Welcome. Hello. Hello. I see many of your smiling faces. So
honored to have you in here. Well, today is a very special
day. And I appreciate all of you being on time because I
certainly Oh, someone's I hear some background noise, Lisa,
that might be. There we go. No, not you. Okay, we're good. So
today is a very special day. We have, of course, our last john
Maxwell training, and I am honored to be given the
opportunity to introduce john and be here with you all today,
Ray, it was so sad that he couldn't be here for the last
one, at least this year. Because he has been asked to speak in
Palm Beach. By the way, he said, it's a very fancy place
in Palm Beach, and I would love it. I'm like, where was my
invite?
He left you there.
He Yeah, he left me here. But there's no place I would rather
be. And so he's really bummed. He can't be here with you all.
We from both of us, we just want to say it's been an incredible
year to watch your journey to watch what you all have been
through, and how you've overcome and some of the incredible
success stories is just it lights us up and gets us so
excited. So we're so honored to have you in this program.
There's a reason you're here. There's a reason you're in this
program. There's a reason you're on this zoom call today. So make
sure you grab your notebook. Because john Maxwell means no
introduction. You've seen him many times before, but today, he
is going to bring it and and we're so excited to have him
here. And just so I can't think of any other word than honored
by his presence. He is truly just such a hopeful person that
he brings so much hope to people. And those are just the
words that are coming to me. And I know you all know that. So
make sure you thank him make sure you reach out to his team
to mark and his team and thank him for what he's done on this
journey with us here. And get all of his books. They're
incredible. If you haven't already, and just make sure that
you really show him some gratitude. But without further
ado, I have my notebook out and I'm ready. I want to introduce
john Maxwell and have him take it away.
Thank you, Jessica. That was such a kind introduction. I you
know, it was just very warm, hopeful. I hope that I that's
what I want to do. I want to give people hope I, I don't want
to curse the darkness, I want to shine the light. And I'm so
excited to be with you. So excited to be with all the all
the people on your mentoring team. And I want to talk to you
today about what I call 1080 10, the bookends of success. And the
1080 10, the bookends of success really is birthed out of the
Pareto principle that I learned when I was in college. So as the
principle, if you can get your priorities correct, if you do
the top two things out of 10, you'll get an 80% return. And
that I've lived and grown with that principle and taught it
hundreds of times around the world. And it's it's truly
changed my life. And as I think about it with the 1080 10, the
1080 10 is a playoff of the 2080. But but Pareto forces us
to focus on the effort versus the impact and everything we do.
Effort and impact is not the same thing. And so I know a lot
of people, they put a lot of time, energy, they work hard to
put the effort into something, but honestly, they don't have
the impact. And I want to talk about having impact. And I want
to talk about it in light of your team. And what would
happen if the 20% of our actions that generated 80% of our
success, what would happen if we spent more time doing those 20%
of the actions? I've always thought, once you find out what
really works, why would you do anything else that doesn't
really work? And why would you then begin to eliminate things?
And I'm going to talk to you in light of working with your team
today. But I asked myself that question all the time. Also, I
mean, once I find my sweet spot, the thing that gives the
return, why don't I why don't I stay there? You know, I'm kind
of I'm a maximizer. I'm an
fever, I'm an activator, but I'm also strong in strategy.
And this is a strategy lesson.
So the bookends of success,
the two bookends are starting well and finishing well, okay?
So those are the two bookends.
And then in the middle is all the stuff
that has to happen between starting well and ending well.
It's kind of like the bookends of success,
starting well and ending well,
and then all the work that makes that successful
is in the middle.
And I think it's gonna really work for us today.
So let me dive into it very quickly,
because the lesson's a little longer than I want,
so I'm gonna probably have to shortcut it a little bit,
but you'll do well with me.
Let's begin with the first bookend of success,
all is well that begins well.
So what I want you to do on the beginning of your project,
as you look at it with you and your team,
is you gotta give 100% there.
So the first 10%, which is the beginning,
the 10 and the 10 on the both sides,
it's 10% of the time, it's 10% of the effort.
So the first 10% is the beginning,
but you gotta give 100% to the beginning,
because getting started right is essential.
And there are five essentials to start a project well.
They're very practical.
Number one is vision.
And starting that vision well,
that Warren Bennis is the one that said,
leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.
So this vision that you're beginning
with the people at the beginning,
it has to have a sense of realness to it.
So at the very beginning of a project,
if you're my team, and the best way I'm gonna teach it
is I'm gonna just say you're my team
and working together on a project.
And so we're in our first 10%, the beginning.
If you're my team, I wanna give you my vision,
which is what I see.
It's the head, it's the head of the project.
And then I'm gonna give you my mission,
which is the heart of the project.
And then I'm gonna give you my values,
which is the soul of the project.
And when I put those three together,
what I see, what I feel, and what I value,
and that's kind of the way those things work.
What I feel is my heart, what I value is my soul,
what I see is my head.
The reason I'm doing that
is I'm bringing a holistic feel to the vision.
Seeing something without heart or soul
will never be achieved.
So when somebody says I cast the vision,
I also wanna say, well, in that, did you have heart,
which was the mission?
And did you have the values,
which are the soul of what you're trying to do?
Now, once you lay this out,
the main thing I wanna say here
is when you cast the vision in the beginning,
you have to put the people in the division.
And I find this to be what I would call
a common miss with leadership.
They cast a wonderful vision and it's just really good,
but they really don't put the people in it.
And let me explain to you what I mean by that.
In my book, The 17 Laws of Teamwork,
one of the laws is the law of the niche, N-I-C-H-E,
like a person finds their place or their niche.
And that law says all players have a place
where they add the most value.
Now, this is very important to me.
When you cast the vision,
we're always thinking about this is where we're going.
And I think we miss the people.
When I say this is where we're going,
I want to immediately take the people on my team
and put them in the place to say,
and this is how you're gonna help us get there.
And it's different for different people.
So what happens is two things happen here.
One, you give everybody kind of their personal place
so they have an identity of what they're to do
and an ownership,
but you also let the other players on the team
know how the other players on the team fit.
So when you're casting that vision,
be sure to put the people to the vision
and be sure to let the team know how it fits.
Once that happens, you have good, that's starting well.
Now we're all's well that begins well.
That really kind of allows us to do that.
The second thing you want to do with the team
on the front end is give them direction.
And direction is needed
because direction focuses people's attention.
So if I give direction, now they are attentive.
of to where we're going and then when they see what that target is, it's like the switch
gets turned on. Okay, now I see where we're going. Don't be like Charlie Brown, the old
Peanuts cartoons, who Charlie Brown was in the backyard and he was having target practice
with his bow and arrow and he'd shoot the arrow into the fence. Then he'd go take a
marker and wherever the arrow was, he would draw the target. Then he would shoot another
arrow and he'd draw a target. So he's got like 11 targets all over his fence and Lucy
walks out and says, Charlie Brown, that's not the way you do target practice. He said,
I know, but if you do it my way, you never miss. Well, I know an awful lot of people.
That's how they start. They just kind of find out where they are and say, well, that's our
target. That is not what I want at all. That is not all's well that begins well. That's
all that's in trouble that begins like that. So direction gives clarity, which gives confidence.
So you have that vision and remember, your vision has to be mature. It has to be vision,
mission, heart, that whole deal and values and you got to put the people in it. Now you're
giving direction, which gives clarity and confidence. The third thing that you do is,
is you add at this point, creativity. I love the beginning because there's not much on
the drawing board. I, it's, it's a fun time for me because you're now, you are now imagining
creating what could be at the beginning of a project. There are two things that have to be
a part of it. Details, which is just kind of what I just finished the direction where you're going
and dreams and dreams without details. You have a dream. They'll never be accomplished. You have
pie in the sky details without dreams. Now we have drudgery and it's, I mean,
who wants to get into a vision that has no hope in it? So you've got a boat and they both have a
very important part, but let me just say this in the beginning, in the beginning,
the dream is more important than the details because the dream allows people to think big.
The dream allows people to think out of the box. So the goal is to have creativity in the very
beginning and, and, and, and to change the, the question from, can we, to how can we,
that because at the beginning, people are asking, can we really make this happen?
You want to get it from how can we make this happen to how can we make this happen?
And that's, that's huge. And that's, that makes a difference now.
Big ideas. We're talking about creativity here. Big ideas don't appear. I just, I,
I watch people all the time waiting for a big idea to appear in front of them. They don't appear,
they evolve. And there's a whole different mindset about waiting for a big idea. If you wait for a
big idea to appear, it'll never appear to you. And you'll wonder what the big ideas do because big
ideas never start off as big ideas. They smarts, they start off with small ideas and how do they
become a big idea? They evolve. When I throw out a small idea that has some meaning and purpose to
it, and you're my team. And I say, help me out with this idea. And you begin to jump on and you
begin to add your thoughts to it. It's a matter of time until a big idea becomes a bigger idea.
And maybe, maybe it really becomes a big idea. So get the, get the, get the picture of, of,
of ideas here, creativity here. It has to evolve. It, it, it doesn't appear. So when people say,
I'm looking for an idea, I've said, nah, I don't know if you really look for a great idea.
What you do is you just have, what idea do you have and what doesn't have possibilities. And,
and, you know, Mary, Mary Lou Cook said, creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing,
taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun. I just think that works really
good. You do that in the beginning. The fourth area that you want in the beginning, if it's
going to begin well is, is empowerment. And beside the word empowerment, you put responsibility.
As you're beginning the project in this first 10% of the project, you got to empower the people.
Okay. And so in empowerment, you know, Thomas Edison, you know, let me just say this. It,
bureaucracy has a tendency to get in the way of creativity. That's why I've never liked a
lot of stuff around me because it's just, it's just, you have to wait through too much. That's
why Thomas Edison, who maybe was the greatest inventor.
ever. What he used to say about his laboratory is there ain't no rules around here, we're just
trying to accomplish something. And that's kind of the feel I want you to have here in this whole
process. You know, if you ever read comics, Frank and Ernest, one of them is talking to the other,
and he said, opportunity knocked once, but by the time I switched off the alarm system,
removed the safety bar, loosened the guard chain and unlocked the deadbolt, it was gone.
Well, that's exactly what happens. And let me just say this about empowerment and responsibility.
If you're 100% sure of something, you're already too late. You waited too long. This is a big mess.
And at the beginning, people say, well, let's make sure our plans are right. Let's make sure
we have this sound the way we need to have. And they miss it. Okay, this is just not what we want.
Let me read something to you that I think is important. One notable distinction between
wrong people and right people is that the former see themselves as having jobs, while the latter,
they see themselves as having responsibilities. Every person in a key seat should be able to
respond to the question, what do you do? Not with a job title, but with a statement of personal
responsibility. I love that. I love that a lot. You see, empowerment is a delightful word for
people who want to be set free. It is not delightful when they realize that they're being set free to
produce and are responsible for that production. Henry Kissinger, who just died, he died at 100.
He was Secretary of State for Nixon, and he was quite a well-known international figure. When he
would have his team submit different projects to him, they knew that when they brought the project
to him, they knew that every time, without miss, he would ask him a question. As they would hand it
to him, he would look him in the eye and say, is this your best work? Did you give me the best work
that you possibly could give me? They knew that, and that caused them to anticipate that question
so they knew that they had to be really responsible and do a good job. And how do I empower others?
I want them to know, first of all, who they are, what their strengths are, what their uniqueness is,
what their giftedness is, and then I want them to know what they can become. But in what they can
become, now don't miss this, I not only paint the future of the things that they can do that's going
to be amazing, I say if you really want to become great, you have to take responsibility and accept
it and be accountable for your actions. So this phase that I'm in now, in the beginning phase
of all's well that begins well, is just a very important phase. And then number five is resources,
and I'm moving very quickly because I've got a lot to say. So I know you're having
maybe a hard time keeping notes, but it could be worse, you could be having a boring teacher and
you had nothing to write at all. You understand? So hey, no one's ever going to say with my
mentoring, they didn't get something. No one's ever going to say, oh my gosh, I wish that guy
would have given us some meat to have here. So yeah, I don't have a hose, I've got a fire hydrant
right now, I got that. But number five on all's well that begins well, this beginning part,
number five is resources and the ability to resource people to put
in their hands tools that are going to help them do the job. Often I've taught that people succeed
when they heard enough that they have to, well that's desire, or when they see enough that
they're inspired to, why? Because they have an example, or they learn enough that they want to,
which is knowledge, or they receive enough that they're able to, which is resources.
And one of our jobs is to resource the people that are going to do the job. I saw a survey,
in fact I didn't see it, Aaron gave it to me, 14,000 people on why they failed to reach their
goals. I found this very interesting. Okay, don't write this down right now, just listen
so you get the big picture. 16% lack of focus, which is vision, 36% lack of action, which is direction,
10% because of fear, which is creativity, 19% because of lack of confidence,
believe that's empowerment, and 10% because of lack of tools, which is resources. Now if you'll
notice, almost every reason for not finishing a project was in the one of the five things that I
talked to you about.
how all's well that begins well.
Vision, direction, creativity, empowerment, and resources.
And then when you look
at why people don't finish the project,
it's very easy to me to discover why
they didn't finish the project
because it didn't get started well.
So there we got the five things
that you wanna do with yourself,
with your team to get started well.
Now, that's one bookend.
Let's go now to the books in the middle,
the content, the project, which is 80%.
That 80% means 80% of the work's
gonna be done in the middle.
Now, what's interesting is in the middle,
you, as the director of the team,
give 20% to the middle 80% of the project.
You don't have to give 100% on the front end,
or like you do on the front end.
Why?
Because now you are turning it over to the people
and you're gonna have less of you,
but you can turn it over to people when you start well,
because you've got them on the right track.
So there are four essentials to continue a project well,
once you get it on the right track.
And you've got to communicate these things.
Number one is you need to communicate encouragement.
And why encouragement?
Because this phase takes time.
And this is a process, okay?
And the encouragement is needed because this phase,
the 80% now, when you're doing, now you're doing the work,
this has a lot of failure in it, okay?
Because once you do the work,
you discover some of it doesn't work.
I tell people a lot of time,
you gotta go do the work to find out what doesn't work.
And you gotta do the work to find out what does work.
And in this 80%, there's a lot of action.
There's a lot of work.
And some things are working, some things are not working.
I mean, the writer, Hermes Hemingway,
I was down in Key West, Florida one time, visited his home.
And it was very interesting because he's a writer,
I'm a writer, and Ernest Hemingway is the guy
who said the first draft of anything is always shit.
Well, that's why you hear me talk about the fact
that in the beginning, nobody does well
when we start off a project.
So you have to have encouragement there
because a lot of things they're gonna try
and they're not gonna work.
The second thing you wanna do in the second phase
is ask questions because questions help people unlock
what I call the door of opportunity.
And the two questions you wanna ask
when people are doing the project itself
is what are the problems and what is the potential?
And you wanna know what the problems are
because you have to very quickly correct downside.
When things are not working
and things won't work during this time,
you gotta very quickly step in.
The quicker you step in, the less the slide.
And you gotta know what is the potential
because you won't have the upside.
If you can put a fire to the upside
and put out the fire on the downside,
then all of a sudden you're really going well
and you're gonna do well.
So you wanna ask a lot of questions, okay?
Okay, let's go to three, advice.
The third thing you wanna do in the middle
is you wanna give advice.
Erica Young says that advice is what we ask for
when we already know the answer, but which we didn't.
Okay, we've all been there before.
So yeah, give me your advice.
Oh, crap, that's what I thought.
You know what I mean?
The team, as they're working on the project,
they usually know the answer.
They just wanna make sure that they know the answer.
And that's where you come alongside and give confidence.
I remember in a relationship
that I was in this phase with another person
and a project of, this was a sizable project.
So it spread out over a couple of years.
And eight times they asked my advice
and I would give them my advice of what it was.
It was very interesting.
After the project was over, we had a conversation
which the person that gave the advice told me,
he said, John, he said, eight times you gave me advice.
And he said, I just want you to know
I never took your advice on any of the eight times.
He said, you didn't give me advice and I didn't do it.
So I, yeah, and I said, well, I said, how'd it come out?
He said, well, he said,
I should have taken your advice every time.
Well, I'm looking at it and I said, dear God.
Okay, I understand the first time, maybe not taking advice.
I even understand the second time not taking my advice.
But you know, after about the second time
when you're O for two, maybe a third time,
I don't know, maybe it should occur to you to.
Crap, I'm up for two already,
maybe I could be one for three, you know what I'm saying?
I listened to that and that's
how I came up with the definition of an asshole.
You know where I'm going now, don't you?
An asshole is a person who asks for advice,
but they don't take it, they're just an asshole.
So when you're in this project and you're working with people,
you're wanting to give advice,
you're wanting to give counsel,
because you can help them along.
During this project time,
this agent time, you want to give them advice.
Number four, you want to give them ideas.
In business, you need capital.
In business, you need experience.
But let me tell you something,
capital and experience is not near as important as ideas.
I am, of course, very passionate about ideas.
I think that this is a miss sometimes,
and it's 80 percent we're working on the project.
Because here's where I think the big miss is.
The best time to get great ideas is during
this 80 percent when people are working on the project.
The reason for that is that ideas are birthed during interaction.
In other words, when you're starting something and you're in this project,
you're learning a lot and there's a lot of talk back and forth
of what you're learning and what you're discovering.
Interaction really births a lot of ideas, and I love that.
So that's why when I'm in a group and I'm mixing it up,
I love the mixing up of this time because it's in the interaction
that people are talking about things that they're not working,
things that are working.
It's the birth of ideas.
Ideas are proven to be either true or not true,
good or bad, by action.
Where are you in that 80 percent middle?
You're taking action all the time.
Every day you're practicing.
So the interaction births the ideas and the action proves them to be good or bad.
Then we improve our ideas through reflection.
After taking action,
now we're on reflection and we're looking back and say,
okay, what did we learn out of that process?
And that's good.
With my inner circle, we talk about dogs.
I don't have any dogs.
When I had children, we had dogs, but it's a lot of my inner circle people.
Some are dog people or not some dog people.
And so you say, where does this come into this teaching?
I don't know if you've ever read any of the stuff that Dave Barry ever has written,
but Dave Barry is a really funny,
he's a humorist with the Chicago Tribune.
But he had an article one time,
he says, love the dog for a pet, not for a partner.
And here's what he wrote.
He said, you can have a dog for a whole lifetime and it will never come up with a good idea.
It's so true.
It will be around for a decade,
licking its private parts and always reacting with total wonder and amazement of your ideas.
What does the dog when you call it to the door?
You want me to go outside?
What a great idea.
I never would have thought of that.
Okay.
I don't know if it fits.
I just had to say because it's my sense of humor.
But let me just say,
let me just say that you may have a dog or two on your team.
Okay.
And I'm not trying to talk derogatory,
but they're kind of like the dog.
What?
You're at the door, you went, oh, I never thought of that.
You know, we only do that three times a day.
But and what I'm saying to you is,
you just really want to make sure that you have idea people around you.
You just do.
And you need to look at your team and ask yourself this about your team.
Look at each one of them and ask yourself, how creative are they?
How many times when there are problems that are out on that table,
do they come up with solutions?
I want to tell you what, if you're sitting at the table with people
that just have the inability to come up with solutions,
you don't need them around the table.
So in this 80% doing that project, those are the four things you ask for.
Now, okay, but you're doing so well.
I'm moving along as good as I can.
Okay.
Okay, now we're to the last bookend.
The first bookend, all's well that begins well.
Now, the last bookend is all's well that ends well, okay?
And again, it's only 10% of the project,
but you gotta give it 100%.
You give 100% on the front 10, 100% on the back 10,
about 20% on the middle 80, okay?
And there are five essentials to finish a project well, okay?
How do we end well, okay?
Well, okay, we're back to what I was talking about
a moment ago, and that is better ideas and more ideas.
At the end, you really have an opportunity
to take what the work has done
and put the icing on the cake,
the cherry on top of the sundae.
And they've already worked out some good ideas,
and out of it, you'll get better ideas
and you'll get more ideas.
James Russell Lowell said,
creativity is not finding a thing,
but making something out of it after it's found.
Oh, I just, that's such a good quote.
It's just not finding an idea, but when you found it,
what can you do to really make it better?
And the middle 80% is about finding a thing,
because when you're out there working
and you're involved and practicing,
you find a lot of things.
Now, when you're finding things,
the question is, as you're coming to the end
of this 10% journey, are you making something out of it?
And you're not gonna make something out of everything.
You're not even supposed to make something out of everything,
but you should, on the back end,
be taking what was learned in the work time
and begin to maximize what it does.
You wanna go from an opportunity to optimizing
the opportunity.
And you need to be looking,
everything was done that 80% work project type
and say, how can we make it better?
How can we make it, how can we make it bigger, okay?
Gosh, I can still remember being in Jackson, Mississippi
in the Holiday Inn many, many years ago.
I'm talking about 1984, 85.
You, some of you weren't even born, good Lord.
And I was talking to 31 leaders on leadership.
And at the end of the day, one of the leaders said,
John, when can we hear you again?
At that time, I was a pastor at Skyline out in San Diego.
I said, well, you're not gonna hear me again
for a long time, I gotta go back to work.
And they said, well, that's not good enough.
What you gave us today, we need to hear more of you.
That birthed an idea of maybe I could start a tape club.
So I said, I'll go back to my staff every month.
I'll do a lesson on leadership.
We'll type it live.
Would you like to be a part of the tape club?
They said, how much will it cost?
I said, I have no idea, but let's say,
let's start off with five bucks.
I had no idea at all.
I went back, I got a couple of key people
to start the tape club for me.
I started doing it live.
And my gosh, you know, within about three to four years,
100,000 people were listening to this.
And it just, I became a leadership mentor accidentally.
I didn't even realize, I just did it.
Now, here's what I'm saying to you.
That's taking an experience.
We'd like to hear you more and figure out an answer
and an idea of how that could be done.
And then following through
and making it something better than lying.
And let me just say this.
This is what I really want to say here.
Doing something new always opens up the door
for something better.
So when I opened the door on the front end,
you see one door, okay?
You see one door.
Now here's what I know about that door.
Once that door is open, there are other doors.
This one door is not exclusive
to everything you're ever going to need.
And you open up the door and it's all over.
But you got to open up the first door
to find two or three other doors.
And when you open up those doors,
there's five or six doors.
The more you walk through doors,
the more potential and the more that opportunity
and the more that creativity expands, okay?
I mean, you know, ideas are almost like rabbits.
You know, you get a couple of very soon,
you got a whole bunch.
And that's, so what I'm saying to you is
always go through the door.
Just go through the door.
Because there are better ideas
and there are more ideas if you go through the door.
The second thing you want to do on the end
is do opportunities.
You want to ask yourself, now that we've practiced this,
what opportunities we have.
Opportunities are never lost.
You may lose them.
It's like a person told me the other day,
they said, you know, I think I lost an opportunity.
I said, oh, don't worry about it.
I said, somebody found me.
You know, you didn't find it,
but somebody's going to pick up.
on that supper, and opportunities are results.
Okay, now this could be a whole lecture itself.
I got way too much material, but it's good stuff.
But this could be an entire lecture.
So I'm gonna just give it to you quickly.
You're smart.
I don't need to teach everything.
I'm just giving you the points.
Opportunities are results of questions,
because questions unearth opportunities.
Opportunities are results of networking.
Networking is the channel to find opportunities.
It's the vein that gets you to where you wanna go.
Opportunities are a result of openness.
When you're open and not defensive,
and when you haven't fenced your life in,
opportunities have a tendency to find you quickly.
Action creates opportunities.
In fact, action is the catalyst to find them.
My gosh.
Success, when you're success,
I think you draw more opportunities to you.
I think I get a lot more opportunities than most people,
because I'm very successful,
and I think people seek out successful people and say,
what do you think about this?
Problems are many times catalytic for opportunity,
because they force you to be creative.
You have to figure it out.
Hey, when that group of 31 leaders that day
said we'd like to hear you more often, that's a problem.
Isn't there?
Well, that's how they are, that's how they come.
Then you wanna have your inner circle,
those that are closest to you in proximity of work,
they know the context of everything,
and if they're opportunity-driven,
they could really find what I call mature opportunities,
opportunities that fit the context,
and your outer circle, which are not,
they don't work with you, but they're your friends,
they give you those incredible, incredible fresh eyes
that you really need.
Okay, here's what I wanna say on opportunity
that I think it's just important,
so just listen real carefully, just for a moment.
You gotta live at least 20% of your time
out of what I call the proper zone.
There is an unstated, unwritten rule of being proper
that people just kinda say if you wanna be proper,
you kinda stay in an area,
and I just want you to remember
that the great wise men of the past
held very little respect for today's traditions.
They held very little respect
for what was being done at that moment,
and neither were the great men and women of the future.
In other words, I'm not talking about being a rebel,
but I am talking about in social norm,
a lot of people never break out of the opinions of others,
or, and they become imprisoned, they become imprisoned,
and they never reach their potential
because it's not proper, and I just guess,
you know, I guess there've been times
when I've just not been proper.
I just kinda looked at somebody and said,
you know, that's your problem, it's not my problem,
and I just jumped the fence,
and I'm just giving you that permission.
The third thing at the end,
we're talking about Ellswell, Inswell,
is influence, learning, giving your voice,
giving your voice to this project, that goes a long way.
In other words, I come behind something my team has done,
and I give them my voice and say, this is very good,
and I share that with other people.
I'm giving your voice to something that's important.
I look, there are people that loaned me their voice,
loaned me their influence, and because they came along
and they kind of patted me on the back or told other people,
let me tell you, John's doing that really well.
I've always said, it's wonderful
when you compliment a person personally,
but it's even more wonderful
when you compliment a person publicly,
because now they're getting the compliment,
but so are other people around it,
and I look at my life,
and there were people that loaned me their influence,
and if they wouldn't have loaned it to me,
I would have probably got there,
but I wouldn't have gotten there so quickly,
and I'm very grateful.
I'm very grateful for Elmer Towns and Lloyd Ogilvie
and Tom Phillip and Bill Bright
and just people that loaned me their influence.
So I have a loan contract with potential leaders,
and the loan contract just says this.
I can give you a position of leadership,
but you must earn permission to lead.
I can give you an opportunity to lead,
but you must make the best of that opportunity.
I can set you up as a leader with potential,
but you must stay up by fulfilling your position.
potential. I can get people to follow you today. You must get people to follow you tomorrow.
My influence to you is alone. It's not a gift. Express gratitude and use it wisely. Give
me a return on my investment. Give others a return on my investment. Give yourself a
return on my investment. It's huge. It's huge. You know, I think of Mark who's on this call.
I think of Aaron who's on this call. I've loaned them my influence. And I just have
been so blessed to watch them take that loan and make it something that had made them better
and made me better and made everybody else better. But I like the loan idea so that we
all understand that we can't take for granted what we have. It wasn't given to us. It's
on loan. And what I tell people is, how do you get another loan? Do good with the first
one. And you know, if you do good with the first, second, third one, there's a time you
don't even need a loan. Now you're on your own. You go from the loan to on your own.
But in the beginning, oh, and have gratitude for that loan. Okay, at the end, recognition
is important. Recognition to the players who made this project work really well. It's the
John Wooden who taught his basketball players when somebody throws you a good pass point
to them all the way back down the court and give them recognition for what they've done.
And the last thing you do on the ending well to make it really well is you have to put
your personal touch on it. If you're the leader, you know, for me, I put the Maxwell
touch on it. Okay. And what I do is I look at it and I ask myself one thing very simple.
How can I now that this project is over? What can I say? What can I do? Who can I influence
to let people know that this is really, really good? And the people who need the Maxwell
touch, you know, is the team, you know, this helps you make the team better. It helps with
partnerships so I can be a rainmaker in my influence. It gives moral authority and it
takes ideas and it takes my big picture that I have and my experiences I have. And it matures
those ideas. I think I need to wrap it up. I got a little bit more I can say, but I just
think I've gone too long now. But I hope you get the picture. This 108010 stuff really,
really works. And if you'll just go back and do the five things I tell you on the front
end, the four things in the middle, the five things on the end, and just check yourself
and say, how well am I doing in these areas? I am going to promise you, I'm going to promise
you, it's going to help you and your team just do better in doing stuff together as
a team. And that's kind of why I wanted to do the lesson. So anyway, I hope that helped
you. I hope it added value to you, Jessica, and Mark, and let's see if we can get a few
questions in.
Thank you so much. Wow. I have pages and pages of notes. But one, you said so many valuable
things for people that are, you know, building sales teams, but also traditional organizations
and companies. But one thing I wrote down that was just amazing, among many things,
but why they're successful, receive enough that they're able to be successful. And I
think that in our industry, there's a lot of leaders who aren't providing their people
with enough to be successful, enough of the tools, enough of the systems. So that really,
really spoke to me among everything you mentioned. But yeah, let's definitely get to questions.
I think, I don't think, I know you're right, Jessica, and I think of you and Ray, and I
think that's something you've done exceptionally well. And one of the things that drew me to
partnering with you in this mentorship, though, is I feel that you do a really nice job putting
tools and resources in people's hands. And I think that's why I think that's why you're
successful. Thank you so much. So questions, Jessica, Mark, who's gonna get some questions
from our people? So Tina, it looks like you just wanted to make sure that we can share
the notes, and we will absolutely get those, Aaron, I'll make sure to get those to you.
Who's got a question? You can put your name in either the chat box, or you can
take yourself off mute and come right in now and ask the question of John.
I have a request, not a question. Okay, Mary, you're on with John. Just a friendly reminder,
John, I just dropped off our middle daughter at Highlands College to start her freshman year.
And Pastor Chris was talking about
your calling, which I know is marketplace evangelism. Like I'm so clear about that,
it's not even funny. But this is my friendly reminder that you said you would consider
doing a training for marketplace leaders on how to share their faith in the marketplace.
So that's my friendly reminder from many, many Zooms ago.
So I need to do that for you sometimes? Is that what you're saying?
That's my request and my reminder and my desire.
I think that's very legitimate and hopefully I would love to do that.
Honestly, it's my favorite thing. I think it's what I've called a gift to myself.
So maybe we'll talk to Ray, but if we continue this mentoring, I'll put that in, okay?
Okay, thank you.
Yeah, thank you. You're welcome.
Thank you. And let's go to the Harvey power couple right here. I don't know which one of
you have the question, but give John your name and then ask the question.
Oh, you're on mute. I'm having a hard time hearing. There you go. Maybe.
Is that better?
That's better.
Can you hear me? Sorry, we're sharing. We're sharing headphones. We're at somewhere. Anyway,
I am curious if you have a standard and a sense of how many chances you give somebody.
Um, you know, if you're bringing somebody onto the team and they aren't their word and they don't
show up the way that they said, but they also have like a strenuating circumstance. It is like,
for instance, one of the girls that we've been working with, I really love her as a person.
I can sense her heart. Um, and she's just not being her word and producing the work.
And when she says, but she also just lost her mother a month ago,
and I know she's going through a lot. So is there some way that you can
be in your heart and be compassionate with people and also, you know,
do what's best for your business? Like, do you have like a formula for that?
Yeah, it's a great, it's a great question. And by the way, every leader faces that,
you know, how many chances do I give a person? Um, well, first of all, I love your heart. I can
tell you have a wonderful heart. So you're not going to just cut somebody off. That's not who
you are. But I do want to say this. Um, there are some people that just never produce they,
but they always have a reason. They always have an excuse to remember this.
You can't go from excuses to success. It's impossible. I've never known a person excuse
their way to success. You can go from failure to success, which can go. So excuses are much
worse than failure. So you have to look at this person. Obviously a mother passing away,
that's pretty major, give her a little slack, but it's been a month now and it's time for her to
get back in the game. And you need to perhaps as her leader say, Hey, are we okay now? Are you
ready to start, you know, getting back in the game? Um, so you need to constantly, if there
is an excuse, put a deadline on how long you're going to let that excuse last. And by the way,
by the way, you don't want them to come back to the same excuse that, that, that, that, that,
that, and, and you've got to help them understand that excuses are exits. It always takes you away
from where you're trying to go. And, uh, but what I would do is I would determine probably
within three months, no more than six months, if they're going to produce and almost always,
if they don't produce, they're coming up with excuses and I, you have to let them know as a
leader, that the danger of excuses, how it, there's nothing that keeps a person from success
more than excusing themselves for not doing something or excusing themselves for doing
something they should have done. And so I think that you as a leader have to keep that in front
of your people constantly. And, uh, you know, if she comes back with another excuse, you need to
say, now, do we have a pattern here of making excuses and, and, and, and ask her that. I mean,
is this kind of the way you lived your life? Have you pretty well lived your life? And
this didn't allow me to do that. And just, you got to create that awareness of first of all,
how damaging excuses are. And the second thing you need to create is the fact we won't handle
much, many more excuses, honestly. Uh, if you're coming back another month and there's another
reason, um, really we just going to have to say that this is not your heart, your passion,
your giftedness, and we love you and blessings, but we just don't think you're a fit on the team
and you just have to make that decision. But, uh, I think that I've given you enough context
to help you to know how to do that fair and how to do that. Right. But, um, and.
And one more thing, the best excuse is the worst excuse.
So whenever I have a good excuse
of why I didn't do something,
the problem with it is I believe it and I accept it.
And when people believe and accept excuses, they're dead.
They're dead in the water.
That is a life that will not allow you to be successful.
Does that help you?
It does.
Yeah, thank you so much.
And I will take your advice.
Oh, I know you will.
That could be one of those.
Asshole.
Blessings on you too.
Eileen, we're gonna go to you, then Steve,
and then we're gonna try to get Rod in as well.
So John, you're on with Eileen.
Go ahead, Eileen.
Hi, John.
Hi, girl.
I love you.
Love you.
Thank you so much for this.
It's been amazing.
You always provide so much value when I hear you speak.
And I've been hearing you for many years and love it.
We go back a long time, girl.
Yeah, yes, we do.
And I'm grateful for that.
On vision, I know you said you need to have the clarity,
the heart and the soul.
Is there a process or something that you do
before you bring it to the team to create those pieces
to bring to the team the first time to start it right?
That is one fabulous question, Eileen.
Fabulous question.
Yes, there is a process.
Before I would ever cast vision to the team,
I would make sure that this is the vision clarity
that I feel we need to go.
So I wanna have credibility with what I see.
But then remember, we go to the heart too, okay?
That's all about, do I feel this?
Is this something that I'm passionate enough about
that I'll commit to it?
And I have to ask myself that with integrity
before I talk to the people about it.
And then I go to the soul part, the values aspect.
Does this align with who I am
and what I truly live and believe?
I think always there is a,
I think there's always a personal reflection time
where you have to have credibility with yourself
to say yes to those things
before you ever present it to the people.
Because if you present a vision
without your personal reflection
and gravitas and heart in it,
that vision comes out very light and not very persuasive.
So I think you go through that.
Once you can say yes to those three things for you
and identify what those three things are,
now I think it's time then to turn that over to the teams.
That makes sense?
Yeah, absolutely.
You also answered a question from a long time ago today.
You always talked about placing a 10 on people's heads.
Yeah, yeah.
I think today, I always kind of had a struggle
with placing a 10 on their head
or realizing that they're a dog, if you will.
And today, when you were talking about
they're not bringing anything to the table,
I thought that was a really great distinction for me today
to really identify the ones
that you may wanna have put a 10 on their head
and it doesn't mean they're less of a person,
but they're not capable of being part of the team
at the level that they're at.
100%, Eileen, you're exactly right on that.
And let me just say this,
where you really have that problem
is when you have meetings by position.
In other words, you got,
this is your position or your title,
so you're in this meeting.
And I'm not really big on position meetings very much,
but because here's what happens is when you do that,
you give them, now their right to be there
is because of what they do, not what they contribute.
And that just always kind of doesn't quite fit.
I think what you do,
you need to be contributing in a little bit more.
And so I think it's common
when you have positional meetings
for people to come in and they have a position,
but maybe if you need creativity,
they don't have any creativity.
So anyway, that's a good observation.
Well, thank you again.
Really appreciate this.
Nice to see you.
Thanks, Eileen.
Good to see you.
Let's go to Steve.
Get yourself off mute.
You're on with John.
All right.
Thank you, John.
Once again, we appreciate you so much.
And a lot of us,
I speak for me and my wife, especially,
we have definitely a call on our life
to serve the Lord in a way that just makes impact.
But doing that, I have found many opportunities coming into my life where, as I'm listening
today to focus on one thing versus many things, and maybe you could give me some clarity on
how to really define the direction God's taking you away from me, because I can focus
on one thing versus many things, and maybe you could give me some clarity on how to really
define the direction God's taking you away from me, because I can focus on one thing
versus many things, and maybe you could give me some clarity on how to really define the
direction God's taking you away from me, because I can focus on one thing versus many things,
I can help you with that on decision-making. If you took the Pareto principle again,
let's say you had just 10 decisions to make, now it's a lot, but let's say on your plate as a
leader, 10 decisions to make, you got to look at it and say, what's the most important one? What's
the second most important one? All the way down to 10. Pareto would say, if you'd make the top
two decisions, you'll get 80% of everything you want in life. So I think decision-making is like
equipping people. I think decision-making is like prioritizing your workload. I just think
use the Pareto principle, get the top two decisions that are the most important and make them and see
what happens. Perfect. Thanks, Steve. I hope we served you a little bit. Sorry that we lost us.
Rob, turn yourself off of mute and you're on with John to ask your question.
I appreciate it. Thank you, John, for all that you do. It's kind of a twofold thing. Number one,
what do we do with someone who, I think I know the answer to this, but if they violate
the contract where you give them your endorsement and they don't pick it up and run with it,
is that, how do you handle that? And then secondly, how do we go about getting people
to see themselves as leaders more and more? Well, in violating the, I'm assuming you're
talking about the loan where I loaned your influence. It's very simple. It's a loan.
Pull back the loan. Honestly, it goes back to the fact that if I loan you my influence,
I have the right to bring it back. And what I'll do is I'll just say, I think you have either not
using my influence. So you're not going anywhere or you're misusing my influence. So you're not
doing it correctly. And you and I agreed on the front end. So no longer can you use my name. No
longer can you say, John said, and play off of that. That's what I would do that. I think that's
quite simple. I love the word loan because it lets a person know it's not a gift. And I think a lot
of times in empowerment, and by the way, I would say, Rob, this is a big weakness of John Maxwell.
I'm talking about my weaknesses. I'm very generous and I'm very empowering and I'm very trusting.
And I think it has made me magical as far as a rainmaker and charismatic as far as a speaker.
But I think it's also been a very detriment sometimes in my business
because I've allowed that that has been taken advantage of me by other people. So it's a
weakness too in my life. But I like the loan because the person understands this is not
permanent. It's not mine. And I think it's a beautiful picture of what you wanted to do.
You asked me a second question about the leaders, Rod, about.
but how do I, what was it?
Just to just continually to get people
to see themselves as better leaders.
What, what is the, is there one thing in particular
that you've found to be beneficial
in getting people to see themselves that way
when you can see it, but they haven't yet?
Well, for, you know, I love that question.
Boy, I would like to do a teaching off that sometime.
And I'm going to tell you why,
because I think a lot of us look at our people
and see them as better leaders than they probably are.
But I think a lot of times,
and I'm going to speak of myself again, Rod.
I see people as better leaders than they are
because I see their potential,
but really the only proof that they're better leaders,
I see the better leaders than they are
is that they're producing.
And so here, I think I make a mistake sometimes.
In fact, I don't think I do, I know I do.
I see, let's say you see, Rod, I see your potential.
And I talked to you, I said, Rod, really,
you got a lot of good leadership in you.
I think that is a positive way
to just build into people's lives.
So I think it's healthy and right.
But let me say something,
there has to be within a short time production from you.
There has to be a time when you show me
you're a better leader.
You got to go from potential,
what I see you could do to production,
what I see you are doing.
I'm so glad Aaron's on this call
because I'm teaching some stuff here
that I could really generate and build.
And you can see the difference between those two.
And I think one of the great ways
is I see your potential as a leader,
and I'm very excited to have you on the team.
Now, you have to prove to yourself and me
that I see you correctly, that that potential is there.
And how do you prove to yourself
that potential is there?
By producing.
So what happens is this, Rod, one more quick thought,
because I'm kind of on a roll
because I'm thinking of this stuff mentally.
This is where affirmation can be damaging after a while.
I've seen people personally affirmed,
but they never produced.
So they're living off of what somebody says,
not what they've accomplished.
That begins to be hollow after a while,
and they become quite shallow.
And they begin to have a dichotomy
between how people see them and what they produce,
which causes them to have self-doubt,
which causes them eventually to get out of the game.
So what I would say is I see your potential in you, Rod.
Now, do yourself a favor, me a favor, prove me to be right.
How do you prove me to be right?
Go produce, bring some results.
Now, here's what's beautiful.
If I see your potential and you go prove
that potential by producing, guess what happens?
You will gain more confidence.
Don't miss this.
You will gain more confidence in the one thing
that you did well, that produced something,
than all the affirmation Maxwell
could ever give you in a lifetime.
Most people lack confidence
because they've never backed up somebody's good word
with good production.
So therefore, they're living off of yesterday's affirmation
and not today's production.
And that will cause a person to really be stunted
in their leadership growth.
Does that make sense to you, my friend?
Totally, I really appreciate it.
I was writing like a madman there.
Thanks, John.
I saw you write like a madman.
You're not only a madman, you're a good man.
Good to be with you.
Thank you.
Great, thanks, Rod.
Thanks so much.
Jessica, we'll let you close it down.
We have so enjoyed doing this with you and Ray for sure.
Thank you.
Oh my goodness.
Just so many nuggets in this one call
and I know there's been so many.
So we just appreciate you guys.
Thank you for your time.
Again, we're honored for your service
and you both are incredible.
Thank you so much.
Thank you much.
Blessings on you.
Blessings to you as well.
Well, HMMP, I just want to take this time to say
that many of you will see it at Faith Over Fear, I know.
For those of you who can't be there,
you will be missed incredibly,
but this year is going to be absolutely incredible
and it's at a time where we need it.
It's right around the election, okay?
So I love the timing of the event
and we did that on purpose.
We did it in a time where people need to focus their faith
on brighter things and get away from the fear.
And just because we live in a fear-based world
and a toxic environment, which is the case right now,
it doesn't mean you have to participate.
And we choose each and every day not to participate.
And so I think there's no better time
to host an event called Faith Over Fear in this moment.
And for those of you who really wanna just take the bull
by the horns and do what you gotta do
to create your own economy, to get out of the rat race,
to make it so that you're not as affected
by the decisions that people who don't even know you make,
this is a great event to come to.
And I know you know that
cause you were there last year and you've experienced it.
So we're excited to see you.
We've got a white party,
a Halloween white angel wings and bling party.
So that'll be fun.
And again, for those of you
that aren't continuing with us next year,
you will be so missed,
but you're still a part of our community.
And we love you, those who are continuing.
It's only going up from here.
I know that's hard to believe,
but it's only going up from here.
And to each and every one of you,
I've seen such a transformation this year
in each and every one of you.
And I just hear the stories constantly from your peers,
from Ray, from John.
I hear these stories and they just blow me away.
And we, from the heart,
we do this not because we have to.
We do it because of those stories.
And there's nowhere that we'd rather be, honestly.
There's nothing to us that's more important
than working together as a team to uplift this world
and make it a better place.
And I know that sounds cliche and high in the clouds
given everything going on,
but it takes groups like this.
It takes teams like this.
It takes leaders like this coming together
in this environment and in this type of fashion
and taking everything that you've learned from this program
and spreading it to your people,
spreading it to your communities,
spreading it to your friends and families.
And the ripple effect,
you may never see the ultimate end of that ripple,
but it's huge.
It goes for way more than we could ever know.
And so you may not see the fruit
of what you're learning just yet,
but one day, one day you'll get a call
from someone in a different state
or even a different part of the world
that you didn't even know that you influenced
or had contact with.
And they're gonna share a story with you
and it's gonna make everything
that you've learned all worth it.
So that's my long-winded way of saying
that I feel so grateful and so thankful
that you put your trust in us
to bring a community like this together
and you put your trust in us to learn things
that you're gonna go and create that ripple with.
So love you guys, appreciate you.
Ray so wishes that he was here, trust me,
but we will definitely see you on another training call
and we'll see many of you at the event.
So hope you're having an amazing week.
Go out and implement, take action, take that advice
and we'll see you next time.
Love you.
Have a great day.
Love you.