The Better You: A Comprehensive Guide to Self-Enhancement | John Maxwell

Introduction to Growth and Development

Are you enjoying this growth day, huh? Is it just a blast? I mean, I’m sitting here today, and I’m listening to the speakers, and I’m hanging in here and taking notes just like you are. And I’m thinking, what a wonderful thing to be able to spend a day with like-minded people who want to grow, develop themselves, improve themselves, and get better.

The Three Pillars of Potential

I was talking to you about the potential question: how far can I go? And we started talking about how do we build out this potential path in the area of growth. And I shared with you three things this morning. I shared with you that I’m aware of the three pillars of potential. This is the foundation, remember awareness. You’ve got to be aware. You’ve got to be able to develop your strengths, and you’ve got to be able to make the right choices.

Continual Investment in Personal Development

Then the second thing I talked about is you need to continually invest in your personal development, your personal growth. And then I talked about maximizing. You’ve got to maximize your mentoring. I gave the John Wooden Story, the five pages, and you got it. So let’s go to number four.

Following Your Heart

Can I talk to you about just for a few moments about following your heart? And I have a little phrase in praxis after I say, “I follow my heart.” And basically, my phrase is, “My heart knows.” My heart really does know.

Um, I think there’s something about growth and authenticity and having a real sense of being in touch with yourself that’s really essential for your development. You know, authenticity doesn’t guarantee success, but without it, it guarantees failure. And I see a lot of people that have never been authentic or real or come to grips with where they are. And there’s something that beautiful about just… there are times when you have to follow your heart in your growth because your heart knows. Your heart knows how you’re wired, and your heart knows things that other people don’t realize.

I can still remember when I was beginning to write books, obviously, I was a rookie. I was very green. There were so many things I didn’t know. And I remember I told my publisher I wanted to write leadership books, and they discouraged me. They said, “You don’t want to write leadership books. Only 8% of the people read leadership books. And so if you write leadership books, you’ve lost 92% of your audience.” They said, “You don’t really want to write leadership books. You want to go broader than leadership.” And I said, “But my heart’s leadership. And that’s what I want to train leaders.” And so I have to write leadership books. And they said, “Well, you can write leadership books, but honestly, if you do, you just won’t sell a lot of—”

[Laughter]

“It, 36 million.”

[Music]

Later, I’m getting out of the author pile. Huh, are we okay? Huh? And I was willing to have not very many people have my book because I just had to follow my heart. Are you with me? I would rather follow my heart and be small than lose my authenticity and my realness and be big. Because if I’m not who I am and I’m big, it’s not who I am. And there’s going to be a day that I give account to God for my giftedness. But God’s never going to hold me accountable for gifts I don’t have. And he’s never going to hold me accountable for dreams I don’t have. And so there’s something about listing. Well, in fact, the publisher also told me, because I like lists, and they said, “You write with too many lists. You just have numbers everywhere.” And I do. Every chapter, I’ve got numbers. I mean, I just have lists. And they said, “You can’t sell books if you write lists. People don’t want lists.” I said, “Well, I want lists. In fact, if somebody asked me, they’d say, ‘John, what’s one of your favorite things?’ I’d say, ‘One of my favorite things is making a list.’ I just like lists. Are you with me?” And they said, “Well, you can’t have lists.” I said, “Well, I’m going to do lists. I’m going to do leadership.” And I’m just talking about following your— I remember 11 years ago when we started the John Maxwell team, the coaching company, and I had most of my friends and advisers said, “Don’t do this. You don’t want to do this. You’ve spent all your life building a reputation of integrity and leadership and authenticity. And if you start a coaching company, you’re going to get some screw-ups in there. And they’re going to do something stupid. And then it’s going to be, ‘Well, John Maxwell coach murdered somebody.’ You know what I mean?” And I said, “Well, that isn’t good. That really isn’t good.”

“That could be a little blunt there.”

“And I had to work through it. I had to work through it. And one day I said, ‘No, no, I’m going to give my name to you. And I’m going to give my name to you because I think that people deserve a shot. People deserve a chance. And if my name will help you get into a door, if my name will help you get a client, then why shouldn’t I help you? Because my name is John, and I’m your friend.’ Thank you, John.” And that’s who I am. Now, I’m talking about following my heart. And I have a whole bunch of people said, “John, you’re going to—”

Overcoming Doubts and Embracing Risk

I haven’t regretted it, by the way. We’re in our 11th year, at 48,000 coaches. And there have been maybe, I don’t know, four or five screw-ups. We’ve had a few, but we don’t have many. And you know what I found out? The other coaches go pounce on the screw-up, and they’re saying, “Don’t mess us up. You’re messing ours.” And I didn’t. So it’s so fun to watch my coaches just slap them around. You go get him. Just go get it. And I haven’t had to police anything. But you’ve got to follow your heart.

Pursuing Transformation

I can remember after we trained 5 million leaders in every country of the world in a 19-year period. I can so remember when I sat down with my board, and they said, “Let’s just celebrate. Have a big party. And let’s call it a day.” And I said, “Well, I think there’s something more that we need to be doing in leadership.” And they said, “What is it?” I said, “I think we need to do transformation. I think we need to teach trained leaders how to be transformational leaders. And I think we ought to go try to bring transformation into countries.” And they looked at me and they said, “Well, do you know how that’s

going to work?” And I looked at my board, I said, “No, I don’t. I don’t. I have a vision for it, but I don’t know how it’s going to work.”

Embracing Action

And they said, “Well, can you define transformation?” I said, “Well, I can’t do that, either.” But I said, “Can I tell you something? I’ll know it when I see it.” And I went to Guatemala with some of the players, and we started doing transformation. And that’s when we learn values. And we slowly, now, don’t miss this. Don’t miss this because let me tell you something. You can’t think your way into greatness. You have to act your way.

Wow. I call this action attraction. And what I’m saying is very simple: to reach your potential, you have to move. And the word traction has the word action in it. You there has to be a movement. And let me tell you something, in reaching your potential, there are times when you will

Introduction

The speaker begins by emphasizing the importance of movement for clarity and opportunities. They highlight the need to actively pursue goals and opportunities rather than waiting for them to come while sitting idly.

Action and Opportunities

They stress the significance of taking action to attract opportunities and resources. The speaker, identified as Mark Cole, mentions filling in for John Maxwell and the importance of moving to initiate progress.

Vision and Movement

The discussion transitions to the clarity of vision and the necessity of movement for it to become clearer. They emphasize that opportunities and resources only come when one is actively moving towards their goals.

Growth and Dreams

The speaker encourages listeners not to despise small dreams and to start with what they have. They discuss the progression from good to great ideas and the importance of embracing small beginnings.

Leadership Mindset

The speaker discusses the importance of having an abundance mindset in leadership, emphasizing that leaders see more and ahead of others. They share personal anecdotes to illustrate the concept of abundance in leadership.

Conclusion

The speaker concludes by highlighting the necessity of an abundance mindset for effective leadership and shares a personal experience from McDonald’s to emphasize the concept further. They underline the importance of abundance over scarcity in leadership.

This segment covers various aspects of personal growth, leadership mindset, and the importance of action in achieving goals.

Personal Anecdote: Persistence and Abundance Mindset

The speaker shares a personal anecdote about visiting McDonald’s and encountering a situation where the staff couldn’t fulfill a request for a Diet Coke. Despite initial obstacles, the speaker persists and eventually convinces the staff to provide a cup of ice. This experience inspires the speaker to adopt an attitude of “yes you can” and become a catalyst for others’ dreams.

Abundance Mindset in Action

The speaker reflects on the importance of maintaining an abundance mindset, where there’s always an answer and room for improvement. They emphasize the need to believe in better alternatives and solutions, even when faced with challenges.

Pursuing Dreams: Old Course Golfing

The speaker recounts a story about attempting to play golf at the historic Old Course in Scotland. Despite initial denials, the speaker persistently negotiates with the steward, highlighting the possibility of solutions and their readiness to seize the opportunity. Through their persistence and abundance mindset, they ultimately achieve their dream of playing on the Old Course.

Embracing Trade-offs for Growth

Transitioning to the concept of trade-offs, the speaker discusses the necessity of giving up something today to attain greater success tomorrow. They emphasize that growth often requires stepping out of one’s comfort zone and making sacrifices. The speaker encourages embracing trade-offs as a path to reaching one’s potential.

Conclusion

The segment concludes with the speaker reflecting on the relentless pursuit of goals, the importance of an abundance mindset, and the willingness to make sacrifices for personal growth and success. They stress the significance of embracing challenges and believing in possibilities to achieve one’s full potential.

Trade-offs and Prioritization

Every few months I have to make another trade-off, and by the way, the higher you go, the harder it is to make the trade-off because you got more. I love people who say, you know, when we started, we gave up everything, and I said, of course you did, you didn’t have anything to give up, good Lord, you had nothing. But as you go higher, you have absolutely more. I’ve made seven major career moves in my life, and five of them I went for a lot less money, a lot less prestige. But I went because there was potential there. And remember this, you don’t leave something, you go to something. Don’t do if you leave something, guess what, you keep turning around, yeah, you keep looking back and saying, oh my gosh, that, wow, I lost some friends and gosh, I lost my title, lost my parking place.

Prioritization and Activity vs. Accomplishment

Number seven, I prioritize very well. To reach your potential, you have to continually prioritize. And here’s why: activity is not necessarily accomplishment. And so, therefore, when we’re in activity, you know, and so somebody tells me they’re busy, it really doesn’t mean a lot to me. There’s a lot of people that are busy and they’re as ineffective as can be. It’s not how hard you work, it’s how smart you work. And when you read my book on developing the leader within you 2.0, man, I talk about this. I talk about the three Rs: what’s required of me, what gives me my greatest return, and what gives me my greatest reward. You got to line those three Rs up together. And when you line those three Rs up together, it becomes absolutely huge to reach my potential.

Return on Failure and Developing Leaders

Number eight, I know how to get a return on failure. I realize that in failure, there is something that gives me a return if I know how to get it. Wow. Number nine, I develop leaders. I develop people around me that can apply and multiply. Do you know how proud I am to sit in this conference over here on the edge of the front row and watch all these people come and teach on personal growth and development and to realize that this incredible team of leaders that we’re building and developing? And it’s so wonderful, honestly. I’m hanging in, but they don’t need me. They want to become. You do. Sometimes they’ll say that leader is so amazing, they’re irreplaceable. Can I tell you something? If you’re irreplaceable, you’re not a good leader. Your goal isn’t to be irreplaceable. Your goal is to be replaceable. Your goal is to equip and train people. I used to tell my staff all the time, your goal is to I’m going to hire you to do this job, and it’s your job to work yourself out of this job. And if you work yourself out of this job, I’ll give you another one. But if you don’t work yourself out of the job, I’m going to take it away from you. We all want to train people, develop people, equip people, and then watch them run and watch them go and watch them develop.

Faith and Reaching Potential

And one more, number 10, and I won’t stay here long because this is kind of faith, but number 10 is I’ve always had God room in my life. I’ve always had a place for God to do exceeding abundantly more than I could do. And I had a mentor when I was very young, and I’m a person of faith, but I had a mentor when I was very young who said, “John, I want you to attempt something so big that if it ever happens, people will look at you and say, ‘I know you, you’re not that good,’ and they’ll give God the credit.” And that’s what I’ve tried to live. I’ve tried to live my life. And what we’re seeing in transformation of nations is just absolutely huge, and I’m so excited about it. But I try to have God. And by the way, when you hit your potential, when you hit your, when you get to the ceiling of your potential, you are on the floor of God room. You understand that you’re just now touching where he stands, and he’ll take you to a whole new level.

Words for Thought

I shared in part one, real quick review here, I shared words, one of the things I do when I’m getting ready to create thought is on a piece of paper, I put a statement which is kind of a thesis statement, and then I put one-word thoughts underneath of it that kind of are like connect the dots back to that statement. And last week in the lesson, and by the way, you can go back and pick up that lesson if you want to, I gave you five words. Let me give them to you now. And number one was humility, and basically what I taught in humility because this is so important is humility, it moves us from the center to the side. When we’re not humble, we’re in the middle of everything, it’s all about us. And what happens with a crisis is that it moves all of us, and all of a sudden, we realize just like John Kennedy, oh God, your ocean is so big and my boat is so small. All of a sudden, we realize that we don’t have answers, and we’re not quite as good as we thought we were. And humility is a beautiful virtue because it gets me off of me and thinking about me and what are my needs and puts me to the side. And I begin to think about you and how can I be your helper and your keeper. So the first word was humility. It’s a very anchoring word during a crisis. The second was about adaptability. If you really want to do well in a crisis and prepare yourself for tomorrow, you just have to be able to adjust and be flexible. I talked about that in one of my later books, “Leadershift.” And I talked about the fact that if you can shift well, you really go through the storm much, much better. And I talked in that lesson last week about detours because what a crisis does is a crisis brings detours in our life. Whenever you think of a crisis, here’s what I know: how you did things is not how you do them now. The journey you took isn’t the same journey. In fact, you go to the path that you know so well and the road that you traveled so much, and what do you see? You see a detour sign. You go, oh my gosh, I want to go that way. But I got to go that way. And so we get on the detour tour. And now the problem is, my problem is whenever I’m on a detour, I can hardly wait to get off of it. I want to get, you know, all through that, you know, let me get through that maze and get back to where I know I’m going to be able to get going on this detour tour. Don’t be in such a hurry to get off of it. You literally are going to see

things you’ve never seen. You’re going to understand things you’ve never understood. Take your time, go slow on the detour tour because I can tell you, I can promise you, there are things you need to see, things you need to know that will be opportunities for you in your future. I know that for a fact. So many times our setbacks become springboards because we just have to go see something, think differently, experience something totally opposite of what we’ve known, and all of a sudden, we think, oh my, there’s value in that detour. So adaptability is a huge word of maximizing your potential now so you can be sure to seize the future tomorrow. The third word I gave was a little phrase, and that’s open-handedness. And I taught in that lesson last week about the fact we’re either closed-handed or we’re open-handed. And if we’re closed-handed, my friend Mark Victor Hansen shared this one time with me, he said, “John, if you have a scarcity mindset and you just have your hand closed and you’re trying to hold on to what you got because it’s the only thing that you got and you don’t want anyone else to have it,” he said, “every time an opportunity comes by that closed hand, you miss the opportunity because you’re holding on to what you have that’s so important that you’re not willing to let go and see something that could be bigger or better.” And we just need to be open-handed. My wife went out this morning and got our kind of carry-out breakfast. We’re still not able to go to restaurants down here in Southern Florida. And so when she came back and we were having our breakfast together, a little carry-out, she said, you know, I gave the people there an extra-large tip today. And I said, good, I’m proud of you, honey, that’s exactly what we’re supposed to be doing. Every time I go out, I double triple tip. I mean, there’s a real loss out there in that business community in those restaurants. And they’re not getting the income they have. And I can’t make up the whole difference, but I’d like to make up a little. And open-handed is a huge way of generous spirit to have during this.

Reflection and Discussion

The fourth word I talked about was just having discussions, which is nothing more than sitting down with other people and having discussions about what are you learning from the experience and shared thinking. Shared discussions just really make us all better. If you have a good thought and I have a good thought, we share those thoughts, we both have a better thought because we came together. So I talked about the value of discussions. And then fifthly, I said there’s Great Value in reflection and asking questions. Asking questions as you reflect because reflection takes experience and turns it into insight. Now I’m about to give you, I think it is five more words in this lesson, but I’m going to give you some more words that’ll help maximize your potential before I do that, though.

Importance of Coaching

I’ve never seen a time, you know, I think you know, I have a coaching company, John Maxwell Team, and we have 33 coaches in 162 countries in the world. We’re the largest fastest-growing coaching company in the world, and I’ve never in my life seen a time where coaching was more essential than right now. People are looking for answers, they’re looking for somebody to come alongside them, help them, give them guidance, coach them a little bit. And so we have an incredible certification program for our coaches that really takes them and gives them the skills that they need to not only help other people during a crisis like this but to really have a skill set that they can develop an entire coaching career. We have a whole bunch of people, thousands of people, that it’s become a career for them and they’re entrepreneurial and they’re just growing and developing. And it’s our joy to certify them.

Self-Reflection and Starting with Oneself

Three points where he asks questions of himself: Why should I start with myself? And so let’s just jump right into those. The first one he talks about the difference between a travel agent versus a tour guide. And so I would love for you to be a tour guide for us a little bit today. He says when we start with ourselves, it gives us experience and confidence and integrity and influence. So based on your history and your life and you starting and working on yourself where did you start in those areas in the ways of experience and confidence integrity and influence and developing those and what did you learn along the way that you can share with somebody who is just taking those first few steps? Well again, I really will tell you that I have found in life that making the decision inside yourself before you start a business before you start a new job before you stand on stage and give a public address a public speech for the first time right where before you do any of before you run a marathon before you do anything you’ve got to settle it in your mind is it going to be or is it not? Are there a set of circumstances that will stop you from the journey that you’re setting out to accomplish? It’s called counting the cost, right? I have spent much of my life before I start something counting the cost. My daughter right now is she’s really working hard to get some qualifications for a particular school she wants to get into. She’s a junior in high school and she is so eaten up with the sense of of I’ve got to do it, I’ve got to do it that she’s missing a very important part of her life. And so I looked at her and I said Macy what’s the worst thing that could happen and she said I won’t get into this particular school and I went that’s the worst thing and she said yeah I said you’re going to be perfect it doesn’t matter and she said but it does matter to me I said good keep it that way but don’t let yourself not count the cost of what could happen because if you do all the work that you’re doing right now and you miss it by a point or you miss it by a person are you going to feel like everything you’ve done up to this point iste was a waste and she said yes I said then we got to recalculate because everything you’re doing right now is not a waste and if you do not get in you still will be a better student a better person because of all the work that you’re putting in it’s the same thing here Trac for me when John was talking today h i I felt like the times where I started a business initiative not just started growing myself we’ve talked a lot about growth we started out our mind in your comments about growth but imagine starting a business for the first time well you don’t have experience you don’t have confidence you don’t have integrity and you don’t have influence you have never done it before I went to school many of you know this I went to little small Christian College called Jackson College of Ministries they did not teach business so when there was some I had been running John’s businesses for 10 years as a vice president or something else somebody above me that had more education more experience more confidence more more more more more than me I’ll never forget the first time he looked at me and said hey I think I want you to be the CEO and I went I’ve never ran a business before he said what have you been doing the last 10 years I said running parts of a business he said so running parts of a business is not running a business well well I guess it is isn’t it immediately by changing my perspective I begin to understand let me give you a couple of other things I love this why is it Tracy you’ve started businesses MH why is it that people don’t start why is it that you and I and that’s a rhetorical question because I’ve got three reasons I think and then I want to hear what you say good I believe the reason that people don’t start improving their life I believe the reason that people don’t start a new business I believe the reason people won’t start betting on themselves to join a growth app or to do something like that I believe it stems from what I think is three dominant excuses one is the fear of failure fear of embarrassment fear of being revealed as a poser it’s fear it’s fear that’s why when John and I and he’s working on it right now but several years ago I was about a year ago I was giving an interview to somebody that was writing a book on the dirty FW I loved it it’s the fa failure fa failure I bet that cut you off guard yes it did cut you off guard and Amy I love you out there she’s a podcast listener and and um and I loved it immediately the fear of failure the dirty f word we think failure is the dirty f word when really it’s not no in fact it’s what caused John giving him a conversation.

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Encouraging Resilience and Growth

That Amy and I had in interviewing that book, to where John came up with the concept getting a return on your failure. If we would start something knowing that the worst thing we could do is to get an invaluable lesson for the next thing we were going to start, right? We would remove the fear of failure that stops us from starting. What’s the second thing that stops us from starting? I believe it is being uncomfortable. Nobody wants to be uncomfortable, and starting something is always uncomfortable, so we don’t start because of fear. We don’t start because we don’t want to be uncomfortable, right? And yet, any person that’s done anything worth repeating or worth creating a legacy around had to start and be uncomfortable along the way. I think the third reason that people don’t start is because of loneliness.

Now, let’s talk about what we’re talking about today. So whether you want to start a business, whether you want to start a new initiative, whether you want to start something new in your life, or whether you just want to start making yourself better, look at fear and fear of failure as going to give you a return. Look at being uncomfortable as your friend, and look at loneliness as a chance to get in touch with yourself. Because I have found in my loneliness, the only person in my loneliness is me, and I have found I’m a pretty good friend to myself. I have found friendship with myself. I have found acceptance with myself when everybody else, all the noise, all the other relationships moved out of the way because I was starting something new. I began to fall in love with myself. I’m a pretty good guy to myself. I’m a pretty good friend to myself. But everybody else’s distractions help cause me to lose my way in the identity that I really need to be in touch with. And so those things I believe we need to eliminate and lean into so that we can start more effectively.

If you are driving or you’re working out and you didn’t have a chance to take notes, I hope that you will print out these, and that’s not in the notes, but I hope you will take notes and onto the notes that we given to you because those right there are powerful. And before I move to the next one, I also want to highlight what you said, what your advice was to Macy, your daughter, highlighting number one, the fear of failure, looking like a poser, what other people are going to think of you. I like what you did there because you had her look at what her worst-case scenario was. And I think a lot of people, I don’t know if you want to dive into that a little bit more or just expand on it just a little bit. But I think some people would be nervous to hear you say that, “Hey, what if you don’t make it, Macy? And then what? Then what are you going to do?” And then do you have a plan B? Do you have a second tier? Do you have a… Some people set up this high ideal of what they’re shooting for, and if they miss it, there’s no second plan, then everything is lost. And so what was your advice to Macy? What is your advice to our podcast listeners, too? Is there a second tier of if I… You know, that old saying, if I shoot for the moon, at least I land among the stars. What is that if I miss the moon, if I miss my ideal, if Macy misses her school? What is your advice to her for when if she… If she were to…to miss it, her worst-case scenario?

Well, so again, let me say this. I’m a law of navigation guy. I’ve said that before in this podcast. John says of all the leaders he’s had work alongside him that I exercise the law of navigation a leader must chart the course. I exercise that better than anyone that’s ever worked alongside of him. So I’m a chart the course kind of guy, right? That’s my bent right there. Therefore, it does not intimidate me or disappoint me to consider the cost and the difficulties and the setbacks along the way. In fact, it energizes me, so that when I hit them, I’m already thinking of a workaround because I’ve already calculated. I told Macy, I said, “Macy, I said, if you were to set a goal of 60, you wanted to get $60 at the end of a day after a long hard day of work and you got 65, would you be excited?” She said yes. I said, “What if the next day, you set a goal for 100 and you got $85, would you be excited?” She went, “No.” And I went, “Whoa, whoa, wait. You got 65 one day, you got 85 the next day, and the next day, with more, you would not be excited because the goal is more important or the progress is more important?” She said, “Well, it’s the progress.” I said, “Well, you didn’t just answer it that way. Yeah, you answered as if the goal is the most important thing rather than progress.” And I said, “Now, Macy, if you spend 2 years trying to get into… It’s Emory University, by the way. If anybody’s out there at Emory and listens to the podcast, help me get my Cole. Cole is her name. This plug has been brought to you. I’m just kidding. I’m just kidding. She really wants to get into an establishment because of where she wants to go. Sorry for putting that out there. But she, um, and I said, “If you do all this work that’s required because this is a highly respectable institution, and you do all this work and you don’t make it, is that worse than not doing the work at all and getting into some secondary school?” Mm-hmm. And she went, “No.” I said, “So then, therefore, the goal that is pressing you to work harder because a lesser goal would make you work less is still an admirable goal because now you’re going to be able to hit something greater than you would.” I know that somebody needed to hear that because I think a lot of people shoot for the 100, and if they hit 85, they are disappointed in themselves and they feel like a failure. I know people need to hear that. It’s been me before because I get caught up with the goal.

So, we have a couple more. I just feel like my next question I was going to ask, “How do you mentor yourself?” And I feel like you just sort of shared that with us, which I love so much. I would like to talk to you a minute with Maxwell today on developing yourself, growing yourself because really what I am is I’m in the people development business, pretty much. I walk into people’s lives, find out where they are, and then through serving and adding value to them, hopefully, help them get better. That’s what I do. I’m glad you’re with me on Minute with Maxwell because in about a minute, I can give you a thought or two that would help you to develop yourself because I think most people would like to get better. In fact, if you really don’t want to get

better, you can just turn Minute with Maxwell off because this is what Minute with Maxwell is all about, helping you get better. What we have to understand about developing ourselves and getting better is that it doesn’t take brilliance, and it doesn’t take a lot of time, and it doesn’t even take a lot of effort, but it must be intentional. That’s the word I want to implant in your mind for a moment. The fact that you don’t get better automatically. You only get better because you intentionally make a decision to get better. And here’s my word for you today, Minute with Maxwell. Here’s how this works. You have to go from being a person of good intentions to a person of good actions. That’s the great separator. To develop yourself, you’ve got to get out of the intending world and get into the doing world. In fact, your good intentions are good intentions, but they’re worthless. Totally worthless. The most overrated phrase in the world is good intentions. I know all kind of people. They have good intentions, but they never do good because they didn’t act upon what they knew. So, if you want to develop yourself and you want to get better, just act on what you’ve already expressed that you want to do. The moment you quit talking about it and start doing it, now you’ve got something. I had a friend named Randy one time who came to me and said, “John, your talk talks and your walk talks, but your walk talks a lot louder than your talk talks.” That’s true. Become a person of action today.

So, let’s share some ways of how to become more resilient, and I’ve kind of put it in the title. I want you thinking about yourself for sure, but this is something I think leaders can really teach to your point about teach others. You’re going to see people that react in different ways, some positively, some negatively, in the dynamics, the circumstances that are going on around them. So, how can we help them? And number one is to cultivate, develop a growth mindset. If you’re not familiar with mindset and Carol Dweck’s work on that about a fixed or a growth mindset, you can, and I think we have another podcast on that. But the growth mindset is really a person who believes that I can get better. My intelligence is not fixed, my abilities are not fixed, they can grow. And you think about if you’re

Growing with a Growth Mindset

Continuing to grow and improve your skills, your abilities, uh if you embrace that growth mindset, that when you face these challenges. Um, you know, I was, I think I shared on the podcast not too long ago about I was going through a really hard time, uh, a lot of expectations on me, a lot of demands and I just thought, why is it so hard? I just thought maybe I should just quit, maybe I’m in the wrong line and then it hit me that this is what resilience is about in the statement from Jim Rohn that said stop wishing things were easier wish you were better and that to me is the growth mindset it could be hard for a moment but if you’re growing and learning you’ll get better and and you’ll come through it and that’s that’s what I want the growth mindset to mean if if someone has a fixed mindset and believes that they can’t grow and improve um it’s going to be very difficult for them to to be resilient and and to lead through certain challenges and times and we talk a lot about having this growth mindset versus a goal mindset and and I love the fact that man if we’re going to be resilience it starts with oursel that aligns with all the principles that we teach but you got to be growing in that every single day well number two and this is something that man I I I want everybody to just really listen in here because I think this is so important no matter what level you lead practice self-care okay so number two how do we develop resilience in yourself and others practice self-care you have to take care of yourself in order to be resilient that includes uh enough sleep. I’m not going to give you a certain number of hours because it’s just enough for you personally what what do you need but you probably need more than you think probably need more than you think uh are you eating well are you exercising uh are you taking breaks when you when you need I know that the older I get I can’t imagine what it’s like for you but there are times that I have to just be like do I need to like do I need to go take a nap right do I need to take a little power nap I but man it make and even sometimes when I’m you know at home on the weekends or even I take a nap like man that was awesome but you’re right we probably need more than we are aware of but you got to take care of yourself and when you prioritize your self-care and what that looks like um and you you’ll be amazed at how you’re able to handle stress and challenges a lot differently yes and I didn’t see that coming but I complet for those that maybe aren’t watching on YouTube and are listening Perry is still baffled by that comment he will talk to me about that later he will hold me accountable actually like that was that was really clever which doesn’t normally happen by you so I love it okay self-care this is personal taking U practicing selfcare is really something I’ve struggled with I get busy I’m I’m focused I am running hard I’m traveling it’s just so tempting to not get up and do the things you talked about you know we joke about you know the airline says put your mask on first that is really good advice you’re no good to anyone going through the tough and difficult challenges of your business of your life it’s your home you’re no good to anyone if you’re not taking care of you so it starts with um the the rest and how you treat yourself um highly totally believe that what you said was exactly right there and let me just also exercise is extremely important I know you’re a big Advocate on getting your steps and so whether it’s walking whether it’s doing something exercise under the the the weight that we carry as human beings and leaders I just would encourage you as you think about the self-care to be active in some way and you’ll be amazed at how that helps reduce the stress and makes you more resilient was that a pun you said the weight we carry that was that’s good you’re on your game I am well you got me focused now uh number three we would think about being a person more resilient and teaching resilience was to build a support system so you think about having taking care of self-care but is a support system for you having a network of um you know supportive colleagues people that we bounce things off of our team acts like that a lot do I have mentors do I have friends uh we like you said ear we cope with a lot of stress a lot of things that are on us um I need people around me I need to be able to share I need to be able to talk about that uh are there people that offer you encouragement that that look we often talk about I know I teach a lot lately on the inner circle do I have people that I can lean on when I’m struggling that can tell me the hard thing that can tell me the good thing that encourage me that lift me up that also challenge me um but I I think it it’s a lot to have some a listening ear someone that will pay attention and and care for you when you’re in a tough place so and not only selfcare but also having a support network I love that not only for yourself but also for your team and maybe even even as an organization you know are there outside connections and vendors that you can just put in place that would build a support system that you know at their discretion they can go and use or or tap into those and so just be thinking about that from a support system I think it’s key to it number four learn from mistakes resilient leaders view mistakes as learning opportunities we we view it the exact same way we’re in alignment with that When leaders make mistakes they can use that experience to improve the skills and help them avoid those mistakes in the future um just make sure you’re learning from them and not don’t don’t be hesitant about it you’re going to make mistakes allow mistakes I would say even encourage M mistakes unless it becomes a fatal flaw for the organization but what are we learning from them and as you learn from them you’ll become more resilient yeah I think about almost like psychological safety on the team is it are mistakes okay or do I need to hide it I I can’t possibly tell you have made a mistake because because I don’t know how you’re going to react so feeling safe and like I belong it’s okay to share where I’m struggling makes a lot of the uh ability to go through tough times a lot easier I I like that you know it’s a um it’s a really enough pressure right now to get things done to get things done quickly to keep the business moving to keep things happening but um I don’t want people holding back or or hiding things from me I need to know that it’s it’s okay to make John calls it failing fall forward and we want to make sure that we learn from every every mistake or uh setback that we have but a great way to get through with resilience is to know that I’m I don’t have to carry more stress or weight because of a mistake I can just share it yeah learn from it and move forward uh number five we talked about uh on a couple of podcasts but about embracing change I find that if you’re adaptable with a great word for for a leader um to be to really be adaptable and open to change you just become more resilient you’re not thrown off your game because something something in the plan change something in what your customers do something in the market um you’re able to embrace change you adjust I think you said this recently about adjusting your

plans the vision doesn’t change but the plans and strategies may change to get there and by being able to do that I I don’t get overrun by by the changes that are happening I just I can be adaptable to that there are a lot of changes that will happen um because of you but then also without you and so we need and to you that that to you is probably the one that may impact us the the most and so uh I think it was a former military leader that said if you don’t like change you’ll like irrelevance a whole lot less and so we need to be adaptable we need to to remain adaptable and by doing that we’ll be able to overcome a lot of things that we are currently facing well number six is to stay positive this is something that we can control and um as we think about developing this in ourselves and our teams we we absolutely control this a positive attitude can help us face challenges uh can help us understand and work through setbacks it gives you kind of a a positive view of it allows you to respond and to stay motivated and to bounce back during some of those failures or setbacks that you may have well I love that and you’re definitely your attitude and your positive optimistic Outlook going through even tough times can help you know I go back to Eric gon and his book on resilience one of the quotes that I’d captured there he says don’t expect a time in your life when you will be free of change free of struggle or free from worry he said to be resilient you must understand that your objective is not to come to rest because there is no rest wow I think uh often times we think that oh just get get I had something to call this morning the guy said I just got to get to the end of March and if I can just get through March it’ll be better and I hated to tell him there’s an old proverb that says behind this mountain are more Mountains because April’s coming yeah that’s right when I get to my next call he say oh I got to get through April uh your objective is not to come to rest your objective is to and this is another Eric gon he said use what hits you to change your TR trajectory to a positive direction.

Resilience and Endurance

He said resilience is often endurance with Direction I love that if whatever hits you it’s just going to it may knock you off path for a moment but it just changes your trajectory into a path where you endure and um when you do these these five or six things we talked about I think it really helps us to be people of resilience that we uh we actually shine brightest when things are hardest I love that don’t just endure endure with direction that that is strong I love that.

Future Content and Corporate Training

Well as we wrap up today around this is just scratching the surface we have more to come on this topic not only for you to consume through podcast but also we’re going to be working on some corporate training that we’ll be able to bring this to you and what what makes me think um as I wrap up here is we had one of our uh newest executive facilitators and coaches come in and talk about resilience a former military individual extremely competent and strong uh when it comes to delivering content and and from his leadership experiences and as I was thinking about this lesson one way to wrap up today he gave us this illustration and he said hey when you’re sitting on a chair you got the four legs no problem those four legs could be certain areas of your life they could be the your personal life your professional life your spiritual life your whatever family right so just pick four legs and he said you know uh if you get completely out of whack and maybe one of the legs completely is ay you can you can make it you can be resilient you can work through all those things and as you balance on those three legs but man if you let the Third Leg Get swiped out from underneath you it’s over and in essence he was really talking about how do we keep balance around each one of those four legs or those areas of our life and I think it’s in direct um alignment with what you talked about with these principles of having a growth mindset self-care have a support team learn from our mistakes embrace the change and then stay positive so you take those six principles and you say do I have those six principles in the four areas of my life and am I working on all different stages no doubt different places but we got to make sure that we’re we’re keeping that balance I know balance is a hard word for us to talk about as Leaders I struggle with it but as we have that balance when we’re able to do that I think and his point was very well taken by by me and our team was when you have that you can be extremely resilient no matter what’s going on on one of those legs of the chair so just keep that in mind you can develop resilience not only personally but in your team and one way to do it is to think about these six principles that Perry put together for us today the more we grow the more we know we need to grow in other words when you start growing and developing yourself the first thing you’re going to find is that instead of feeling like you know more and you’ve kind of arrived the more you learn and the more you know the less you feel you’ve arrived in fact you know what I have found the only people who think they’re arrived are people that don’t know much Alvin Toffler in Future Shock once observed the illiterate of the future are not those who cannot read or write but those who cannot learn unlearn and relearn Abraham Lincoln said I don’t think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday this is not in your notes but Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes he said when I got to college I looked back on what I had done with such such pride in high school and wondered how I could have been so young when I went to work for a newspaper and started cleaning out boxes of things I’d written for the college newspaper I burned them hastily so no one would ever know how bad I had been as a writer over the years whenever I’ve looked back on things that I wrote in the past they seem how shall I say not so good that’s okay for high school college and early newspaper pieces I wrote but now I notice I look back on things I wrote last week and decide that this week I’m finally growing up and writing better what am I going to think of this next week what was he saying it’s very simple the more I grow the more I know I don’t know here’s the way this works the more we grow the more we know and the more that we grow the more that we grow the more that we know that we need to grow some more that’s exactly the way it works when I think about this statement I’m reminded of the little girl who thought that she had exhausted mathematics when she had learned the 12 times table remember when you had to learn the 12 times table she got through the whole 12 times table with a little twinkle in his eye her grandfather said well now that you know all the numbers up through 12 he says what does 13 * 13 and she said oh don’t be silly Grandpa there’s no such thing there are four different development levels that people grow through as they move from dependence to Independence and each of these stages demonstrate a different combination of competence and commitment for example number one enthusiastic beginner this is where they start this is the first level of development this person is excited about doing something but it has little knowledge about how to proceed you see that all the time don’t you oh they’re so excited they don’t have a clue but they’re excited never allow enthusiasm to replace discipline or a plan one of the weaknesses I see in people is they put way too much of a high priority on enthusiasm and way too little priority on a disciplined plan in other words when you get done being excited and your feet touch the ground I have one question for you after your hip hip paray and hype what you going to do to get to the next level number two usually in the phases you go from enthusiastic beginner to number two which is disillusioned Learner in other words soon after beginning a new task an individual commonly experiences reality shock the difference between what they expected in the reality of the situation while a disillusioned learner knows more than when he started a job goal or task the excitement enthusiasm has decreased we’ve all seen that where they get excited and they start learning they think oh my goodness I’m never going to get there level three or stage three is capable but cautious performer capable but cautious performer most individuals enter a stage of self-doubt and become a capable but cautious performer they know how to do the task but are nervous about doing it on their own let me just say something about this level just a statement stay with them until they have knowledge and confidence they need more than knowledge they need confidence stay with them long enough that they not only know what to do but they feel confident in doing it number four the fourth stage is self-reliant achiever this is a person now that becomes a peak performer with proper support an individual can eventually Reach This stage and be able to perform the task independently diagnosing your level of development will help you to develop a plan to reach Peak Performance on any job skill or goal that’s some good stuff from Kim Blanchard John Wooden said it this way and I love this statement he said it’s what you learn after you know it all that counts I looked at that statement what you learn after you know it all that counts and I ask myself well what are the characteristics of people who learn after they know it all because don’t we all know people that they know it all and they never learn another thing the rest of their life well what are

the characteristics of a person who learns after they know at all these are quick and simple one is humility that’s a fact you have to be humble number two is security you have to be secure you have to be willing even no matter what your position is to say I don’t know it all yet number three you have to be willing to change there has to be a willingness to change in your life or my life number four is good listening skills and number five continually being growth conscious because see if you’re growth conscious instead of gold conscious you will keep learning after you know it all I’m going to talk about accountability not as a word but as a principle because what I’ve discovered is that this is something very essential to people’s life but it’s something that a lot of people don’t really want I’ve often said in leadership that I would never follow a leader that wasn’t accountable somebody asked me that one time well why why would you not follow follow leader that is not accountable and I said it’s because I don’t trust them and they kind of looked at me as a negative person and and so I kind of wanted to just kind of rattle their world a little bit so I said I don’t trust you either and then I said oh by the way I don’t trust me you see we’re all human and we all have times in our lives when we don’t do the right thing so why have accountability in your life is to have someone in your life that will help you do the right thing I had an accountability partner for many years as a leader his name was Bill great guy and uh we would meet every month and and I had him ask me the hard questions on purpose because I just wanted to make sure that I would uh do the right thing and to be honest with you to do the right thing is easier if somebody holds you accountable than if no one holds you at all accountable and so every month we would have a lunch together about an hour and a half and in that lunch uh he would ask me five questions and in those five questions I would answer them but the last question is the question I want to just mention for a moment because it’s the one that always cracked me up and it was the one that always got me because after he asked me the four questions we kind of talked them through his last question is John have you lied about any of the previous questions and there are times I’d say well Bill let’s go back to number three for a moment I I kind of maybe colored that one just a little bit now why did I ask him to ask me that question because I’ve lied before don’t look at me like that so of you accountability is for the person who really wants to get better and here’s what I’ve discovered people that truly want to get better and improve they welcome accountability and people who don’t want to get better and don’t want to improve they don’t want accountability for me I think for you I think it’s essential and by the way bill made me a lot better I hope you find someone in your life that loves you unconditionally you got to have that but then you can go to and they can help you like Bill helped me I promise you you’re better with somebody holding you accountable than with people not holding you accountable and you’re just kind of doing your own thing hey here’s what I was thinking about as you were just talking I was thinking about this lesson that John gave us and and and then the conversation we have with Jake about about the Gratitude and the anticipation and here’s what I was thinking I was thinking about the weight that you carry right now um of where we’re going in the future of our Enterprise and I was thinking of the gratitude that all of us have for John and the point that we’ve gotten to today because we stand on his shoulders but yet we have this anticipation of what is to come in the future and I was thinking about John talks about in his first point here he says hey you Reveal Your Potential by where you focus and a lot of times I running our corporate division will talk to our team members I’ll talk to our customers to try to figure out what are their future needs you sitting in a seat right now where you’re talking to John every day about what is it that is in the future what do you desire what what what is what’s inside your heart for that what do you want your legacy to be and so I just want to open up right here and I want to say man you are having the opportunity to ride shotgun with a guy that’s in essence explaining to you on a daily basis you’re seeing them live it out what the future U is for our Enterprise talk a little bit about that talk a little bit about the weight of focusing on the future and everything that you’re learning from John as you’re going through and leading our Enterprise in this experience well it’s so thank you Chris and and let me let me be relatable I think to most every one of our podcast listeners have you ever stepped into the shoes of a previous leader set out to define the future and you spent more time focusing on what they did right or what they did wrong and all of us leaders do that we’re tempted we want to come in and we want to make a splash but yet if the leader that we are we are superseding or succeeding if if if we if they’re a great leader we have a temptation to be just like that leader oh they did this so I better do this because I don’t want to mess up the Mojo the the the good formula of success or some of us have probably had the assignment of following a poor leader and we wanted to come out with a bang and show what they did wrong and that we are different I believe both perspectives are incorrect focusing on the future is you leader me leader focusing on our best self it’s like putting on the armor of somebody else King David the old um king of Israel that that followed Saul and Saul wanted him to put on his armor to go fight the Giant and the famous story and Dave was like man I can’t do this I just got to go out with my sling and my stone and I got to do something well in following John the days that are not so good are the days I realize how incredible he is how I will never be as good as John and how I don’t know if I can Envision a future brighter than John all that’s comparative yes the days that I were struggling when I did follow more difficult leaders was the day when I went oh they did it like this but I want to do it like this they did this but that didn’t work for them I want to do this neither one brings out the best of me where I get and you get Podcast listeners where we get the greatest traction is when we go this is what we’ve been given this is what we’re grateful for we’re thankful for it these are the shoulders the broad shoulders that I stand on but this is the potential of where me and my team can go and as you focus on the future one of the greatest things that I can give you don’t do it with comparative analysis this is what was so good about the previous leader this is what was so bad about the previous leader this is how I’m going to be different focus on the opportunity and the anticipation of you becoming the best version of you and as a company leader the day that I joh John says about writing books Chris you’ve heard him say this the people ask him all the time John Maxwell what’s your favorite book out of 86 and he says the one I’m writing now which is so funny and people kind of laugh of course of course

yeah John of course but no it’s really true in fact then John carries on and makes that point much more poignant he says the day I’m not Mo most excited about what I’m doing right now is the day I should have hung up the hat and stopped now to me and you Chris the day that we believe yesterday was better than what we can make and anticipate for tomorrow is the day we need to stop leading the organization that’s so listen to me leaders I want to bang on my home office desk right [Music] now welcome to the Maxwell leadership executive podcast where our goal is to help you increase your reputation as a leader increase your ability to influence others and increase your ability to fully engage your team to deliver remarkable results

Conclusion

The segment concludes with a discussion about the weight of focusing on the future and the importance of learning from past experiences while also maintaining a focus on personal growth and improvement. The speaker emphasizes the value of accountability and the role it plays in personal and professional development. Finally, there’s a mention of the Maxwell leadership executive podcast and its goals to help leaders enhance their skills and achieve remarkable results.