Glad to be with you.
Yeah, awesome.
Well hey everyone, here we are.
It is, yay, it's
John Maxwell time, so excited.
Who's excited?
Who's fired up?
Man, you know, last time you were
with us,
I'll be honest, I heard
the topic and I'm like,
okay, and then you of course
blew my mind and I'm like,
you know, it's similar. My pastor
here in Naples,
a lot of times I'll hear his topic and I'm like,
I don't know that I need that one, but then he'll
blow my mind, so I'm
really excited. You always blow my mind
John, I really appreciate you.
Yeah, well thank you. I guess you can't determine
a book by the cover,
a lesson by the title,
huh? That's right.
And I know we also have
Mark Cole with us, which is
the, I don't know if I'm saying this correctly,
but the CEO of Maxwell
Enterprises.
I don't know the proper term to use.
Yep,
that's right. Awesome.
And we have, you know, our own,
we have Rebecca, we have Sherry,
and we have Aaron Miller, which I think
helps with content, I believe.
Okay, all right, I'm getting it right.
And so, yeah, we're excited.
I would love,
you know, especially this Christmas season,
if you'd be open to
starting us off with a prayer, we'd really
appreciate that.
I think you're muted, John.
You are muted.
Andrew will
unmute me.
If I have to unmute me, I may
stay muted because I know nothing about
technology.
Then you have to read lips for the whole lesson,
and that's very hard. To read lips and take
notes is very difficult, but when Andrew
is with me, and we have a little problem,
we'll fix it real quick, so thanks, Andrew.
You can hear me now, can't you?
Yes.
And I want to say to all of you,
I'll open in prayer, but I want to say
to all of you, Merry Christmas, and
have a Happy New Year, and
I hope you have some great quality time
with your family and
good friends, and it is
a significant season.
And for people of faith,
it's the most important season.
It's a celebration of the birth of Christ.
So, yeah, I'll be glad to pray. Thank you, Lord,
for beautiful people
who truly want to make a difference,
and that's what you want them to do
also. You created us with
giftedness. You created
us in your image. You created
us to
be salt and light, add value to people,
make things better, make things brighter.
So, we come into
a lesson like this to learn, to grow,
to improve our life.
We come into a lesson like this
not only for us to grow,
but for us to pass it on to others
and allow them to grow, because the Christmas
story is one that you did not
stay in isolation, but you came into
this world, cared enough for
us to live with us, teach
us, die for us,
resurrect. So, we thank
you for who you are and what you mean to
us and what you have done in our lives,
and we ask your blessings on
this lesson today,
and thank you for everyone that's on it.
Bless them, bless their families
in every area.
May they have a life
that is abundant, a life
that is improving, a life that is growing,
a life that's bringing positive
change for a future. We pray
in your name. Amen.
Amen. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you.
I don't get the opportunity, usually at a mentoring
session, to open in
prayer. So, thank you very much.
Can I go ahead
and do a little teaching, and then we'll do
some Q&A? Will that
work for the team? Absolutely.
Absolutely. And I won't prejudge
the topic this time.
Well,
the topic is greatness.
And what is greatness?
And we hear a lot about
it. And so, I
love getting into what I call
greatness conversations.
And what I mean by that is I love to
be with people, and sometimes I just ask,
what do you think greatness is?
And, you know,
if you're talking to sports people,
they'll start talking about teams.
If it's baseball,
they'll talk about the New York Yankees.
They're known as maybe the greatest
baseball team ever.
If it's football, especially
in the last several years, last two
decades, they'll talk about the New England Patriots.
And then they'll get into this
greatness conversation. And if it's
NBA basketball,
is it Michael Jordan or is it
LeBron James? I mean,
who's the greatest of all time?
If baseball, maybe
Babe Ruth. Who knows? How about the
Japanese guy that just signed
a $700 million contract?
That kind of blows my
mind. I mean, that's just
amazing. Anyway.
If you're talking in the subject of leadership, which is really the thing I love, I mean,
when you start talking about greatness, I mean, in our country, Abraham Lincoln probably
was the greatest president we ever had.
And I think his greatness comes out of the fact that he led us through the most difficult
time we've had, a civil war, a divided country, you know, Mahatma Gandhi, who literally peacefully
out and helped and led India out of British rule.
And he did it in a peaceful way.
In fact, he had such an influence not only on India, but the world that, you know, that's,
you know, Martin Luther King, pretty much his style of leadership was completely adopted
from Mahatma Gandhi.
But you know, greatly, Mother Teresa, my gosh, Mother Teresa, she had no title.
She had no position.
She had a decade of being the most influential person in the entire world.
And yet she wasn't in it.
I mean, she had no, I mean, she was a nun in Calcutta, but she had no leadership position.
But everybody would say, well, greatness was part of her life.
You know, Winston Churchill, maybe, who?
Winston Churchill may have been, wow, maybe, I don't know, maybe the greatest leader of
the last century.
But then you got to go look at Nelson Mandela and what he did.
Now, what I'm doing is I'm just throwing out names.
I'm trying to now just get us in our mind to picture greatness.
Because greatness stands out.
Greatness is way above great.
Greatness doesn't need to be explained.
People just realize it.
I'm right now, this is fun.
I'm just right now doing some writing and preparing a talk on what I call the 1% factor.
And I'm just in love with this development of it.
I'm learning.
I'm growing.
I'm asking questions.
I'm getting mentored on it.
But basically, the thesis is, how do you go from the 10%, top 10% in whatever line of
work you're in?
How do you go from being in the top 10% to getting to the 1%?
And by 10%, if you really work hard and you use your strengths and your abilities and
your giftedness, and you stay with the game, you can get into 10%.
Every one of you on this mentoring call, you can get in the top 10%.
And let me tell you what's great about the top 10%.
What's great about the top 10% is once you get there, you make a very good living.
Your family's taken care of, your needs are, I mean, pretty much that 10% will allow you
to live the life that you really want to live.
What's interesting is, and by the way, that's great.
It's not greatness, but it's great.
The challenge is that when you get to that 10%, it's because you have everything that
you really want or need.
The challenge is that you have no passion to get to the 1%.
So people park on great because they're great.
They're very good and they make good money and they have good influence.
And so they just, 10% is a place, you know, people pull into the 10% parking lot and they
just say, wow, you know, I never thought most of them get there.
They never thought they'd ever get there anyway.
It's kind of like they exceeded their expectations and look where I am now.
And oh my gosh, this is huge.
And I never thought I would be here.
So what I'm working on right now and teaching and you know, Mark and Erin and I have a real
project with the coaches that we have, and we're doing a thing called financial wisdom.
I'm really trying to help them learn how to get to that 1%.
Here's what's interesting is that it's great to be at 10%, but that's not greatness.
Greatness separates itself from everyone else and gets to the 1%.
And that 1% doesn't need to be described.
It doesn't need to be introduced.
When you're a 1%-er, people know you're a 1%-er.
Now they don't define you as a 1%-er, I'm using a term here in a teaching setting that
gives context to what greatness really is.
But when I name these teams or when I named these people, they're all 1%-ers.
And what's amazing about the 1% that I'm really working on is I'm working on two things.
I'm working on, you see, you can get to the 10% on strengths.
You just work hard and you're determined and you're focused and you have good strengths
and you're gifted.
So you can get to the 10% on strengths, but you can't get to the 1% without strategy.
The 1%, you have to be highly strategic to get to the 1%.
Because now you're not separating yourself out of the people pile,
the people pile. When you get to the 10%, you already have separated yourself.
You got now the people pile,
but what you haven't gotten out is the greatness pile. There's a difference.
So you get out of the people pile at 10%, but you don't get out of the great.
So now at 10%, you've got a greatness pile. You got a great pile.
You have a great pile.
How do you get out of the great pile and get into the greatness pile,
which gets you to that top, uh, that top 1%. And what, you know,
what makes, what makes the great ones really great? Wow.
It's talent. Yes, but it's more than talent. It's culture,
but it's more than culture. It's, it's time. It takes a long time for this.
I mean, this is not quick, but it, but it's even more than time.
And so I'm, I'm just really personally, I'm, I'm,
I'm doing personal inventory of my own life and,
and where I am at 76 and realizing that, that I'm a, I'm a one percenter.
And, and, and because I'm a one percenter, the returns are, uh,
ridiculous. I, I, I can't even describe the returns now. It just, in fact,
in fact, I'm just getting surprised to say, how could that happen? Well,
it happens because, uh, I I've, I've lived a 10% life,
but I've been very strategic and I'm going to just tease you because I'm
working on this. Okay. So this isn't done.
And so how I work on things is I, I teach them and,
and throw out stuff and learn.
I work on things by thinking and tweaking and I'm
constantly kind of messing with what I do because,
because I know this there's always, not only is there's always an answer,
but there's always a better answer. Let me tell you something.
If you don't think there's a better answer than what you have right now,
you have no shot at greatness. That's a fact.
I have no idea what you're doing, no idea,
but I'm here to tell you, if you think you have found it,
you are not a one percenter. One percenters are never satisfied.
They, they never think that they were right. In fact,
let me explain something to you.
Their goal isn't to arrive. This is the big mess with people. Boy, I'm Aaron.
I'm so glad you're on this call. I'm saying things I haven't said.
I'm so glad you're on this call. Their goal isn't to, let me tell you something.
If you're a 10 percenter in your thinking, your goal is to arrive.
You're you say, here's the place I want my company to be.
Here's where I would like to be. This is, this is what I see for myself.
So you have a very much of a arrival type of a mindset.
It's kind of like, if I could just do these six things and get there,
if I could just accomplish this and have this kind of influence.
So a 10 percenter loves arrival.
They love completion. They love checking it off their list. Like, oh,
I did that. Oh my gosh, I got that done.
A one percenter has no checklist like that at all.
They're not really that excited about what they've done.
They're really, really excited about what they're doing and where they're going.
And they just don't think in terms of I've arrived or,
uh, I, I, you know, I, I'm, I crossed the line, finish line.
And so greatness is always, um, striving.
And let me tell you something.
Greatness is always, um, striving. And let me just say this.
Everyone else will describe the one percenter as greatness,
but the one percenter really,
I don't think usually looks in terms of themselves as greatness at all,
because they didn't change great. They didn't,
they didn't chart or put as a goal greatness.
They put as a goal growing and learning and getting
better and improving. And let me just say this,
my greatest fulfillment in life, isn't arriving at anywhere.
My greatest fulfillment of life is growing and learning and getting better and
say, oh my gosh, look, look, look where this is going to take me. Look, look,
look how far I've come. Look, look how, look what I'm learning. In fact,
why I'm loving teaching. And I'm not even supposed to be teaching.
I'm really teaching greatness. And I'm doing 1% on you really,
really quickly here, but let me just say, but this is huge. And,
and all of a sudden I'm beginning, it's starting to come for me. I I'm,
I I'm starting to be,
I'm going to be able to lay out for people strategically how to be a one
percenter. It's going to take me a while, a few months, but see, I see,
I don't even mind that. See, I have no desire for a quick answer.
I love an evolving answer.
Do you see that greatness doesn't really have a lot of
markers. If I get this done, then I get this done. Then I get this done.
It's not that it's naive.
It's just that it's not moved by goal-setting and markers very much.
It's moved by life change, transformation, and it's about a bigger life than what we
have if we just kind of think it through and plan it through.
For example, and I'll give you just one, then we're going to teach this great lesson because
I got a wonderful lesson for you.
I'm just practicing on you if it's okay.
And by the way, let me say something.
That's why my mentoring works with companies.
I practice all the time with them.
So they get fresh thinking.
You don't want to have thoughts I've thought.
You want to have thoughts I'm thinking.
Did you see the difference?
See, if I'm a lecturer or I'm a teacher, if I'm a professor, I'll give you thoughts I've
thought.
But if I am in greatness, I will give you thoughts I'm thinking.
They're not even thought out yet.
They're not even complete.
They're not even fully formed.
But can I tell you something?
The growth in mentoring you'll have with me is you'll be part of the process of my thinking.
That is a hundred times better than the thoughts I've thought.
Because as you watch me do the process of thinking, it'll make you a better thinker.
It will improve your life tremendously.
I've always said, I really don't want my people to sit in front of me and hear me teach.
But they do.
I really want my people to sit beside me.
When you sit beside me, it's a different game.
Because when you sit beside me, I'm throwing stuff at you all the time.
Here's what I'm thinking.
Oh my gosh, what do you think?
Do you think that works?
I'm not sure.
What would you do if it was in that situation?
Now you are totally involved.
You are immersed in a growing process with me because you're sitting beside me.
That's a much higher mentoring level than me just to teach you what I know.
What I know is good.
In fact, what I know some of it is great.
But how I'm knowing it is more important to you.
How I'm thinking it is more important to you.
What I am learning while I am teaching is much more important to you than what I have
learned and then teach to you.
So for example, I just discovered this about two weeks ago.
And I'm on to greatness.
I'm really getting it.
You see, you get out of the people pile by being different.
So in your business, the moment you do something unique, different, it gets you out of the
people pile.
And I tell people the first thing you want to do is get out of the people pile.
When you get out of the people pile, you now are on the road to 10% because you got out
of the people pile.
The people pile is there are no 10% in the people pile.
It's just a people pile.
Okay.
It's a mass of people.
So you got to get out.
And how do you get out of the people pile?
You get out of the people pile by being different.
And that'll get you on the road for 10%.
But let me tell you something different.
If you're different, somebody else can duplicate that.
They can watch you and learn it and pretty well they can do it.
Here's the difference.
Distinction is a one percenter.
Distinction means it can't be duplicated.
It isn't going to happen.
People are not going to get there and they're not going to get there because the quality
of your work and the quantity of your work is so filled with excellence.
Everything you do has excellence to it, but you also do so many things of excellent work.
It's not quantity versus quality.
This is the myth.
It's quality.
Everything that you do is quality, but you do many things that have the quantity that
get the quality.
The quantity you do has the quality.
So for example, I don't mean this unkindly, but we're friends so I could be open with
you.
Who's going to duplicate me?
Really?
Are you going to write 90 books?
Maybe you will.
It's pretty hard to duplicate though.
Are you going to speak 13,000 times in 103 countries?
Maybe, I don't know.
Pretty hard to duplicate.
My friend Nito Q. Bain, who's mentoring me in this, if you ever go to High Point University,
it's the most incredible university in America without any question.
I take leaders on round tables to High Point, business people, and they walk out and they
say, I've never seen anything like it.
I've never been around a person like this.
And when you go to High Point University, it's the most beautiful campus in the world.
And when you go to High Point University, you'll see fountains everywhere because fountains
bring life and fountains are about water and living.
And there are 42 fountains on that campus.
And there are 37 gardens on that campus.
Most beautiful gardens you've ever seen in your life.
And Nito just laughed.
He said, people come to the campus.
I say, I think I'll go home and build a fountain.
He said, that's good.
I think I'll go home and start a garden.
That's wonderful.
But they're not duplicating me.
I'm so far ahead.
They're not going to do 42 fountains.
They're not going to do 37 gardens.
That's 1%.
Are they really going to duplicate Michael Jordan?
Babe Ruth?
That's 1%.
So what you do is you get out of the people pile
by being different, unique.
And then you get to that 1% of greatness by being distinct.
You take that uniqueness that was different,
and you do it quality and quantity over time.
And one day, you're at the 1%.
Now, you don't go from 10% to 1%.
You go from 10% to 9% to 8%.
But every time you go up a percent,
you expand great to greatness.
And when you get to that 1%, you're greatness.
So what makes the great ones great?
Are you ready?
Here we go.
By the way, I've taught for 23 minutes.
I didn't start the lesson, but I started the lesson.
You see, I'm not a content person.
If you're a content person, you don't understand this.
You got a lesson, and you say, I got to go teach it.
If you train and develop people,
the lesson is in the conversation like we're having.
So do I have a lesson?
Yes, but I also have a lesson.
And the lesson I gave you before the lesson
is more important than the lesson I'm going to give you.
Because the lesson I just gave you
are things that I'm rolling around in my mind.
I haven't even found the answer to a lot of them.
I'm still discovering myself.
But see, as a leader, it gives me great joy to tell you,
I'm still learning.
I haven't discovered this.
Because what that does is that makes it achievable to you.
Because you're saying, I'm still learning.
I'm still growing.
We connect.
See, you get to sit beside me.
The first lesson, you sit beside me.
Now this lesson, you sit in front of me, and you take notes.
And by the way, it's just terrific.
But to understand, if you get a great mentor,
a great mentor always has two lessons,
the lesson that they can teach and the lesson
that they're learning.
And the lesson that they're learning
is 10 to 1 more important to you
than the lesson they can teach.
Don't ever forget that.
So when you mentor people, and develop people,
and work with people, now this takes maturity.
This takes, I mean, I've been doing this all, I'm 76.
I've been doing this for a while.
And I understand.
I understand the dynamics of what
the group really needs to achieve what
they really want to achieve.
And that's, if you sit beside a great leader,
and you get in the process of learning, and listening,
and asking questions, and interaction,
there is growth there that can never come in lessons.
Now, let me do the lesson.
What makes the great ones great?
Number one, how they think.
The great ones think differently than the rest.
Not smarter, just different in the thinking.
And there are two thinking patterns
they're constantly involved in.
One is possibilities.
They think continually of possibilities.
By the way, the difference between a leader
that's a 1% and a manager that isn't,
is managers like to think about probabilities.
Leaders like to think about possibilities.
Managers want to make sure they have a place to land the plane.
Nothing wrong with that, by the way.
Hey, I want a place to land the plane, too.
So there's nothing wrong with probabilities.
But let me tell you something.
If you're a probability person, you're not a 1%-er.
Greatness is not going to be in you,
because you're always going to look for the place to land.
So managers are into probabilities.
By the way, they get paid for probabilities.
They get paid to make sure it happens.
But greatness is possibilities.
In 1970, I'm just a kid.
Get the picture.
I'm just a kid.
And I'm a pastor.
And I read a book by Robert Shuler,
Move Ahead with Possibility Thinking.
And on page 7, he said, the greatest churches
have yet to be organized.
And I read that statement.
And I said, I'm going to do one of those.
Sign me up.
He got me with possibility.
By the way, you can tell who's on your team
and who's good if you get them by possibilities.
So when you're a leader, and you've got your team together,
and you start laying out possibilities to them,
look who leans into possibilities.
You'll find some people, when you start talking possibility,
they're just leaning in.
And you know, they can hardly wait
to hear what you've got to say, because they're going.
for the possibilities, and you'll
see others that are just kind of holding back
because their mind, their spirit doesn't have possibility
capacity within it.
Honestly, it's a great way to separate your players
from your pretenders.
But remember this, when I say possibilities,
I mean, these three things are so simple,
but they really work.
I believe there's always an answer, always.
So when people say, well, we've got a situation where
there's no answer, I just look at them, I feel sorry for you.
Can I tell you something?
For you, there's no answer.
You're already out of the game.
You're not going to be a 10%, or you're
going to be a 10% on the bottom of the pile.
So when people say, well, I don't think that can happen,
I immediately look at them, and if they don't think it can,
but here's the problem.
If you don't think it can happen, for you,
it won't happen.
Honest to God.
You see, there are two worlds.
One person thinks possibilities, and the other person
sees problems.
And if you don't think it can happen, here's what's sad to me.
If you don't think it can happen for you,
it can't happen for you.
You just closed your world.
You just shut the door.
And that always bothers, because you all
can live a better life, all of us, all of us.
There's always an answer.
But then here's what's incredible.
There usually is more than one answer.
There just is.
So when you find the answer, I watch
people get content with the answer.
And while I'm content with the answer
that I have until I find a better one,
but I believe that there's always more than one answer,
and I believe there's always a better answer.
Now, when you think there are more than one answer,
and you think there are better answers,
you will never in your mind settle.
And as leaders, you can't let your people settle.
Because when they get happy, when they've arrived,
the game's over.
You can't move them.
You're not a good enough leader.
So they think possibilities, and they think win-win.
They constantly are saying, what I want is for everybody to win.
You see, if I win and you lose, and I keep inviting you
to the table, I say, come on back to the table.
Let's talk about what else we could do.
And you think, the last three times I was with John,
every time I came to the table, he won and I lost.
There's a time when you don't want to come to the table
with me.
So here's the way this works.
You've got to have personal wins.
You've got to be able to say, I won,
because that's where you get your confidence.
But then you have to have what I call win-wins.
And win-wins is not I won, but it's we won.
And then leadership wins even is a little higher.
It's where you win, I win.
Leadership win is, I always let you win first.
You know, we hear this expression.
In fact, I did this.
I used to use this expression until a few months ago,
and I had a friend confront me with it.
And I said, oh my gosh, thank you.
You helped me.
You just helped me.
Because an expression I've used for many, many years
is, I win, you win.
I win, you win.
And he looked at me one time.
He said, John, I don't like the order.
So what do you mean?
He said, you should be saying, you win.
I win.
Put my win first.
And as soon as he said that, I mean, it was so simple.
It's just switching a word.
But it's more than switching a word.
It's switching a mindset.
It's a big switch.
It's a little switch, but it's a big switch.
And by the way, it's a big switch if you're learning.
It's not a switch at all if you're not learning.
But he said, just don't.
Just look at me and say, you win, I win.
I've changed the vocabulary.
And great wins are when you inspire others to win.
They see you win, and they say, oh, I want to be like that.
I really want to be that.
Those are what I call great wins.
So how they think, they think possibilities.
They think win-win.
What separates greatness from great?
It's how they prepare.
They think differently.
They prepare differently.
And what do they do?
They prepare continually.
Greatness is continual preparation.
And there's two classes of people.
There's the person who says, I will wait for the opportunity,
then I'll prepare.
That's not a one-percenter.
And the other one says, I will get ready and find
the opportunity.
It's two different worlds.
It's two types of thinking.
It's two different statements.
But it's going to take you to places where you've never been.
It was Joe Frazier who said, champions do not
become champions in the ring.
He was a boxer.
He said, they're just merely.
I love this.
He said, they're.
merely recognized as champions in the ring.
They become champions by their daily routine.
What's he saying?
He says you just prepare.
You just constantly prepare.
Now, watch this.
Preparation.
The person who starts first usually wins.
But when you put practice with preparation,
the person who starts first
and continually practices always wins.
There's a big difference.
So preparing gets me started ahead of others
when opportunity comes.
It's too late to prepare.
But when I put practice with preparation,
this is a whole new game.
And great people, they prepare continually
and they prepare smart.
And I don't know.
Probably smart's not the right word here, Aaron.
I put it, not you, but I don't know.
I think smart kind of throws us off.
I think we think that means they're more intelligent
and that isn't what I mean at all.
They're more strategic.
They think strategically.
Again, when I learned the priorities,
the Pareto principle, it changed my life.
I realized then activity is not necessarily accomplishment.
The day I learned Pareto,
I never became impressed by how hard a person worked.
Because I had people work hard
and they're not successful at all.
So when I hear people say, well, you gotta work harder.
I said, nah, I think you probably ought to work smarter.
I think you ought to be a lot more strategic
with what your time is.
Activity is not necessarily accomplishment.
And what I know is that people that do really well,
what they do is they prepare continually
and they prepare strategically.
They prepare start.
Now, how do they work?
How do they work?
Okay, here's the difference here.
How do they work?
Well, great people, people of greatness,
they work passionately.
They just, to them, there is no fun like work.
Wow.
You know, see most people,
there's a big difference between work and play.
Work is what I have to do.
Play is what I want to do.
With greatness of people, there is no difference at all.
I look at my life and I think, I don't know.
I don't know whether when I play, I'm working
and when I'm working, I'm playing.
And honest to God, I can't figure it out.
I can't figure out.
Somebody said, are you working today?
Well, yeah, I guess I'm working.
I'm doing a mentoring session with you,
so I guess I'm working,
but I don't really feel like I'm working.
I'd rather do a mentoring session with you
than go tee it up somewhere.
I mean, this is fun.
So I'm not a workaholic, I'm a workahfrolic.
And so when people say,
you know, John, you need to quit working so hard,
I look at them and I say, do not put your life on me.
Dear God, just because you're bored with it
and don't like your work, I'm not gonna take that.
Stay away from me.
I'm not gonna let you have that.
I mean, that's your problem, it's not my problem.
I, you know, I don't have this thing,
I've got to work today, but I work.
So I guess it's work, I don't know.
I can't figure it out.
It's just, I don't separate.
I feel like Warren Buffett.
What did he say?
He said, I tap dance to work every day.
Okay, start tap dancing.
And by the way, is there anything worse
than working with people that don't like their job?
Dear God.
By the way, I don't carry those people.
I don't try to bring people along.
People say, well, how do you bring people on
who don't wanna do something?
I don't bring them along.
I try to get rid of them.
I suggest they quit.
You know, I give them a parachute and say, take a jump.
Would you?
You know, who wants to hit the ball and, you know,
drag Charlie, hit the ball and drag him.
Just after all, just hit Charlie.
Charlie's the problem.
Charlie, Charlie will wear you out.
He'll wear you out.
And let me just say this.
When they work with passion,
they work with great energy.
Passion and energy go together.
You have never seen a highly passionate person
low on energy.
And you've never seen a person without passion
high on energy.
So when people say, are they a high energy person?
Sometimes I say, well, are they a high passion person?
And they not only work with passion,
but they work together.
They work together.
Greatness understands that one is too small of a number
to achieve greatness.
It just doesn't.
Okay, I got to get into the question queue.
I'm talking too long here.
Let me just, let me give you one more quick thought
and then give me 60 seconds and we'll get into it.
We'll do Q and A here.
I want to be able to serve you.
How they live is different.
Greatness, the 1%, the 10%, they live differently.
The people of greatness, they live with humility.
They just really do.
And humility doesn't mean I think less of myself.
It just means that.
I think of myself less, as far as time, I don't diminish myself, but humility means
knowing and using your strength for the benefit of others and the behalf of a higher purpose.
Humility is teachability.
You have this teachability, and then they live with significance, wow, success is my
accomplishment, significance is what I do to help you.
I'm doing significance today, I'm helping you, I'm adding value, I'm mentoring you.
And significance is about others, success is about me.
Success is about my net worth, significance is how do I help you do better financially,
is your life better because I've come into your life, am I a plus in your life?
Significance is just about others.
So anyway, that's greatness, I really slid through a lot of the last points because
I was doing a teaching before I did the teaching, so anyway, I would ask you to forgive me,
but I wouldn't ask you to forgive me because that first part was great, I know it was,
and it helped you tremendously, so why would you forgive greatness?
I mean, you don't forgive greatness, you're kind of grateful for greatness, aren't you?
So anyway, I love teaching, I love watching you, you're just taking notes, you're smiling,
you're leading in, I mean, what beautiful people you have in your group, I mean, be
proud, be very proud.
Okay, I'm done.
Do it now.
Yeah.
We are, and that was awesome, thank you so much, that was absolute greatness.
Two quick things, and then we'll, you know, if you have a question, raise your hand and
we'll get to some questions.
One, I like how you said, well, I liked all that you said, but one thing that popped up
was, you know, the one percenters don't wait to prepare, and last week we did a, or I ran
a speaking workshop, a speaker transformation workshop, and a lot of people came to that
not knowing what they were going to talk about, not having been invited on stages, not having
figured out their target market or any of that kind of stuff, so I just want to commend
them for doing that, because a lot of people came there and in a very quick fashion got
some things figured out, and so I just, it really rings true to what you're saying.
They weren't waiting for a stage invite to get better at speaking, they were working
on their speech now.
They weren't waiting for the opportunity to then say, I'm going to prepare, that's a good,
you just underlined that really well for me, thank you.
And then a question that I'm going to throw out there that I think a lot of people in at least
the network marketing space deal with is, you know, this is, you know, in network marketing,
you're, you know, you're a volunteer army, right, and you have your team and constantly
wanting them to grow.
What are some suggestions you might have for leaders in their team that have arrived, that
aren't showing up with hunger or desire, have hit their whatever, six figures or seven figures
or whatever, and they just no longer have that high level of desire that they once had?
Well, it's a great question, and what makes it a great question is, I think leading volunteers
is much more challenging than leading people that are on your payroll.
I always felt that if you can lead a volunteer organization, you're an ultimate leader because
they don't have to follow.
They can quit anytime they want to, I mean, if they want to say, I don't want to play
the game today, they can leave, I mean, you have no leverage, you're not, you know, it's
not like, oh, I'm going to lose a paycheck here.
So I think when you lead volunteers, it's a higher leadership challenge, and my answer
is very simple.
When you have people that settle, which you'll have the mass settle, not, if you don't settle,
if you have, you know, if you have 50 people on your team, you've got 47 that want to settle.
They want to get to whatever that income level is they want to settle.
When you see them start into plateau or flatten out, that's when you look at them, you have
a private conversation with them and say, you say, it seems to me, and maybe I'm wrong
here, but it seems to me that you seem to be now comfortable and you're settling.
And then I asked him, I said, am I, am I reading this right?
You know, or is there something, maybe I'm just, maybe I'm something, I'm missing something.
Here's what I know.
When you're trying to discover something, you don't discover it by making statements
and direction.
You discover it by asking questions, honestly, just ask the question.
And sometimes they'll say, well, no, no, I haven't.
settled at all. And then you say, well, I thought maybe so,
because for the last three years, your income has been the same. You know,
you haven't built the, you know,
so I was just kind of looking at the numbers and thought maybe that you had
settled. What, what would cause the numbers to be flat?
Now, if you haven't settled, do you see how it never ends?
I'm a master at asking. Listen, let me encourage you all.
When I was a young leader, I was terrible. I didn't ask questions.
I just saw the mountain. I had passion. I had energy.
I had no patience with anybody. I said, this is where we're going.
If you want on the train, get on it. If you don't, it's okay with me.
And I was a direction leader.
If I could change anything about my leadership,
when I think of where I am today, I wish I didn't have anybody. I,
the thing I'll tell you what I miss more than anything else.
I wish I'd had somebody go before me that could have helped me as much as I
help people. I, I just wish I had, I would,
I wish I'd had more people, more resources, but I want to tell you something.
If I could have learned to ask questions younger,
my leadership would have even been much more effective,
but the bottom line, because it's a great question and the bottom,
and the bottom line is very simple. The bottom line is, as you look at this,
when you ask the questions,
you make them discover where they are and you make
them even more important, tell you where they are.
And there is something life-changing about when I look at you and say, well,
yeah, I flattened out for the last three years. Yeah.
My numbers aren't any better. I I've not built a team because now
ownership can only be given.
If a person is aware and speaks to that awareness,
then you have a chance of getting to own something. If, if,
if you can't get them that far, they don't own it. So what do you do? You do,
you do what I'm saying right now. And you'll get, you'll get, you know,
again, it's a, it's a percentage. It's a percent. Listen,
if you do it really good, like I do it,
you still only get about 10% of them off their butt. You know, you know,
most of them are going to just stay right. You know, it goes back to,
we're supposed to leave footprints in the sand of time, not butt prints, but,
but, but most people, they major in butt prints that, you know, they're just,
you know, what do you, what do you do? Well, I'm a butt print person.
And so what I'm saying to you is, so when you get into this game,
understand you don't have a lot of wins, but I tell people all the time,
you don't need a lot of wins. You just need some wins. You know, if so, if I'm,
if I'm talking to 50 people and I can move five people, I move five people.
But can I tell you something? If I wouldn't have talked to 50,
I couldn't move five.
This is where the big miss is because I don't know.
I got to knock on the door and see who answers and how they answer.
And so therefore you got to,
you got to go after all of them privately in the right way,
asking questions to get some of them. And this is again, the big miss.
So I said, well, you know, I, I did,
I talked about seven or eight people and honest to God, I didn't move any.
And well, of course you didn't move in him. You just talked to seven or eight.
If you had 50 that aren't moving, you're not done yet,
but it's amazing how quickly leaders will
allow the response of a person to affect how they lead that
person. I'm always kind of amazed by this. It's kind of like, Oh,
I thought I was a leader, but I guess you're the leader because now I'm allowing
what you say to me to affect how I lead you. Ooh, I think I became the follower.
I think you're the leader. Now I have a whole talk and I can't get into it.
Now on things I will not give away.
And one thing I'm not going to give away with people is leadership.
I I'm not going to one day,
turn it around because they're not moving.
Like I wanted to move and I'm going to be the follower and they're going to be
the leader that didn't go to happen. So anyway, I think that,
I hope I answered that well for you, but
so good. I need to hear that. Let's go. Thank you. Thank you.
Let's go to Richard and Mary.
Hi, John.
I have a burning question from 10 years ago that I think a lot of people will
have. I hear you say that you file every day.
I have piles of notebooks and journals of trainings like this,
that I've gotten lots of content.
How do you file your information so that you can quickly access it?
And maybe Mark might have more insight. I don't know.
Well, Mark and Aaron, both would have big insight,
but let me just show you since I have my iPhone out here. Um,
uh, I mean, I I'll do my best here. So, so I have here, I have,
Oh, I have 500 things filed on my iPad on different things,
but I I'll take you to, uh, Oh my gosh. I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll take it.
Okay. I'll take you to quotes. Okay. Okay. You, you can't see this.
But I have hundreds of quotes here. I mean, where do I start a hundreds of quotes
because every day I file, but all these quotes I have,
they're different subjects, but now I'm just stopped it. Oh my gosh. I got it.
I got a code on adversity. The most painful breakdowns can lead.
to your most powerful breakthroughs.
Oh my, that was good.
I got a quote on problems here.
I'm not the problem and you're not the problem.
It's us going in against the problems.
That's Jamie currently.
Okay, everything has a heading.
Every quote has a heading.
So if it's a growth quote, it says growth.
If it's a relationship growth quote,
if it's a love quote, it says love.
Then what I do, so you give it a heading.
Then what you do is you go to search in your quote thing.
And if I want quotes on love,
all I gotta do is put love in.
And every quote I have on that subject comes up to me.
See, the number one time waster
is looking for things that are lost.
And the reason we look for things that are lost
is we don't have a strategy to put them
in the right place the first time.
And so therefore, when I read,
I wouldn't know how to read a book
without this right beside me.
And when I see a good thought,
I stop and I put a title for that thought
and I put the quote in it.
Or if it's a good idea, I put it under ideas.
And so they're all here.
They're all here.
And then I shoot them out to Erin and Linda,
my executive assistant.
Erin, because she's, every couple of months,
I'll shoot them 100 quotes or 150 quotes.
Just like, and by the way, she'll shoot me quotes.
Erin gave me a fabulous quote for my book
on high road leadership two days ago.
And I've already got, and so I immediately,
so we're always, but you gotta have a place to put it
and you have to have a way to find it.
If you have the, if you put it in the right place
and you have a way to find it,
then you don't lose it because I don't,
I'm not smart enough to remember everything.
So I don't have the capacity to say,
you know, I read something a month ago
and here's what it said.
I'll say, I read something good,
but I can't even remember what it was.
How many times have you ever picked up a magazine
or a book that you had read
and you're looking for something that you had read,
or you'd already read it,
but you didn't file it.
So now you're spending an hour looking for something
that you didn't put in the right place the first time.
If you put it in the right place the first time,
you're gonna have to look it up.
In fact, when I'm done with reading the book,
I could give you the book.
I don't need the book anymore.
I have gutted that book
and taken everything out of that book that I need.
It's yours, you can have it.
In fact, it's all marked up, enjoy.
And so that, I think that's really key on,
does that help you?
Yes.
I mean, I, do you keep that in your notes file
or do you keep it in another,
you just only keep it on your phone
or do you, do they import it somewhere else?
Well, Erin files it away in a much bigger thing,
but I just, yeah, I just have it in my notes file.
You have to, you know, here's my problem.
I'm not very smart.
And so I have to keep things very simple.
And so when people see this, they kind of pass it.
They kind of think that's a little too simple.
Well, it has to be simple for me
because I don't have capacity to do complex.
And so, yes, it's quotes and it's,
but if you, you have to give every quote a title.
Remember, you can't find the quote if you don't title it.
So you look at the quote and say, what does this describe?
Is this a quote on life?
If it is, file life, put it under life.
So you got to give it a title or else you can't find it.
Okay, that's good.
Does that make sense?
Yes, it does.
Can I ask you a question?
Yeah, that's in my notes section.
That is in my iPhone notes section.
Yeah, and by the way, I am there every day.
Yeah, awesome.
And by the way, I've been in there every day
since I was 17.
So this is huge.
I mean, think of almost 60 years
I've had the discipline of reading and filing.
And that's huge.
It puts me at a great advantage when I want material.
Everybody else is looking for material.
See, here's the deal.
You either think of a subject and go look for the material
or you find the material and then think of the subject.
It's just which way, how do you want to live?
How do you want to live?
And I know if I find a material and file it,
there'll be a day I want to write on it.
So I've already headed it up.
So the day that I said, oh, I think I want to write on this.
Now I go back and I look at the stuff.
And then I have stuff in Dropbox also.
What would be not quotes, but stories, illustrations,
things that are bigger than quotes.
So that's in Dropbox that I pull out.
But again, that's all filed similar, just like this.
Just one word.
Don't get like five word filing.
I mean, five word filing, that's a sentence.
Just, and just take the best.
I watch people say,
well, this could be four different thoughts.
Well, I mean, it could be under love.
It could also be under caring.
It could be, and I sit there and I say, really?
I know they can be.
Could you just pick one and choose it and move on?
I mean, are we going to just try to be
the Roger's the source in life?
And no, no, no, just keep it simple.
Keep it simple.
Don't make your life complex.
I don't know. I don't understand people that are complex. They wear me out. I can't keep up with
them. One day maybe I'll get smart and be able to join them, but right now I got to keep it all
simple. So hopefully that helps you. Yeah, awesome. Let's go to one more quick question, Ray.
We got a few lined up. Let's see if we can get through these. I'm sorry. I'll answer questions
quicker, Ray. I'm sorry. I'll do better. You do a great job. Let's go to Brian.
Hey, John. I just wanted to thank you, first of all, for your lesson today because you did teach
a very good lesson before you started your lesson. So that was awesome. Just wanted to ask you a
quick question on masterminds because that's something that has changed my life along with
mentoring. And so I wondered if you could give me maybe two keys to masterminds to help them go from
a great mastermind to being one of greatness. That's a wonderful question. And I think
masterminds is a phenomenal way to communicate, teach, and build into people's lives.
I think if you said two things, I'll give you two. The first thing about a mastermind to make
it highly successful is you got to talk to the people in your group and ask them what are they
looking for. Give me one thing, one thing in mastermind that is going to be essential for
you to say, this is a success for me. And they're going to be different because maybe you have a
half a dozen in your group, whatever, and they're going to be different. But you need to write that
down. Because whatever they said to you, that's how they're going to describe the success of the
mastermind. So remember this, you don't define yourself as having a successful mastermind.
The people in the mastermind define you having a successful mastermind. It has nothing to do
what you think or what I think. It has everything to do what they think. So now that they have told
you, it's like when I was in college, I would watch these kids. Dear Lord, I'd look at college
students and I'd say, why do they make things so complicated? The first thing I would talk, the first
day I would have a five-minute conversation with the professor and I would look at him and I say,
okay, I'm looking forward to being in your class. Let me ask you a question. What's important to you
that as a student, if I can do it, I'll be a success in your class? My gosh, they would tell
me in three minutes what was important to them and I would mark it down. This coach, what he wants
is he wants essay answers. He wants me to give him answers in a paragraph form. Okay, I
got it. I can do that. This other coach, he wants numbers. How can you and I be successful if we
don't know what they want? So in a mastermind, it isn't about you putting what you think makes a
successful mastermind on them. It's what they think is going to be a successful mastermind.
When they tell you, they say, out of this, I would like to get purpose in my life. So what does that
mean? Every time you teach a lesson, you put a little purpose in it and when I teach a lesson
and let's say Erin is in my mastermind, I look at her and while I'm teaching the lesson, I'll say, Erin,
I know that purpose is important to you. Let me teach a little bit of this. Boom. Now, I only teach
maybe three minutes of that and she walks away and says, oh my gosh, that was a huge lesson.
Why was it huge? Because I gave her exactly what she wanted. Leaders, you gotta give them what
they want. And by the way, that's how you have another mastermind with them. That's how they
sign back up because you're doing that. So the first thing is that. The second thing you want
to do in your mastermind to make it highly successful is make sure you tell them as you
teach them your journey. And your journey means, as I'm teaching this subject today,
let me just say, this is where I learned, this is where I learned this. I was, you know, I was,
I was, I was in my third year of college when I, when I learned this principle.
Let me just say this. Context is huge in communicating. And when I hear people teach
without context, I say, why would you give me a part of the picture instead of the whole picture?
So context is very important. And so when you address a subject, like I, I contextualized all
that learning in the first session today, but, but by, I kept contextualizing because I said,
I don't want to have a destination or place to land. I want to, I want to have it improved.
And I'm just talking to you about sit beside me. I'm contextualizing everything so that when I'm
giving you a picture that you can understand and build off of. So teaching without contextualization
is to not show them the whole picture. So they love it when you know what they want. And so
you teach what they want and you contextualize it in such a way that they, that now they see
the whole picture and feel the flow of it in the story of it.
That is so helpful. Thanks, John. I love it.
Yeah, thanks, buddy.
So good. And, John, do we have time for one more? Do we have time?
What are we looking like? Or Mark, should I be asking you?
Oh, we're okay.
We can do it that way.
Rod, let's have you.
What do you got, buddy?
You know, it's interesting because we do lead this volunteer army, right?
And the thing that concerns us is sometimes we take people who literally come from very little,
and they go and they become successful and they make six figures, you know, mid six figures, and they get super comfortable.
But that becomes a negative almost for the others because they get comfortable.
And so you've got the new people there. They're not setting the example.
How do you separate out, you know, they're successful and they're making money,
but they're actually a negative force to the rest of the organization.
How do you deal with that?
Well, that's a fact in network marketing that, you know, if I can, let me just.
I think one of the things that hurts that I think several things hurt network market.
I think talking about success all the time hurts network marketing because I think you paint an unrealistic picture for people
and they don't identify with where they are and stay in the game.
But I think I think another thing is, you know, when you think of the network marketing, you know, they became a diamond or, you know,
they're a pearl or a ruby or a sapphire or something. I hate all that stuff.
I hate all that stuff. I know it's recognition of what they have done.
But what I found is you give people recognition of what they've done.
They stay where they are. Because they got recognition for it.
See, if I was doing network marketing, my big thing would be improvement.
I would constantly be having recognition for the people who in the last year have grown and developed.
And I would I wouldn't have all that other stuff is because you recognize position very long.
And guess what? People want to land on that safe.
They want to land on that strip and they want to stay there.
And then they go the rest of life. Well, you know, I'm diamond. I'm diamond.
You're diamond as worthless as can be. You know what I mean? Everything.
Every story you have is five years old. You don't you don't have a fresh story.
You don't have anything new that's happening. You don't have any life in your talk at all.
You don't. Why? Because you're living off of yesterday.
So I think that I think people that settle in a network marketing organization create a mindset for everybody else to settle.
And so what I what I would do is I would have constant talks to my top people and I would tell them this.
I would say, let me tell you something. You've done well for the company.
You've done well yourself. Congratulations. But let me tell you something.
I'm not going to give you stage time until you can give me new stories and where you're growing.
I'm not going to give you stage time.
We don't need you to parade across the stage for the 16th year diamond that you haven't grown any.
That's that's just bad news for us. We don't we don't need that.
You know, and I think once you are intentional in some of the things I'm just giving to you, I think that'll stimulate some of it will stimulate very many of them.
Let me just say this. Ninety nine percent of people want to settle.
That's a fact. End of story. Understand it. As a leader, you better understand it.
Because it's a major uphill climb to get people once they feel they've arrived to want to do more.
It's a major uphill. It can be done. But I'm telling you, the average person, once they get what they want.
They're there. And so all these things I've given you are ways to kind of prod, stimulate, encourage, lift that whole process.
Some will work. Some won't work. And the other thing you can't do is you can't allow you cannot allow people who are not growing and learning to dominate your time or get or get in a position of influence much.
You know, it's just I'm glad you're on the team. Good. But you're not really on the team.
You're you're on the team officially. But I'm not going to utilize you.
I'm not going to I'm not I'm not going to let you get up and talk about the good old days.
We're not going to do that. We're not that, you know, because because we're having to.
If you can't if you let me put this way, if you can't grow today, you really have no reason to talk because we're trying to get people to grow today.
And so thank you, leader. Take it away. Yeah, good.
OK, one more. Yeah, if you have not, we're done.
Oh, good. Yes. Let's go to Eileen, your friend, Eileen.
Good morning, John. How are you? Good. Nice to see you.
I remember being here is a long time, buddy. She's a long time friend.
Yeah, we've been together a long time, but I remember being in your office.
back when in Florida and you had your recipe boxes with your cards in the recipe boxes. So,
so cool to see that you've got it all digitized now and making life easier on yourself.
But I'm slow. I'm, you know, I'm a hard case, you know. It's a miracle. It's a miracle.
What you got girl? You know, one thing that I just wanted to point out is your
Maxwell leadership Bible is in my hands every single day. And I feel like I get a glimpse
into your notes every day with the leadership Bible, because it just feels like that's what
it is. It's your words, interpreting everything. So thank you for that. I use that daily.
One of the things that came up today, you talked about not allowing people to
dealing with their, basically their personalities and everyone has different personalities. So is
it at the point, cause you got to talk to a D like a D and a C like a C and an eye like an eye,
but at what point do you say you're not taking over the, is it just at that point of control
for that leadership piece? And, and, you know, they're taking leadership and you're following
them or are you following them? How do you still keep the personality into it?
Well, I think, I think, I think Eileen, you want people to lead by their personality.
I think when you take their personality away, you take away something that probably has made
them unique. Now there are, there are bad parts of a personality that you need to correct as a leader.
So if you're directional and you're, you know, you're a choleric, what you got to do is you
got to, you got to take them and quit. You got to get the edge off of them because they're choleric.
Okay. So, but, but, but, but there's still going to be a choleric. I wouldn't ask a choleric to
be a sanguine. Good Lord. They're probably not that good. So they got to be who they are,
but they got to be the best of who they are. So as a leader, we take what their strength is
and we determine what's an asset and what's a liability. And what is an asset? We, we stoke
that and encourage that and say, here, if they, you know, you're very direct. You're, you're,
you're, you're a high D. And there are five things that you're really doing well in this.
So you, you, you, you, you embrace that, but there are three things that it's hurting. You're
running over people, you know, you're, you're a bull in a China shop. You just, you just killed
three of your team and you don't even know it. And, and, and, and so you work on their, you work
on their, you don't take away the strength. You just work on the, because it's a double side.
Everything's a double side, you know? And so you just work on their weaknesses and try to help
them in that area and embrace their strengths. Great. Thank you, John. So good to see you.
Thank you. Awesome. Awesome. Well, hey, John, we really appreciate you and your time. I know
we went a little bit over. Thank you for that. I'm going to, I'm going to stay on for a little
bit and, you know, answer some questions if there's any I can answer, but we just so appreciate
our time with you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you to your, to your team for
being on here. Thank you. Hey, Merry Christmas to all of you. Yes. Merry Christmas.
Yeah. It's so good. So from Aaron and Mark and I, we love you and thank you for,
for letting us be part of your team. And thanks for letting me come every once in a while. I don't
get to come all the time, but when I, you know, whenever Ray says you can come in, he opens the
door and I try to slide there. So anyway, I'll see you sometime, hopefully in the next, before I die.
So bless you. Love you. God bless you guys. God bless you guys. Thank you. Awesome. So,
so much wisdom. Oh my goodness. So much wisdom. I want to, Justin, I want to see if I can help
your question. If I can, I'll do my best. One thing I wanted to expand on, I do talk about this
in our leadership book and I've heard it. I've heard two different terms for this.
And, you know, the term that I use that I came up with is arrival groups. I found that one of the
biggest frustrations of companies and teams is arrival groups, which is what he, you know, what
he talked about of someone hits a rank, they're elevated into a group or they're elevated with a
special something. And then they're warranted and they feel entitled to give their opinion forever.
And so it becomes toxic to the point where you have an up and comer and you second guess,
even add them to the group because the group is just entitled. They're complaining about their
checks. They're not doing any active, you know, prospecting or any kind of new growth. They're
just resting on their laurels. Right. And so I'm always against arrival groups. Now, I've never.
her just don't have ranks period. But the context of which he explained it of your personal production
dictates your inclusion. That is what I talk about in the leadership book. It's hard to
screw up a temporary group but have personal production criteria behind that. Hey, we're
going to have a leadership group in January. You got to have brought in two new people to be a part
of that group. Good luck. Or you can even have multiple criteria. You have to be a diamond and
have brought in two new people in the last 30 days or whatever. And so that is, if you're new
to growing a team, it's a warning. If you already have a team, then you already know this, but you
may not know what to do. And so be careful of the rival groups. Another term Eric uses,
Eric said, I just heard him use it when I was on his podcast. He calls it the hall of fame.
And so I very much agree with the hall of fame or the arrival groups to continue
getting a check, to continue getting the benefits of what they work for, but them being entitled
to endless opinions, them getting stage time every year or anything like that is a big mistake.
And so I just wanted to touch on that. Justin, is there anything I can attempt to tackle here?
Yeah, real quick. He had said something and it was encouraging to me and hopefully it's
encouraged everybody. I was going to ask him to expound on this and I know you can, because I've
heard you speak about it before, but he said, John Maxwell, a legend in leadership and he's
67 years old, I think, been at this a long time. He said, I'm constantly messing with what I do.
And that reminded me of the concept of perfection paralysis. And a lot of people, they get hung up
on that. And even him, as long as he's been at this, he's still messing with what he does. And I
find that very encouraging because it reminds me of myself. I'm always thinking and shifting and
learning and adapting. And I think a lot of people get hung up on that. And I was just going to ask
him to expound on that. So, you know, I know a lot of people have fears of making reels or creating
content or talking to people or making cold calls or knocking on doors and all these things,
because we always think, oh, I got to get it. I got to get it right first. And he was talking
about that a little bit. So I don't know if maybe you've got some thoughts that I know a lot of
people really struggle with those things. Oh, I got to get it perfect. I got to get that speech
perfect, just like you were talking about the speech conference. So if you've got some thoughts
on that, that'd be great. Yeah, I mean, the big realization is understand the difference
between planning and doing right. So he's he he didn't stop and say, you know what, maybe I need
to ponder what I'm doing here. Maybe I should blueprint or plan or really think about this
thing. You know, he's he's been doing it constantly surveilling of could I be doing it better? Could
it be different? The mistake that people make is they, you know, kind of like what you said,
is they'll blueprint in their mind and attempt to get it perfect in their mind before they go
to the marketplace. And that's an endless forever. It'll never happen. And so, you know,
there's so many things that I just wouldn't have known had I not done so many different things,
right. You know, went and, you know, tackle, you know, public speaking fears, went and left my job
and, you know, there's so many things that I could not have blueprinted enough to nail it the first
time. And I didn't nail it the first time. And, you know, it's like, you know, a couple of weeks
ago with, you know, using that, you know, crafted prayer journaling process, God gave me a very
different tagline than I would have come up with. And so I now look at my last, you know, I guess
now it's almost three weeks, my last three weeks of content. And and that content makes so much
sense to me. And the content prior doesn't make sense to me. I'm just like looking at like, what
am I thinking? Like, I still did it. There were people that still got benefit, there were people
that still enjoyed it, but it was just not under the mantle of what I'm supposed to be operating
under. And so it's the big difference is getting out there and doing it right, going and make it
happen, not just practicing, not just planning, blueprinting, thinking on, etc. So that would be
the, you know, for me, that's, that's my answer for that. No, that's huge. Thank you. And I love
what I love what he said. I loved. I mean, I love everything you said. It's always good.
The if you don't think there's a better answer than the one you have, you'll never be a one
percenter. Now, let's think about that. Think about Elon.
Right. When Elon came out with Tesla, when Elon came out with, you know,
all there's,
there's several different categories of things that Elon came out with.
Same with Jeff Bezos. If you look at the great ones, they didn't,
you look at Henry Ford, right. If, and, and he has one of his,
one of my favorite quotes from Henry Ford is if I would have given people what
they wanted, I would have made faster horses. That's what they wanted.
They wanted faster horses. Right.
And so not looking at your answer is this is absolutely no
question. The perfect answer always, Hey, could this be better?
Could I do it differently? Is there another way to think about this?
Might someone give me input into this?
Let's go to Kiri. Kiri, you got her hand raised.
Hey there. I am curious about,
um,
like when you're talking about putting together groups that are not where
people just land on a rank, my mind,
like how do we create groups that consistently do growth,
but not create so many groups because managing a lot of groups is a lot of work
too. And maybe that's the wrong mindset,
but like,
do you acknowledge movement up to a level and then movement?
And then like my mind wants to think that we create groups for each level.
So people keep moving and they don't get stagnant, but how would you,
I'm lost trying to think about how I would frame that in a efficient way
to keep people moving, but also not to be managing a million groups.
Yeah. So in group
doesn't have to mean the traditional sense of
a group. Right. So, um, couple of things here.
One is if you went,
so what I've seen a lot of people do, I've seen a lot of companies do. Uh,
I remember, um, you know,
I spoke for this one company a couple of times and they had, um,
trying to think if anyone in here is in this company, but, um,
they had a black diamond group, right? You hit black diamond,
you're added to this group forever, whether you maintain it,
whether you do anything, whether you show up, whatever,
once you hit black diamond, you're in this group forever. Well,
as soon as they made a change, that group was like their worst enemy.
So they made like a change that, that I believe was needed for the company.
And that, that group was the most toxic group on the planet,
but they'd already equipped them. They'd already weaponized them.
They'd given them, they'd entitled them. Right.
And so permanent based groups based on
an arrival is always a bad idea.
It just is. Okay. Um, so that's number one, number two,
and John brought this in of sometimes it's just a group
mentality.
So some people run a team event and to speak at their team event,
you gotta be a diamond or whatever, right? Platinum or whatever. Right.
And, and so they look at, okay, who's, who's that now you may have an up and
comer that has just like broken records,
but not quite yet at a diamond. And you'll say, Oh, sorry, no diamond. Well,
that's the person, the red hot grower that you want on stage.
You want that person, you know,
there to share what have they overcome to get hope that those that aren't
achieving and what exactly are they doing to give hope of growth to
other people. Um, and so, um,
and then third is it's actually very easy to manage a temporary group.
So if you went to, I'm not suggesting having a hundred temporary groups,
but a temporary group, you go to your team and say, Hey, uh,
we're going to do a leadership group for the next 10 days.
And every day we're going to have a leadership nugget in there or training in
there or whatever to qualify for this temporary group.
You have to have brought in two people in the next 30 days.
I'm going to give you another week to do that. Add you into the group,
razzle dazzle them. They'll feel that you will have.
And John hinted at this. If you caught it, he said,
when you start recognizing on performance,
like current performance, some people will step up.
See what I've seen is some people will go from entitled and
mildewy to, um,
they will want to get their two people, uh, out of spite.
Right. They're like, well, I want to be, I should be in there.
I'm going to go get like, it's like, okay, great. You know, go get them.
And, and so it's the entitlement that is, that is the problem. It's the,
Hey, listen, if you want to sit at your rank, no problem, but, uh,
you're just, we're not getting your opinion. We're not putting you up on.
stage. You're not being constantly recognized for something you achieved a long time ago.
And so another thing that you see us do, and rank makers, or some of you do,
is we recognize between ranks. We recognize production or attempts at production. Now,
that doesn't mean we give gifts. That doesn't mean we send, oh, you prospected 20 people,
let's send you a new watch, right? But it means that when we were growing our team,
we had a self-managed document in the group that would get recognition.
If they put in, and we have something very similar, if any of you have our journal,
we actually talk about that in the very front of it. It has different badges and stuff.
But it was self-managed. So if you prospected 20 people, you had to fill out that document,
and I would read your name out, or sometimes Jess would, right? Sometimes some other leader would.
If you got a customer, read your name out, right? So you are being recognized between ranks,
but you are recognized for your attempts at production or actual production.
Does that help? Does that make sense? Yeah, I love that.
Most companies do have too many groups, just on a side note. Most companies do have too many groups
right now, and that's kind of tough. It's tough to manage that because there's so much information,
and you have so many different personality types, right? There are leaders that absolutely hate the
welcome message, but a larger percentage of your team love the welcome message, right? And I mean,
welcome to the group, right? A lot of reds or alphas or whatever you want to call them,
they don't like that kind of thing. They think it's a waste of space. Why do we have that?
But then there's a whole bunch of other people, a larger percentage of people
that makes them feel included. So it's tough to have everything there.
I see Tina has a question, and I'll probably, I'll end with this, but of course, as you know,
if you have a question that wasn't answered, hit us up on Voxer, we'll knock it out for you.
How do you manage gifts as your team grows so big? So one, I am not a fan of
crazy, huge gifts that at the end of the day, aren't duplicatable. I've seen that where someone
gets the $10,000 watch or something like that, and hey, it's cool, but it creates a problem.
So let's say I'm under Tina, right? And when I hit that rank and Tina gets me a Roli,
right, gets me a Rolex, diamonds. And so what am I going to do, right? I'm going to show it off.
I'm like, look what Tina got me. Oh my God, that's amazing. So first of all, a lot of our
other leaders are wondering, well, how come I didn't get that? I'm at the same rank or something
like that. But then I think, oh man, now my team is going to expect me to get it for them.
I don't know if I can do that. And then other people will say, oh, wish I signed up with Tina,
Ray El Cheapo over here, never sent me a watch. So it actually creates a problem. And so that's
number one. Number two is if you try to manage, and this is the time to be talking about it,
right? Christmas time. If you try to manage, okay, I'm going to send all my star 1000s a
Christmas ornament or something like that. It's just tough. It's just tough because who's
activated, who's this? It just becomes very tough. And so just trying to think about, because
your efforts of being nice with gifts often will lead to greater offense than good.
And I know that the answer is, well, they need to toughen up and they need to, well, they're not.
They're not tough. They're very easily offended. And so there's the, I wish they were this way,
but they are this way that we have to manage. And so being more clear on contests, hey, do this,
get that, being more clear and not using, hey, who do I work closely with? You know what,
I'm going to shoot Joe something. Because I've done that in the past, right? Where I just,
you know, I work really close with these four. So I'm going to send, you know,
them are my girls. I'm going to send them those four.
and then someone else sees that and be like,
hey, I helped produced two of them
and I never bother you
and you didn't send me a gift.
So I'm like,
that's a good point.
It's a really good point.
So you want to be careful.
If there's a process,
if there's a system,
if there are rules
that's very much more
that's very not just duplicatable
but also understandable.
So when someone says,
hey, how come I didn't get one?
Oh, I'm sorry,
did I miss you on the list
on the production list?
Oh, I didn't see you on that.
So, oh, there's a process.
Oh, okay.
Okay, got it.
And I found that that kills a lot of offense.
Oh, helpful.
Yay.
Well, I don't know this.
I don't have the schedule in front of me.
So I don't know,
I'm sure we'll be talking on Boxer and stuff,
but Merry Christmas.
I hope you're having a good month.
I know I've heard so many of you
from either the speaking workshop
or your own efforts
have really been stepping it up
and I'm just very honored to be part of this.
And we had such a good time with John too.
I got so many notes
that now get turned into short videos.
But just really appreciate you so much.
If there's anything that didn't get covered,
something you need clarification around,
obviously hit us up.
I'm here in Ohio till tomorrow.
We fly back
and then we're in British Columbia for New Year's.
And so we're staying busy.
Next week, we kick off our bootcamp.
It's my first faith-based top earner bootcamp.
It's free.
You can tell your team about it if you want.
It's HigdonGroup.com forward slash bootcamp.
And just in case you're not hearing this
is there is...
I became aware of this about a week and a half ago.
If you paid self-employment tax in 2020 or 2021,
there's an allocation from the US Treasury.
You're probably due money up to $32,000
if it involved daycare stuff.
I would rather see it in your hands than theirs.
And so go claim it.
I teamed up with a company
that's helping you with that.
And they do like audit insurance and stuff
for you and everything.
But that's at HigdonGroup.com forward slash check.
Why not?
Why not check?
If you did not pay any self-employment tax
and you're not eligible,
but if you did,
it's extremely likely that you could get
a few thousand bucks back at least.
And so appreciate you so very much.
Merry Christmas.
And we will see you on Voxer.
Thank you, team.
Thanks, guys.
Thank you, everybody.
So good.