10 Secrets to Success (Part 1) (Maxwell Leadership Podcast)

Welcome Message

[Music] Welcome to the Maxwell leadership podcast. This is the podcast that adds value to leaders who multiply value to others. My name is Mark Cole, and today John Maxwell, Chris Go, and I begin a two-part series on 10 secrets of success. Now, I’ve traveled with John for 23 years. I’ve watched him in and out of most any environment you can imagine. One thing that I have noticed is John’s commitment to pursue success and produce results. And so today, John’s going to be teaching on 10 things, but we’re going to break it up into two parts. We’ll give you five of those things this week, five next week. And then after John’s lesson, my co-host Chris Go and I will join to discuss the lesson and offer practical ways you can apply to your life and to your leadership. If you would like to watch this episode on YouTube or download our free bonus resource for this episode, just visit Maxwell podcast.com/slsecrets. You will be able to download, you’ll be able to watch, and you will be able to grow. Now here we go, here is John Maxwell.

John Maxwell’s Introduction

I was coming from Los Angeles, and on the plane, I saw this paper called Investors Business Daily, and it had a lot of good articles in it. It was, in fact, a very good newspaper. But the thing that caught my attention in this Investors’ Business Daily was they had a section of the paper called the 10 secrets to success. And what they basically did is they had these 10 secrets of success listed in the paper, of which when I subscribed to the paper, I found out that these 10 secrets of success, they just keep going over these 10, and they’ll have different stories and different illustrations. And basically, here’s what they said. And now I’m quoting, “These 10 traits can help your dreams become a reality.” And what they did is they studied success to such a place that they found that these 10 secrets to success never changed. They never changed. And so, therefore, they keep the 10 secrets always in the paper, but they just tell different stories to reinforce these 10 things. And so, because we’re talking about how to reach our dream, dare to dream and then do it, let’s talk about the 10 secrets to success and what successful people know and do. This is how you get to your dreams right here.

Secret 1: How You Think Is Everything

Number one, how you think is everything. Always be positive, think success, not failure, and beware of a negative environment. Investors Business Daily realized if you’re going to be successful, you’re going to reach your dream, probably the first thing you have to do is work on your own thinking. How you think. They said you’re going to have to think positive, you’re going to have to think success, not failure. Now, ask yourself, is most of my thinking positive or is it negative? Is most of my thinking success-oriented or is it failure-oriented? What kind of environment am I around, not only in the workplace but what kind of environment am I around when I’m out of the workplace? Is it negative or is it positive? Bob Rella, who’s a sports psychologist, said, “I tell people that if you don’t want to get into positive thinking, that’s okay. Just eliminate all the negative thoughts from your mind, and whatever is left will be fine.” So, under the 10 secrets to success that successful people know and do, number one is how you think is everything.

Secret 2: Decide Upon Your True Dreams and Goals

Number two, decide upon your true dreams and goals and write down your specific goals and develop a plan to reach them. Tom Hopkins says that goals are the fuel in the furnace of achievement. Perhaps you’ve read the book, “Live Your Dreams” by Les Brown. In that book, “Live Your Dreams,” Les suggests four questions that you need to ask yourself to boost your self-approval. And the four questions are:

1. What are your gifts?
2. What are the five things that you like about yourself?
3. What people make you feel special when you’re around them?
4. What moment of personal triumph do you remember? Take some time and think about what were some things that you did that when you did them, you look back and say, “Boy, that was an important time of my life.” Let me give you something that I have found to be helpful to me that might be helpful to you. Let’s at least give it a shot. Okay, here’s what I would encourage you to do: Sit down with a legal pad and write down, and I think 10 is a good number. Go back to your life and say, “What, how did I feel at that moment?” Now, here’s what makes that significant. It not only tells you a lot about your self-image and your journey, but here’s the question that I would really have you to look at after you list those 10 things: How many of those things happened a long time ago, and how many of those things happened recently? What I have found is that if several of these things happened a long time ago, that gave you the foundation for a good self-image, but if some of those things happened recently, that has given you a lot of.

Motivational Fuel for Success

Motivational fuel for whatever you’re doing in your life, it’s not either or, truthfully. Hopefully, you have a balance of both. You have that which is foundational, and you have that which is what I call motivational. But just look at your life, and out of that, you kind of decide who you are, how you feel about yourself, what are your dreams, what are your goals.

Secret 3: Take Action

Okay, the third secret to success for those who not only dared to have a dream but then made that dream become a reality in their own life. Success secret number three: Take action. Goals are nothing without action. Don’t be afraid to get started. Now just do it. And then I have some great quotes. “Dreams don’t work unless you do.” “It is only our deeds that reveal who we are.” Chesterton said, “I don’t believe in faith that falls on men, however they act, but I do believe in fate that falls on them unless they act.” Paul “Bear” Bryant, the great coach at Alabama for many, many years, had a sign in his locker room that said, “Cause something to happen.” In other words, he understood the value of action. If you’re going to realize your dream, remember, the secret of your dreams is what you do today, not what you do tomorrow. It’s not where you’re going to go; it’s where you are. Take action.

Secret 4: Never Stop Learning

Number four, in realizing your dream, and these success principles that successful people know and do in their life, number four is never stop learning. You may have to go back to school, you may have to read some books, you gotta get some training, you gotta go acquire skills, but never stop learning. Schula and Blanchard, in that wonderful book they did together, said, “Learning is defined as a change in behavior. You haven’t learned a thing until you can take action and until you can use it.” And there are two ways that you and I learn. We learn either through experience, in other words, learning by our own mistakes, and we’ve done that, or through wisdom, which is learning through the mistakes of others. And it’s more fun to learn through the mistakes of others, isn’t it, huh? But we do both. And Bruce Springsteen said, “A time comes when you need to stop waiting for the man you want to become and start being the man you want to be.”

Secret 5: Be Persistent and Work Hard

Number five, the fifth principle of success to realize your dreams is to be persistent and work hard. We have to realize that success is a marathon, not a sprint, and that we’re never to give up. I love what William Gladstone said, “If hard work is the key to success, most people would rather pick the lock.” Or Doby Gillis, only old people remember Doby Gillis show. I won’t do a poll here because it’s going to embarrass me because I remember Doby Gillis. He said, “I don’t have anything against work; I just figure why deprive somebody who really loves it, huh?” Now, famous people, 90% sweat. Plato wrote the first sentence of his famous Republic nine different ways before he was satisfied. Cicero practiced speaking before friends every day for 30 years to perfect his allocution. Noah Webster labored 36 years writing his dictionary, crossing the Atlantic twice together material. Milton rose at 4:00 a.m. every day in order to have enough hours for “Paradise Lost.” Gibbon spent 26 years on his “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” and Bryant rewrote one of his poetic masterpieces 99 times before publication, and it became a classic. Just these examples of hard work and persistence. Bob Ireland’s a great example. Bob Ireland crossed the finish line on Thursday, November 6th, 1986, of the New York City’s Marathon. It was 19,413. He was the final finisher, the first person to run a marathon with his arms instead of his legs. Bob was a 40-year-old Californian whose leg was blown off in Vietnam 17 years before, and in 1986, he recorded the slowest time in marathon’s history: 4 days, 2 hours, 48 minutes, 17 seconds. When he asked why he ran the race, he gave these three reasons: to show he was a born-again Christian, to test his conditioning, and to promote physical fitness to others. And then he said, “Success is not based on where you start; it’s where you finished.” Persistence, hard work. “I can” is more important than IQ. Hey, John Maxwell here. I’m in the studio; we’ve been recording all day. And I was thinking about really one of my very favorite experiences that we have, and that is called Day to Grow. If you want to grow, you want to grow in every area of your life. I tell people all the time, you don’t want to go to something; you want to grow to something. But if you’re passionate about personal growth, development, your team, and growing them, you do not want to miss Day to Grow. I’m going to have some real players with me, Deion Sanders, Jamie Kern Lima, myself. Oh my gosh, you don’t want to miss it. So, Mark, come and see us on Day to Grow. I will promise you this, you come and bring your team, and at the end of the day, you’ll come up and shake my hand and say, “One of the best days I’ve ever invested in for myself and for my team.” I’ll see you there.

Discussion with Co-Host Chris Go

Hey, welcome back, everybody. If you’re viewing, I am joined here today with Chris Go, and we love our YouTube viewers. Thank you, by the way, if you’re new to the podcast, try us out on YouTube.

Discussion on Success Principles

Be a part of that community. I’m really excited about this topic today, Chris. Both this week and next week, John is digging into 10 things, and as he’s teaching these, I just, like you, we’ve both been with John in and around John for over two decades, almost two and a half decades if you want to feel old. And I’ll tell you, I can think of a story, I can think of an application for every one of these that I’ve watched John over the years. So, I’m looking forward to jumping into this, looking forward to discussing it with somebody I think is successful. I think you’re successful as a parent, as a leader, as a community guy. And, man, let’s talk about some secrets to success. It’s funny, as we were getting ready to get started, you and I were like, “What do we want to talk about?” And said, “Just remember, we have a time limit. Jake’s keeping us on track.” What I love about this list is he starts with thinking. And you and I would both agree, and those that have been around John, his ability to think is on a level that makes me feel like I don’t even think right. Like, and so I’ve watched him do that, I’ve watched you do that over the years. Matter of fact, I often hear in the corporate world people go, “You know that book ‘How Successful People Think’? I wasn’t going to read that. I didn’t think it was going to be that good. I got into it and they’re like, ‘That’s one of my favorite books.'” And so, that is right there a tale of how much we need to think about thinking, if I can say it like that. Matter of fact, one other thing, you know, I do a lot of studying and what’s relevant in Corporate America with people growing and learning, and from 2022, the top one of the top 10 things they’re looking for was the ability to think. Really, the ability to think was one of the top three. And so, I love that he starts this right here. And I want you to kind of unpack this because you’ve got to experience this and then you do this as well. You have what we call an inner circle and then you have your outer circle. You learned it from John, and I think one of the reasons that John did this back in the day was to create a different way of thinking in order for him to be able to realize his dreams. Talk a little bit about that, walking through that journey with him. Why was that? Why do you do it? And how has that helped your thinking to be able to be successful?

Well, and, you know, let me say this, I believe there are dreamers, there are thinkers, and then there’s action-oriented people. I’d call them actors, but with Hollywood, and that feels like you’re acting like you’re something that you’re not. That’s not what I’m after. I’m talking about action-oriented people. And I’ll come back to dreams in just a minute for YouTube. I’m going to come back to this book in just a moment, but I love that you talked about and highlighted John’s ability to think. Let me tell you something unique about John. John always says this, and he says it laughing, but he’s dead serious. He says he is a communicator that teaches, not a teacher that communicates. And the reason that he wants to make that distinction is he says a communicator takes something that’s complex and makes it simple. An educator takes something simple and makes it complex. No offense, educators, but I was in some of your classes, and that’s legitimately true. So, many classes I went, I was more confused after class than I was before class. But what John’s really saying is that to communicate effectively, to lead effectively, to do anything effectively, you’ve got to figure out how to break it down to where it is actionable. The only bridge between a dream and the bigness of a dream unfulfilled and actually seeing the dream come to pass, the bridge is thinking. Thinking it through, creating action items, and putting processed thinking into it. And so, for me, the way I think and the way John has taught me to think is get people around you that will challenge your thoughts, that will make you think. You know, most people should say, “I was thinking.” They let that thought pass through their brain, and the thought becomes reality, rather than sitting with the thought, turning a thought into thinking, and that thinking come out with great revelation. Good, that’s good, yeah. And so, I think what John did with this outer circle that you’re talking about, and this has happened in the last decade, John said, “You know what? My thinking is too stale. My files are too old. My way of doing things is too predictable. I’ve got to have some people that disrupt me.” And he went out and established an outer circle, and he loves to tell the story about Linda. And he’s very kind to me, but I kind of didn’t like the outer circle either ’cause I was an inner circle guy. Why do you need an outer circle? He said, “Because y’all are making me too predictable. I’ve got to extend and expand my thinking.” And you do that expanded thinking by getting people that will stimulate new thought in you. So, you learned that from John, and now I’ve seen you apply that to your own leadership journey and your own principle. We know why the context is there. Maybe share with our listeners some of the things that you have learned from that, maybe you’ve been challenged with, and what I love about it is that all of that thinking that happens, you’re not going to apply all that right. You’re going to filter that, but you’re being challenged by somebody else’s perspective that maybe has thought bigger. Or I’ve heard you say all the time, “I got to get around people that are thinking bigger than me, right, where we want to go.” And we want the legacy of John. So, talk about maybe some things that you have taken away from those that you would say are in your outer circle to challenge your thinking.

So, you know, I think again, I’m going to come back to this, I think it all starts with a dream. “Put Your Dream to the Test” is a book. Those of you that have not read this book, just get the book. It’s 10 questions that John challenges us to make sure that our dream is bigger than us, that our dream actually will attract others to that dream, and that our dream really will go from success to significance. That’s what John’s after in this book on “Put Your Dream to the Test.” And by the way, if you have read the book and you really want to do a deep dive in a digital online course, we have at Maxwell leadership.com, we have a digital online course, I think it’s for $39.99, and you can go be a part of that. It’s about 3, 4 hours of John teaching it, and take that and get the book and make it an accompan. I’ll tell you what I’ll do, in fact, if you

Discussion on Success Secrets

Be a part of that Community. I’m really excited about this topic today, Chris. Both this week and next week, John digging into 10 things, and as he’s teaching these, I just, like you, we’ve both been with John in and around John for over two decades, almost two and a half decades if you want to feel old. I’ll tell you, I can think of a story, I can think of an application for every one of these that I’ve watched John over the years. So, I’m looking forward to jumping into this. I’m looking forward to discussing it with somebody I think is successful. I think you’re successful as a parent, as a leader, as a community guy, and, man, let’s talk about some secrets to success. It’s funny, as we were getting ready to get started, you and I were like, “What do we want to talk about?” And said, “Just remember we have a time limit. Jake’s keeping us on track.” What I love about this list is he starts with thinking, and you and I would both agree, and those that have been around John, his ability to think is on a level that makes me feel like I don’t even think right. And so, I’ve watched him do that. I’ve watched you do that over the years. Matter of fact, I often hear in the corporate world people go, “You know that book ‘How Successful People Think’? I wasn’t going to read that. I didn’t think it was going to be that good.” I got into it, and they’re like, “That’s one of my favorite books.” And so that is right there a tale of how much we need to think about thinking, if I can say it like that. Matter of fact, one other thing, you know, I do a lot of studying, and what’s relevant in Corporate America with people growing and learning, and from 2022, one of the top 10 things they’re looking for was the ability to think. Really, the ability to think was one of the top three. And so, I love that he starts this right here. And I want you to kind of unpack this because you’ve got to experience this, and then you do this as well. You have what we call an inner circle and then you have your outer circle. You learned it from John, and I think one of the reasons that John did this back in the day was to create a different way of thinking in order for him to be able to realize his dreams. Talk a little bit about that, walking through that journey with him. Why was that? Why do you do it? And how has that helped your thinking to be able to be successful?

Well, let me say this. I believe there are dreamers, there are thinkers, and then there’s action-oriented people. I’d call them actors, but with Hollywood and that feels like you’re acting like you’re something that you’re not. That’s not what I’m after. I’m talking about action-oriented people. And I’ll come back to dreams in just a minute. For YouTube, I’m going to come back to this book in just a moment. But I love that you talked about and highlighted John’s ability to think. Let me tell you something unique about John. John always says this, and he says it laughing but he’s dead serious. He says he is a communicator that teaches, not a teacher that communicates. And the reason that he wants to make that distinction is he says a communicator takes something that’s complex and makes it simple. An educator takes something simple and makes it complex. No offense educators, but I was in some of your classes and that’s legitimately true. Some many classes I went I was more confused after class than I was before class. But what John’s really saying is that to communicate effectively, to lead effectively, to do anything effectively, you’ve got to figure out how to break it down to where it is actionable. The only bridge between a dream and the bigness of a dream unfulfilled and actually seeing the dream come to pass, the bridge is thinking. Thinking it through, creating action items, and putting processed thinking into it. And so, for me, the way I think and the way John has taught me to think is to get people around you that will challenge your thoughts, that will make you think. You know, most people should say, “I was thinking, I thought, and here’s the results,” not, “I’m thinking.” They let that thought pass through their brain and the thought becomes reality rather than sitting with the thought, turning a thought into thinking, and that thinking come out with great revelation. That’s good. And so, I think what John did with this outer circle that you’re talking about, and this has happened in the last decade, John said, “You know what? My thinking is too stale, my files are too old, my way of doing things is too predictable. I’ve got to have some people that disrupt me.” And he went out and established an outer circle. And he loves to tell the story about Linda. And he’s very kind to me, but I kind of didn’t like the outer circle either because I was an inner circle guy. “Why do you need an outer circle?” he said, “Because y’all are making me too predictable. I’ve got to extend and expand my thinking.” And you do that expanded thinking by getting people that will stimulate new thought in you. So, you learned that from John, and now I’ve seen you apply that to your own leadership journey and your own principle. We know why the context is there. Maybe share with our listeners some of the things that you have learned from that. Maybe you’ve been challenged with, and what I love about it is that all of that thinking that happens, you’re not going to apply all that, right? You’re going to filter that. But you’re being challenged by somebody else’s perspective that maybe has thought bigger. Or I’ve heard you say all the time, “I’ve got to get around people that are thinking bigger than me, right? Where we want to go.” And we want the legacy of John. So, talk about maybe some things that you have taken away from those that you would say are in your outer circle to challenge your thinking.

So, you know, I think, again, I’m going to come back to this. I think it all starts with a dream. “Put Your Dream to the Test” is a book. Those of you that have not read this book, just get the book. It’s 10 questions that John challenges us to make sure that our dream is bigger than us, that our dream actually will attract others to that dream, and that our dream really will go from success to significance. That’s what John’s after in this book on “Put Your Dream to the Test.” And by the way, if you have read the book and you really want to do a deep dive in a digital online course, we have at Maxwellleadership.com. We have a digital online course, I think it’s for $39.99, and you can go be a part of that. It’s about 3-4 hours of John teaching it. And take that and get the book and make it an accomplice. I’ll tell you what I’ll do, in fact,

Leadership and Self-Perception

Wrong, you’re a good leader whether this doesn’t work or not. You are an accomplished, established, recognized leader whether this particular initiative is a failure or not. The weight that took off of me, podcast family, was unbelievable. I would rather dream big and struggle with feelings of inadequacy or dream small and struggle with overconfidence and cockiness. And I want you to know I’m going to challenge you that if your thinking is a little bit skewed, and Chris John talked about this, our perspective is changed by our thinking. My thinking that day to 24 hours later, 24 hours when I went, my leadership ability has nothing to do with the success or the failure of this thing. I have already established that I’m a good leader. So you know what I do now? I challenge some of you to do this. I wake up every morning in January. I’ve woken up and I look in the mirror and I go, “I’m a good leader. Mark Cole, you’re a good leader.” Some of you are trying something so big you need to remind yourself whether it’s a success or a lesson, you’re still a good leader. That’s great.

Importance of Perspective and Self-Affirmation

So back to his first point, how you think is everything. And if you didn’t hear that in Mark’s voice and his examples, then, uh, rewind and start over again because you need to hear that. Um, I want to skip over the next one, but before I do, you know, we talked a lot about dreams and John talks about number two of deciding upon your true dreams. I don’t want you to miss this comment that he made at the back end of this point. See, I think this hit me when I was listening to it. He said, man, if the things that you write down, he said write down 10 things that were foundational, like they were things that you remember when you were accomplished something, a dream. He used the judge, right, and pretzels on the playground, which both you and I and our team here had a little laugh. I thought this was key. He said if you think back and you write down this list of 10, if those things that you accomplished, those dreams you accomplished were a long time ago, those are foundational for you. If they are more recent, those should be motivational for you. My challenge for you that are listening is that if you’re not motivated by your dream, you better think about what your dreams are currently and what you want to accomplish in the recent and not just living off of what was in the foundation. Just wanted to share that with you because it grabbed me when I was listening to it.

Taking Action and Collaboration

Now I want to move us to the point number three because you talked about actors. You’re really talking about acting on our dreams, and we do need to be doers. We do need to take action. We’ve talked a lot about this at Maxwell leadership recently where, hey, we have to make decisions and move forward. To your point, it doesn’t… I remember you saying to me a couple months ago, we made a shift, and you said, hey, hey, Chris, um, I need you to go do this, but by the way, it’s a pretty big task. If it doesn’t work, that has no reflection on your leadership. And I was like, what are you talking about? But then listening to you right after, I now know where it came from your Outer Circle, which helped me get a little bit bigger. But here’s what I want… I want our listeners to hear from you because oftentimes when we have a dream, we think we’ve got to do this by ourselves. You are carrying a large weight on behalf of John’s mantle and the legacy that we all want to see. And you started talking to us about, hey, guys, I had this realization that this is my dream. It is our dream, but I don’t have to do it alone. And I want you to talk a little bit about that because you don’t have to take action alone on your dreams. There are people, there are teams, there are peers, there are family members, maybe there are founders around you that are going to help do that. What was that shift for you again? It was back almost kind of tied to number one where you were carrying this weight and then you’re like, no, no, no. So as we think about success and you have these dreams, we’ve got to take action, but we don’t have to take it all alone. Talk a little bit about that for us.

Yeah, you know, I’ve watched John Maxwell lead for so long as the visionary and I’ve known all of our life for as long as we’ve thought about what is life beyond John’s current influence. I’ve always known that we will never find another John Maxwell. He’s unique. He defies the law of leadership gravity, right? So I never put that on myself. I never felt the weight of having to be John. What I did though is I… how he led and how he single-handedly could change the direction of a leadership team with one 30-minute meeting. I put that weight on myself to say if one person can lead like that, then shouldn’t I be able to lead? And the answer is no. The answer is where we’re going and the mass and magnitude with which we’re carrying the future aspirations, it’s much bigger than one person, much bigger than even John. So it was a learning perspective for me and where it started going back to point number one, it started in my thinking because nobody knows what goes on right behind the eyes, right? I mean, the thoughts, the things we try to wrestle with and for years and years.

Wrong, but Right: Leadership and Perspective

“You’re a good leader, whether this doesn’t work or not. You are an accomplished, established, recognized leader, whether this particular initiative is a failure or not. The weight that took off of Me podcast family was unbelievable. I would rather dream big and struggle with feelings of inadequacy or dream small and struggle with overcompetence and cockiness. And I want you to know I’m going to challenge you that if you’re thinking is a little bit skewed, and Chris John talked about this, our perspective is changed by our thinking. My thinking that day, to 24 hours later, 24 hours when I went, my leadership ability has nothing to do with the success or the failure of this thing. I have already established that I’m a good leader. So, you know what I do now? I challenge some of you to do this. I wake up every morning in January. I’ve woken up, and I look in the mirror, and I go, ‘I’m a good leader. Mark Cole, you’re a good leader.’ Some of you are trying something so big you need to remind yourself whether it’s a success or a lesson, you’re still a good leader. That’s great.”

Reflecting on Dreams and Achievements

“So, back to his first point, how you think is everything. And if you didn’t hear that in Mark’s voice and his examples, then rewind and start over again because you need to hear that. I want to skip over the next one, but before I do, you know, we talked a lot about dreams, and John talks about number two of deciding upon your true dreams. I don’t want you to miss this comment that he made at the back end of this point. CU, I think this is… this hit me when I was listening to it. He said, ‘Man, if the things that you write down,’ he said, ‘write down 10 things that were foundational, like they were things that you remember when you were accomplished something, a dream.’ He used the judge right in pretzels on the playground, which both you and I and our team here had a little laugh. I thought this was key. He said, ‘If you think back and you write down this list of 10, if those things that you accomplished, those dreams you accomplished were a long time ago, those are foundational for you. If they are more recent, those should be motivational for you.'”

Empowering Others and Collaborative Leadership

“My challenge for you that are listening is that if you’re not motivated by your dream, you better think about what your dreams are currently and what you want to accomplish. Um, in the recent and not just living off of what was in the foundation. Just wanted to share that with you because it grabbed me when I was listening to it. Now, I want to move us to point number three because you talked about actors, you’re really talking about acting on our dreams, and we do need to be doers. We do need to take action. We’ve talked a lot about this at Maxwell leadership recently where, hey, we have to make decisions and move forward. To your point, it doesn’t… I remember you saying to me a couple of months ago, we made a shift, and you said, ‘Hey, hey, Chris, um, I need you to go do this, but by the way, it’s a pretty big task. If it doesn’t work, that has no reflection on your leadership,’ and I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ But then listening to you right after, I now know where it came from, your Outer Circle, which helped me get a little bit bigger.”

Understanding Collective Effort and Leadership

“But here’s what I want… I want our listeners to hear from you because often times when we have a dream, we think we’ve got to do this by ourselves. You are carrying a large weight on behalf of John’s mantle and the legacy that we all want to see. And you started talking to us about, ‘Hey, guys, I had this realization that this is my dream. It is our dream, but I don’t have to do it alone.’ And I want you to talk a little bit about that because, um, you don’t have to take action alone on your dreams. There are people, there are teams, there are peers, there are family members, maybe there are founders around you that are going to help do that. What was that shift for you again? It was back almost kind of tied to number one where you were carrying this weight, and then you’re like, ‘No, no, no.'”

The Power of Persistence and Hard Work

“So, as we think about success and you have these dreams, we’ve got to take action, but we don’t have to take it alone. Talk a little bit about that for us. Yeah, you know, I’ve watched John Maxwell lead for so long as the visionary and I’ve known all of our li… I mean, for as long as we’ve thought about what is life beyond John’s current influence, I’ve always known that we will never find another John Maxwell. He’s unique, he defies the law of gravity of leadership gravity, right? So I never put that on myself. I never felt the weight of having to be John. What I did, though, is I… how he led and how he single-handedly could change the direction of a leadership team with one 30-minute meeting, I put that weight on myself to say if one person can lead like that, then shouldn’t I be able to lead? And the answer is no.”

Cultivating Drive and Purpose

“The answer is where we’re going and the mass and magnitude with which we’re carrying the future aspirations. It’s much bigger than one person, much bigger than even John. So it was a learning perspective for me and where it started going back to point number one, it started in my thinking because nobody knows what goes on right behind the eyes, right? I mean, the thoughts, the things we try to wrestle with. And for years and years and years, I would try to tell myself I should be able to do that. That’s on me. I had to change the behavior, and that began to live itself out in actions to where now this year, I do much less in our company with strategy and finance than I did just 12 months ago.”

Persistence and Achieving Success

“It’s been a full change to me with empowering somebody else that I even report to. I mean, tell me what I can spend and what I can’t spend out of my own company because when you find that you need other people, you have to empower them. And as senior leaders here’s a real big understanding for us: when you empower somebody and something, that means you serve them to be successful. We’ll talk about this another time, Chris, but by now hopefully many of you have seen the boys in the boat, the movie that came out for Christmas, great movie, great movie about one person on a team that gets loses his focus, that lost focus can impact the entire team. It’s not the effort, the effort was there, he just wasn’t lost, walked in, his mind was elsewhere. We as teams need to understand, as a leader, we’re

Reflections on Success and Persistence

The speaker reflects on the journey of climbing and influence with John over the past 10-12 years. They express the need to feel momentum to reach the top and discuss the challenge of maintaining persistence after reaching the apex.

“The 10-12 years of climbing and influence with John I had to feel like I had momentum to get there, my greatest challenge, Chris, is when you get to the top of something, when you reach the Apex, how do you keep that persistence going? Sure, most people get tired of the journey. I never get tired of the journey. I get tired of the success, the accomplishment. There’s not a new challenge to go, so I think some of that’s genetic, some of it’s training myself to not stay in a mindset of prolonged losing, um, and others is just finding a new challenge.”

They discuss the importance of resetting one’s mindset after failure and finding new challenges to maintain persistence.

“You developed a learned behavior to when that failure has happening, and we know it’s going to happen, it happens to all of us, to reset that mindset, to reset your thinking, uh, coming back to again the one first one that John talked about.”

Key Principles for Success

The speaker mentions five principles shared by John for achieving success and realizing dreams: how you think is everything, deciding upon your future and true dreams and goals, taking action, never stop learning, and being persistent.

“So, as we get ready to wrap up, I want to throw this question to you. So, John gave us five things today that can help you be successful in realizing your dreams. How you think is everything. Decide upon your future and your true dreams and goals. Take action. Never stop learning. We didn’t even talk about this, and this is one of our core values as an organization. We decided to skip this one because it would be the whole session. And then finally, be persistent. Work hard.”

Significance vs. Success

The speaker reflects on the difference between success and significance, emphasizing the importance of significance in helping others accomplish their goals.

“At Maxwell Leadership, we believe that you can and will be successful. But for us, it’s really moving you from being successful to significant. And what are we doing to drive significant in our community and our family and our lives?”

They discuss how success is about personal accomplishments, while significance involves helping others achieve their goals.

“In these five, which one of these do you feel like you lean on more than the other that takes you and maybe our listeners or those that are viewing Us on YouTube to that level of significance?”

Personal Reflections

The speaker shares their personal perspective on the principles, expressing a preference for never stop learning and persistence, highlighting the importance of consistent effort over time.

“I’m torn between never stop learning because I just believe that’s a Difference Maker but you know what you can learn and never turn it into action so I would be and this is not just because it’s the last one it’s about being persistent.”

They emphasize the impact of persistence on inspiring others and driving long-term success.

“John says that the scale of impact that he has now is all because of consistency. He says it like this consistency compounds persistency consistency it doesn’t just sound the same a lot of ways it is the same.”

Engaging with Audience Feedback

The speaker acknowledges a user comment praising their podcast and shares a special offer for their digital online course. They express gratitude for the support of their global audience.

“Let me remind you I’m kind of impressed with this deal that I gave you guys today $399 for the digital online course at Maxwell leadership.com but if you’ll go through our podcast portal go to the show notes we’ll have a link there for you and you’ll be able to get this digital online course uh for $79 instead of $399 also pick up the book and Chris I think I think we’re able to do that.”

They conclude by expressing appreciation for their audience and their commitment to providing leadership guidance.

“Ethel we’re so proud to have you in the podcast family all of you that listen from around the world we’re proud of you thankful for you here we are we’re here because everyone deserves to be led well.”