become. So test, fail, learn, improve.
John Maxwell:
But there’s one more part of the cycle, and that is reenter. But notice we don’t re enter until we improve. So out of our testing, we have failure. Out of our failure, we learn much. Out of our learning, we improve ourselves and after improving ourselves, we reenter. But here’s what I want you to notice. You say, oh, good, you finished the cycle. No, you didn’t finish the cycle, because the cycle’s never finished.
John Maxwell:
It’s a cycle. As soon as we improve and reenter, we go back to testing again. But here’s what’s beautiful about this cycle. This cycle, every time you go through it and do it right, helps to raise you a little higher. In fact, if you could think about this cycle for a moment, it’s kind of like you do level one and you improve and reenter, but when you reenter and test again, you’re testing at a little bit higher level. And. And you’re just doing this number. And you just keep going through this cycle of success, but you just keep going higher all the time.
John Maxwell:
Why? Because every time you do the cycle again, you’re just a little higher. So all of your testings are a little bit better. Your failures are a little bit better. Your learnings are a little bit bigger and better. Your improvement’s bigger and better. You just keep growing through it. That’s how you see more and how you see before. You put yourself on the edge to see more and to see before.
John Maxwell:
So let’s go to the third way that you and I improve ourself. How do you and I see more than others see and see before others see? Number three, Put yourself in places and with people who will inspire you to see more and before. If you don’t see more than the other people see, as far as hope, they’ll never have hope. If you don’t see hope before others see, they won’t see it in time. The fourth thing that you want to do to really expand your world and see more and see before is to intentionally grow every day in your life so that you expand yourself so that you have capacity for more and before. This is an important teaching. This is an important lesson. I want you to grow yourself.
John Maxwell:
You cannot give what you do not have. When companies come to me and say, how do we grow our company? I say, grow your people. You grow your people, you grow your company. If your people at a level six, your company will be at a level six. If your people at a level nine, your company will be at 11. 9. But you want to intentionally grow. I’m passionate about personal growth because I know what it has done in my life.
John Maxwell:
You see, when I was in my 20s, I heard Earl Nightingale say that if you spend one hour a day, every day, on the same subject for five years, get the picture. One hour a day, every day, same subject for five years. He said, in five years, you’ll become an expert on that subject. And as a young leader, I loved leadership, and I thought leadership was the answer. So I said, I’m gonna become an expert in leadership. So every day for an hour, I read books on leadership. I talked to people about leadership. I practiced leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership every day.
John Maxwell:
And because Earl Nightingale said I’d be an expert in five years, I was in a countdown mode. I went five, four, three. About in the middle of that five years, though, because I was intentionally growing, all of a sudden, my inside began to change. Wow. I began to see more than others see. I began to see before others see. And all of a sudden, I quit asking the question, how long will it take? Because I kept going to five years. I’ll become an expert.
John Maxwell:
Four, three, two, one. Expert. Okay. I quit asking how long will because now I’m becoming bigger on the inside. When you become bigger on the inside, you can become bigger on the outside. When you become better on the inside, you can become better on the outside. And all of a sudden, I quit asking the question, how long will it take? I never asked that question anymore. And I started asking the question, how far can I go? I have no idea how far I can go, but I know I can go farther than I have gone so far.
John Maxwell:
I know there’s no finish line out there. Why? Because I have made a commitment to intentionally grow.
Maxwell Leadership Certified Team:
Hey, podcast listeners, many of you listening right now would probably love the autonomy that comes with owning your own business or becoming a coach that helps other businesses succeed. Well, we have a phenomenal strategy where you are 100% in control of your own business, earning income on your own terms, and have access to the people, tools, and resources you need to build a thriving leadership development business. When you become a Maxwell Leadership Certified Team member, you join a global community of entrepreneurs led by our expert team of mentors and faculty, including John C. Maxwell. You’ll also get one of the top leadership certifications in the world next to you. Your name giving you the boost you need to get started. Visit us online at maxwellleadership.com/JoinTheTeam to find out more.
Mark Cole:
Hey, welcome back, everybody. It was Albert Einstein saying, creativity is seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking what no one else has thought. And I love the premise of this lesson. I really do, Chris, because, boy, there is such a move right now of making one’s leadership abilities look better than someone else’s, or pointing out what somebody else does not have in the form of leadership. And so such a timely lesson for John to say, hey, there is something all leaders have in common. And of course, we’ve heard him talk, that really is our ability to see more and before others. If you are in a room and others are seeing things and pointing things out that you didn’t catch, you’re not the leader. You may have the position, you may get the paycheck, you’re not the leader.
Chris Robinson:
That’s correct.
Mark Cole:
Because as leaders, we really do have to anticipate, we have to see, we have to cast vision that others can’t see what other people can’t anticipate. And by the way, we have to repeat it over and over again too sometimes. And so don’t lament that because that’s leadership. But John does in this lesson give us a way, Chris, to how we can hone the skill. And I do believe it’s a skill we can hone the skill of seeing more and before. And so it’s good to have you on today.
Chris Robinson:
Yeah.
Chris Robinson:
Great to be back on here today and really, really intrigued by this lesson. You know, this is something that John talks about all the time and seeing more and before. You know, we’ve seen this phrase from, you know, probably the early 2000s and 21 laws and things of that nature. But I like the way that he’s really fine tuned and pulled out some points in this one to give us kind of a straightforward path of how do we see more before others. Now, I love this first portion here where he says that, number one, we have to know there’s more more. I love that phrase that there’s more more, because what that speaks to is really not being complacent as a leader. Now, as you know, complacency is a topic that I’ve been in deep study with. That complacency place is how I define it, is not laziness or apathy, but it’s really a secret place of satisfactory success.
Mark Cole:
When you were saying that and pulling that out, I was thinking of just over a year ago we had finished a 10 year run in our nonprofit. We have an annual event that we do called Leadership Open. We do it at different golf environments. And just over a year ago, we had finished 10 years of growth every single year in that event as it relates to donors committed. And it had been a special night. We didn’t know we had some big partners that were not in the room. And I was concerned that it was going to be yet again another experience. And I’ll never forget this as long as I live.
Mark Cole:
John laughs about it now. He says, how could I have been so heartless? But he really wasn’t heartless, although that’s the way he laughs about it now. He called me in his room and he said, mark, why did we do that? Why was that not done? Why do we have those people in the room and not other people? I’ll tell you what I want to do next year. I want to scrub every person that’s in the room. And we need to have different people in the room that has greater capacity. And it was just one, one thing after another. And I didn’t say anything that night. I said, yes, sir.
Mark Cole:
Yes, sir, yes, sir. I came back the next morning and I said, john, I’ve got to know what you were sensing last night. Because most of the time in a record breaking year, you give us 24 hours to celebrate and we can high five and feel good. There wasn’t 24 seconds of celebration and it was the 10th year in a row of a record breaking increase. And I said, you gotta help me. Well, first he apologized. Mark, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
Mark Cole:
I said, no, no, no, don’t apologize, be you. But why did you do that? He said, mark, I just sit in that room last night and I realized the potential of what could be and I just wanted to download it to you. Here’s the point. Some people are settled with more. I was a year ago. I was settled with more.
Chris Robinson:
Right?
Mark Cole:
But John wanted more, more, right. He wanted more of what could be. And he was looking at missed opportunity, not accomplished success. And I think there’s something in all of us as leaders that we’ve got to know. Always believe that there can be more and more.
Chris Robinson:
Yeah, you’re right about that. I mean that more and more is, is great. You know, that secret place of satisfactory success, that’s what caused us to go into this automatic habits and automatic thinkings and you know, it just becomes easy. And hey, it is increasing and it doesn’t cause us to charge harder. So to get a jolt like that, what a gift from John to give to you as hard as they are. I’ve had hard gifts from John as well too.
Mark Cole:
That’s right, that’s right.
Chris Robinson:
But it’s like there is more. There’s absolutely.
Mark Cole:
I think the big thing Chris, you and I have to work through is that is our environment. By the way, it’s not just John. I’m guilty of it too. That story was on John, but I’M the same way. We just had all kind of something and by the time I go up to high five, I think of something that could have been done better.
Chris Robinson:
Yep.
Mark Cole:
I think the fine line that we driven leaders that think like that, that believe there’s more, more, there’s more potential. I think the fine line that we have to really make sure is that our teams don’t feel like we’re dissatis. Are not appreciative.
Chris Robinson:
That’s tough.
Mark Cole:
I think our teams, I think we have to work hard to make sure that our teams don’t feel like they can. That the leader can never be satisfied or pleased. Because you bring up a lot of people around you that love you, they’d do anything for you, they’d charge the mountain for you, and then you’re always charging. And so they never get that sense of there has been an accomplishment that is appreciated. And I will tell you, in my leadership, I’m very passionate about this trait that are in great leaders, that they believe that they know that they’re confident there’s more and more. They have to realize that if you’re the leader, you may be seeing more and more, but don’t leave the people that are accomplishing more in the dust while you’re pushing for more and more.
Chris Robinson:
I like it, but now I gotta pause there because now we gotta talk about that.
Mark Cole:
Okay, good.
Chris Robinson:
So what do you do to a person like that? Because for me, I can say that, hey, I’m one like that. As soon as it’s done, it’s over with. Before it’s over with, I’m asking when the next thing is. And I mean, this was very evident. I was in Panama with, you know, about 50 coaches, 75 coaches that we took down there. And we got to one location, and I’m walking into the location and I say, okay, what time do we get out of here? And Lorna looks at me, she goes, chris, we hadn’t even walked in the.
Mark Cole:
Door yet, and you already talked about getting out.
Chris Robinson:
My wife said the exact same thing. Everywhere we go, it’s like, hey, we hadn’t even got there. You’re trying to figure your way out. And so talk to me about that pause and not making people feel like, hey, this person is just a driver and is not relentless. How do you go back and keep bringing people along in that scenario, One’s.
Mark Cole:
An art and one’s a science. Okay, I’m gonna give you two answers.
Chris Robinson:
Okay.
Mark Cole:
The art of that is you’ve got to intuitively know when the Team needs to be pushed. And when you need to pause. So there is a push that has to be intuitive, and there is a pause that has to be intuitive. I can sit in a room and I can begin talking about more, more, and I can tell the life start draining out of my team. I pay attention and intuitively I’ll back up and say, you know what, let’s talk about that tomorrow. Somebody give me why you’re so excited today. You have to, you have to use the art of intuition on whether you are pushing too fast for more more. The second one is a science, and that is you mentioned Lorna, you mentioned your wife.
Mark Cole:
Have people around you to where you acknowledge that you have a propensity to push people harder. That is healthy for them, Right? Sure. And give those people the permission to speak into your life when you’re pushing too hard. John does that for me. That’s why John, the next morning when I said that, he went, man, I missed it. I did not celebrate the 10 years of accomplishment enough before I told you of more opportunity. He said, I missed it. That’s because his guy, person that he let speak into his life was sitting here going, hey, how could, how did you move that so fast? Kim does that for me often.
Mark Cole:
Stephanie does that for me. You’re pushing too hard, Mark. Having those people around you that has unfettered responsibility to speak into you is critical for those of us that push for more and more all the time.
Chris Robinson:
Yeah, I love that. So if I had to break it down here for what you gave us, it’s really pushing pause and permission. That’s exactly Pause and permission when trying to bring those people.
Mark Cole:
Yeah.
Chris Robinson:
For more.
Mark Cole:
Love that. Good job.
Chris Robinson:
Yeah. Yeah. There we go. Let’s talk about this cycle of success.
Mark Cole:
Yeah.
Chris Robinson:
He talks about, you know, test, fail, learn, improve, reenter. Which one of these do you say that you’re really good at? And then which one do you really struggle with?
Mark Cole:
Improvement is one I’m really good at. I love improvement. If I can get tangible improvement, it’s why I love my year end review process. I love going and not eating, not watching television, not seeing anything. I love that. It’s like one of the happiest times of my life because of the growth. I love getting up in the morning, taking some nugget from some book from. I’m a person of faith, so it’s some devotional moment and picking up something that I can apply during the day.
Mark Cole:
So improvement is my jam. Plus I got a lot to improve. So that’s. That’s good news. It’s a blue ocean for me. The one that I struggle with the most most is fail. And it’s because while I believe failure is a part of the process of success, I really do. I have not allowed myself to be as emotionally secure as I should be so that I see failure as a friend.
Mark Cole:
I often hedge my bets on being successful without the failure aspect. Therefore, I come up short on what could be because I settle for what I know will be. Wow. And that’s cycle. I don’t mind once I have failed to own it and to call it a lesson back to improvement. I don’t mind any of that. But on the front end of failure, I find myself playing more safe to what can be predictable rather than unsafe on what may be effective failure. So that’d be the one I struggle with.
Chris Robinson:
That’s good, you know, one on that failure. I just want to dig deeper into a little bit of that. Why do you think that is the most difficult one for you besides like, okay, you want to play it safe, but I guess internally, why is that one more difficult to struggle with?
Mark Cole:
Yeah, I think it’s come. I’ve said this statement on podcast and every time I say it, there’s. I can hear that. Can hear through the audio and even through video, I can hear and see people start laughing. I’m a recovering people pleaser. I have been addicted to the affirmation, confirmation and accolades of people. I love people. I’m relationally bent.
Mark Cole:
I like the attaboys, I like the pat on the backs. It’s just fuel for me. Because of that, I become very dependent on that. And you don’t get people appreciate the lesson of failure, but they don’t appreciate the taste of failure.
Chris Robinson:
Oh, come on.
Mark Cole:
And so thank you for the lesson. I’m very grateful. But I never have went, hey, thanks for making me feel like a failure. That really felt good. That tasted good. I’ve always said thanks for the lesson from the failure. So it’s because of those relational people pleasing tendencies that I don’t like people seeing me as a failure. For sure, that’s in the affirmation.
Mark Cole:
But I don’t like having people feel like a failure around me because they appreciate the lesson. They don’t appreciate the failure.
Chris Robinson:
That’s good. I love it. I love it. Hey, we got, we got to keep moving here. You know, gosh, we can stay here all day on this stuff. But you know, the third one is put yourself in places and with people who will inspire you. And I think this One is big for our culture, our company, our organization. I think it’s something that lifts people out of a dip.
Chris Robinson:
I think it’s something that lifts people out of complacency, is being around and doing inspiring things. Talk to me about a recent event or an environment that you’ve been. That’s inspired you.
Mark Cole:
Yeah. So it’s been a good run for me. Over the last several weeks, I was out in Montana with Chris Tomlin and some people he’s brought in for his nonprofit called Four Others. And not only the mission, not only Chris Tomlin who inspires me, not only the people that he had brought into that room, it was in the mountains, which is inspiring to me. That’s kind of where I hear and feel God is in the mountains. I love the mountains. But I think as I look at that, I was also, just a couple of weeks later, I was in an event in D.C. at the museum of the Bible.
Mark Cole:
And it was a bunch of entrepreneurs that were wanting to make a difference. Recently, I was at Tyler Perry’s studio here in Atlanta. Brilliant. I went from there and did a sit down Q and A with Bernice King, Martin Luther King’s daughter. And so I’ve been in a lot of inspirational environments. Probably the one that was the most inspiring to me was back in October, 1st of October, I was in Washington, D.C. for an event and got an invitation to go and meet with the Secretary of Education in the Biden administration. And so all of that’s kind of changing right here this week as we release this podcast.
Mark Cole:
But I was super inspired in that moment, and I’ll tell you why. Because I walked into an office that as an American, I see it as so political and so whose agenda is it? And so I questioned their decisions that they’re making because of the state of affairs and public school systems and the lack of safety and all that kind of stuff. But I walked in and had what was supposed to be a 20 minute that ended up being an hour meeting with a guy that was a fourth grade teacher. And I saw the fourth grade teacher come out of him and he just had a passion that, yes, is shrouded with politics. It’s shrouded with whose side of the aisle you’re on. But he has a passion to see millions of kids under his responsibility like he saw his class of fourth graders. And I just went anyway, Mark, let me tell you this right here. If there’s anything we can do in red states, blue states, it doesn’t matter if there’s anything that we can do to help the.
Mark Cole:
Every kid looks like a fourth grader to me. And I went, oh, yes. I was so inspired, Chris. You know, again, I tried to tell you some. I tried to name drop and tell you some big places, some fun places, big rooms that I’ve been in. That was a big room I was in too. But really I was just talking to a fourth grade school teacher and it was powerful. It’s very powerful.
Chris Robinson:
Yeah. Wow. Incredible. Love, love environments. Number four is intentionality says grow every day. Now, one statement that we’ll close out with here that I love and we’ll end on this one here, is that he had a real simple phrase for organization to grow. And I think if people catch this, they grow their organizations. John said, grow your people, grow your company.
Chris Robinson:
It’s a simple philosophy, but most people can’t catch that. Talk to me about grow your people, grow your company.
Mark Cole:
Well, I love doing anything with you, Chris. I really do. And if you would hear the conversations before we turned on the cameras and the microphones, I love this guy. This is a guy that is the complete package. Let me explain that. I want to be tangible rather than you just to think. I just love and appreciate Chris, who does a lot of great work, has a lot of respect in our organization. He’s a product of the product.
Mark Cole:
If Chris gets behind something, it’s because he’s figured out that it is something he believes in. You believe in that. You’re passionate about it. It’s what makes you the best leader for Maxwell leadership. Certified team member. 53,000 coaches around the world sees Chris as their leader. And that’s because we’ve said this a hundred times, you’re a product of the product. When I think of being bigger on the inside than the outside, that’s what I mean.
Mark Cole:
It’s someone that is bigger. They are the product. So they can then become an inspiration of that product to others. It’s in your notes. Those of you that have the bonus resource downloaded, it’s in your notes. It says you cannot give what you do not have. The thing that I love about John Maxwell is what you see on stage is better behind stage. What you see him doing when he’s walking through the crowd because he didn’t want to go behind the scenes to get on stage.
Mark Cole:
He wants to walk slowly and shake people’s hands. What you see is even more genuine when we’re in the back because we do have to come in the back and he stops and he talks to the people washing the dishes and he just Loves them. What he does for the people that carry his bags at golf is exactly what he does to the grounds team that’s over in the bushes waiting for you to pass. There is such an intentionality for John when we’re talking about seeing more and before. There’s such an intentionality on what you don’t see that what you do see is just half of it. It’s not even as good. It’s not as good as the real thing. And that’s why I love closing with this right here, is because seeing more and before.
Mark Cole:
And I get on stages all the time. You get on stages, Chris, all the time. And I go, boy, if they could just see the people that could should be up here instead of me because they get this image. They put. They put you on a pedestal. And I want the people that knows me when there is no pedestal to feel greater about me than when the. Than the people that see me on a pedestal. That’s very intentional to be able to do that.
Mark Cole:
So when you see more and you see more, more, you will only be authentic if you are more. Your ability to be comes before your ability to see. Are you more on the inside than you are the outside. Now you’re on the right pathway to be able to see more on the outside than other people see. But it starts as a being action. A being action, Yes. I did say a being action. You’ve got to intentionally work and see yourself as more.
Mark Cole:
It’s why I have one of my teammates right now that just sent a text that just. She obliterated herself and her confidence in a text to me last night and I’ve marked it. And I’m going to come back and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. If you are texting outwardly those kind of criticisms of yourself, what are you saying about yourself on the inside? Not good. So, leaders, this is not about self talk. This is about self belief. This is about seeing more in yourself than you see beyond yourself. And when you can get intentional at growing yourself every single day and challenging yourself to be better every single day, you will see more.
Mark Cole:
More on the outside people. You will be able to inspire people to reach for more, to believe more, because the belief starts on the inside. It’s why, Chris, every podcast now, every podcast to the point of nausea, I give people a way to do more embedding on themselves and believing themselves. This week, I want to talk to you about 21 laws of leadership. We’ve created an online course of a book that has sold over 4 million copies. And we’ve got a digital online course that’s regularly thousand dollars and we’re making it available to our podcast family. We’re making it available to you today for $199. You can go into the show notes, you can click the link.
Mark Cole:
It’s seeing that there’s more within you that can be developed because every leader has this in common. They see more in themselves than what everybody else sees. They’re developing it. They’re doing that. So what I love about you, Chris, I could sit here for the rest of the time say, hey, what are you learning? What are you growing? What are you developing? You’d give me a bunch of answers because it’s always happening. Hey, thanks for joining us today, podcast family. I appreciate you, Colin. Colin, you gave us a comment that we greatly appreciate you read the you listen to the podcast.
Mark Cole:
The best thing you can do for yourself and others. Here’s what Colin said. The ability to see more and before others is a powerful leadership trait. It’s almost like he knew what we were going to talk about today. It’s inspiring to think about how we can develop that skill through practice and discipline. Colin, that’s exactly what we’ve been talking about today. Thanks for listening. Go bring powerful, positive change to the world around you, because everyone deserves to be led.
Mark Cole:
Well.
High Road Leadership Book:
Are you ready to elevate your leadership to new heights? Join the movement towards high road leadership with John C. Maxwell’s latest book. In High Road Leadership, John explores the power of valuing all people, doing the right things for the right reasons and placing others above personal agendas. Learn how to inspire positive change and bring people together in a world that divides. Order now and receive exclusive bonuses, including a keynote on high Road leadership by John Maxwell himself and a sneak peek into three impactful chapters. Take the first step towards becoming a high road leader. Visit highroadleadershipbook.com to order your copy today.
Be the first to comment on "Maxwell Leadership Podcast: What All Leaders Have in Common"