EntreLeadership - #374: The Secret of My Success with John C. Maxwell

Episode Date: May 11, 2020

Bestselling author John C. Maxwell may be best known as a leadership expert, but there’s another topic he’s even more passionate about: personal development. And for good reason. For nearly  50 years, he says his unwavering commitment to his own personal growth plan has been the secret of his success. Tune in to hear how having a teachable spirit and learning every single day is a game-changer for all areas of your life, including your leadership journey.   entreleadership.com/podcast John C. Maxwell's website 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John C. Maxwell Developing the Leader Within You 2.0 by John C. Maxwell 15 Laws of Growth by John C. Maxwell Good Leaders Ask Great Questions by John C. Maxwell How Successful People Think by John C. Maxwell 13 Ways to Build a High Performing Remote Team from BELAY 10 Days of Intentionality Review this episode for a chance to win a $25 Amazon gift card   As an Amazon Associate EntreLeadership earns from qualifying purchases.   Want expert help with your business question? Call 844-944-1070 and leave a message or send an email to [e-mail]. You could be featured on a future podcast episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Too often, we focus on the things we can't control. We can't control the economy or industry trends or consumer behaviors or our team's coachability, and we certainly can't control the decisions that come from Washington, D.C. Now, nevertheless, we all know it's possible to spend insane amounts of time worrying and fretting over the things we can't control. And that's a problem. But the bigger problem is that we focus so much on the things we can't control that we end up sacrificing the one thing we actually can. From the Ramsey Network, this is the Entree Leadership Podcast, where we help business

leaders grow themselves, their teams, and their profits. I'm your host, Alex Judd, and the thing that you and I can actually control, it's our own personal growth. So that's where we're going to focus today, and we're going to do it with one of the world's premier voices on leadership and personal development, John C. Maxwell. Today, John is 73 years old, and he's reaping and sharing. the benefits of decades of intentional growth. But this was a journey that all started with one life-changing breakfast almost 50 years ago.

You know, Alex, I was in my about 25, 26. And I had a mentor, and we were having breakfast one day. This is when I lived, I was in Lancaster, Ohio. In fact, we were having breakfast at the Holiday Inn, Lancaster, Ohio. And his name was Kurt Kampmeyer, and Kurt looked across the table. And he said, John, do you have a... a personal growth plan. And I didn't have one.

In fact, I not only didn't have one, I didn't even, it never entered my mind to have one. And, you know, I was a young leader. And so I tried to kind of fake it like, oh, well, yeah, I work hard and, you know, all this stuff. And, you know, obviously he's waiting for, it's kind of like a playing, you know, circling the field. And finally, you know, you just, you just land that sucker. And as soon as I, as soon as I landed, he looked at me and he said, you don't have

a plan for growth, do you? Oh, shoot. I said, no, I don't. And then he said the words that really did just change everything from me. He said, well, you know, growth is not automatic. You don't automatically get better. And it was the first time I ever had thought of it. I had assumed that if I just went to work and just did what I was supposed to do,

you know, that I would automatically improve my life. And so that really set me all. for six months, I went to all my friends. I said, do you have a personal growth plan? And none of them did. Because I thought if somebody has one, I'm going to ask them what it is so I can maybe get on it because I don't have one. Yeah.

And I'll bet in six months, Alex, I asked 300 people that question and not one person had one. And then all of a sudden it hit me, even though I didn't have one for myself. We all assume that we'll get better. And that isn't necessarily true. Here's what we can assume. We can assume we'll get older. But we can't assume we'll get better.

Yeah, a lot of people get older, but they don't get any better. So I said, okay, well, I've got to figure this out. And again, I didn't know how to do it. And out of Success Motivation Institute, Paul Meyer, out of Waco, Texas, had a goal-setting growth plan on how to set goals. And Margaret and I were, you know, we'd only been married a few years. We didn't have any money. And so we saved up for six months and cost $790. I bought this kit.

Back then, that was a whole month's salary for me. I bought this kit on personal goal setting, and I got into the discipline of every day going and listening and the cassettes and taking notes. And I got into a growth plan mode. I'm 73. And I still, every day, intentionally personally grow. If a person said, John, of course, I'm a person of faith. So let's just make sure that I would give God credit. So let's remove that.

And just in the human realm, if a person said, tell me what is the most important thing you've ever done for yourself to be successful in life? Unquestionably, I put myself on a personal growth plan, and at 73, I still have one. And in fact, I was at a conference one time, and I was signing books, and a guy came up. And he said, what's your personal growth plan? And there was just, I had a moment, so I very quickly told him. And I'll never forget. He looked at me. He said, well, he said, I don't like that.

You know, I was kind of surprised, to be honest with you. I said, well, okay, okay, that's okay. I said, then I got curious. I said, well, okay, what's your personal growth plan? And he said, oh, I don't have any. Well, I said, well, I like mine better than yours. You know? Yeah.

Yeah, I like mine better than yours. So, the point being that today. day, at 73, I'm still growing, I'm still learning. I still have a hunger to grow. I have a very teachable spirit. I grow. Every day, I write things down. I learn. And I'm just very excited. And everything is still going and growing. And it's because I have intensely committed to grow till I die. There's no, like, stopping. And I love learning and growing. And I love to be around growing people and learning from them. And so it's a beautiful thing. I love that, John. And I've seen you teach on this topic once, and I'll never forget just the absolute passion that exuded from you

on the stage. You just looked like you were having a blast. It just looked like you were hanging out with 4,000 people. And it struck me because I remember you saying that this topic being personal growth is the topic that you are most passionate about. And that struck me because I always think John Maxwell is the leadership guy, right? 21 irrefutable is laws of leadership. Everyone thinks of that book. So why is this topic of personal growth something that stands out to you as being something you're passionate? I love that question, Alex.

And the reason it is is because my personal growth has enabled me to be successful in every area, including leadership. So when I wrote my first leadership book of 19, I don't know, 91 or whatever it was, developing the leader within you was the first major leadership book that I wrote that I kind of became known for. I thought, okay, I wrote my leadership book. But because I'm personally growing and developing, what happened to me is I learned more about leadership, but I thought, oh, I haven't said everything I want to in that first book, so I need to say some other things. So I wrote a second book, and all of my writing is birthed out of my growing. In fact, let me just reverse that for a second, because this is huge.

The developing the leader within your book, since we're on that one, when it hit its 12. what would have been, maybe the 25th anniversary. Let's see, 91. Yeah, 25th anniversary. Okay. My publisher said, could you do a 25th anniversary kind of upgrade, revised edition of developing the other thing? And you? And I said, sure.

So I went back to the book to revise it. And I'm telling you, I started reading the book, and I got depressed. I mean, I'm saying, this isn't any good. We have, now, this book had sold two million copies, two and a half million copies. I don't know. It's sold a lot of copies. One, it's the book you wrote, correct? Yeah, and you want to talk about depression. What's depression is when you read a book that you wrote and you said it's not any good.

It's one thing for me to say, someone else's book isn't any good, but I read my own book and I've said, this isn't any good. So, you know, in my contract, I was supposed to revise 15% of the book. I ended up revising 87% of that book. Now, here, I don't want our listeners to miss this. You see, what happened is, 25 years of growth had happened between the time I wrote that book and the time I read it again. The words on the page of the book never changed. But I'm growing.

I'm changing. I'm thinking different. My perspective is different. So the book, I'm way up here. I've got to now go back to the book and bring the book up to where I am in my growth. And in fact, right now, you know, it's a very, in fact, it's been an incredible selling book, developing the leader within you 2.0 is the revised edition of that book. And somebody said, well, doesn't that bother you that you would go back to a book

that you had written 25, and that you were disappointed and discreet? No, I said, it makes me very happy because it tells me I'm growing. I mean, let's put this way, if I would go back to something I did 25 years ago and still think it was amazing, it would just tell you I'm not developing and growing myself, that I'm not learning new things. So the statement I make quite often is that it, if you go back five years and you're still excited about what you did five years ago, you're not growing today.

Oh, that's good. That's convicting, too. Well, it's true for all of us. And so I look at things I did two or three years ago. Oh, okay, that was all right, but, oh, I can do so much better. That all comes out of Alex, a continual commitment to personal growth. If you'll love me, let me give you one more story on this. Yeah.

Because I'm in my 20 still, and now I'm on my personal growth plan. And so I'm listening to a guy named Earl Nightingale, and I'm listening to tapes all the time. And Earl Nightingale said that if I'd spend an hour day, every day for five years on the same subject, that in five years I'd be an expert on that subject. And so I'm, what are I, 27? And I said, okay, I said, I want to be, I loved leadership. I said, I want to be an expert in leadership. So I said, I'm going to give an hour every day for five years on the subject of leadership.

And I did. I mean, I just, now every day I'm talking to leaders, asking leadership questions. I'm practicing leadership. I'm just every day. Leadership, leadership, leadership. And Earl Nightgale said five years. So, Alex, I'm going through this process. I'm going to say, okay, I'm like Cape Canaveral.

I'm in a countdown time. Okay. Five, four, three, you know what I mean. You're just waiting for it to be done. Yeah. I'm going to a finish line. The finish line is five years. I'll be an expert.

Now, here's what's interesting. About halfway through that five-year countdown, everything changed. I began to internally make major changes in my life. The growth was now taking root in me. And I quit asking about halfway in this process, I quit asking, how long will it take? And I started asking, how far can I go?

And those are two totally different worlds. Totally different. Now, I never ask how long it will take anymore. I always ask, how far can I go? And by the way, I'm 73. I'm still asking, how far can it go? Hey, I can't even find the finish line. To me, there is no finish line.

I don't know where it is, but I can't see it yet. I've got distance to go. I've got height to climb. How far can it go? I don't know, but I know this. At 73, I haven't even come close to getting to the finish line. And that's what's beautiful about personal growth. Can we dive into, before we go into some of the laws and strategies,

because I think that there's something so powerful in that mindset shift, from how long will it take to how far can I go? What does that mindset shift do for you as a leader, John, to think about personal growth from that perspective? Oh, it's huge. It's huge. I'm glad you asked that. It's a great question. Because I ask that of myself, how far can I go as a leader?

I ask that for my people. I never limit them. I never box them in. I never say, well, this I think is their bar. No. How far can they go? And when they ask me, well, John, do you think, what do you think? Do you think I'm reaching my potential yet?

No, no, no, no, no. If you're still growing, you know. See, the more you know, the more you know that you don't know. So growth creates this incredible awareness that no matter how good you are at something, there is so much more to learn. See, the only people I know that think they've tapped out are people don't know anything. I mean, it's kind of like I, you know, it's kind of like I read my book and, you know, and now let me tell you about the earth and all that is within it.

You know what I mean? So, so they kind of get in this. mindset, you know what I'm talking about. The ones who don't know think that they know, and the ones who know, no, not think. They know that they don't know. That's right. So there's an awareness. So because my ceiling is unlimited, my finish line is way out there. For me, I don't think there is a finish line. Guess how I lead others? The same way. We lead others as we lead herself. So I think I create an environment for the players on my team to just know that there's no limit. There's just no limit. And so they go for it. And they go for it with gusto. And when we

get an accomplishment and have a little party and celebration, we all say that's wonderful. And then guess what? When we're done high-fiving, we go right back to work. Because that wasn't the end. That was just a, okay, let's all do a high five and celebrate for the evening and back at it, back at it. So there's something beautiful about this growth mindset that allows us to stay out. You know, my father's 98, and he worked full time up to 95. That is unreal. Yeah, it's just unreal. And my father, my father, you know, basically said, John, I'm going to live until I die,

and I'm not going to get the two confused. And Alex, don't you and I, don't we both know some people? I know people. They're already dead. They just haven't made it official. You know what I'm saying? That's right. Absolutely.

It's over for it. In fact, I want to sometimes go over and I just say, you know what? It's obvious. It's over. Do you want me do a committal for you and let you see it? I mean, I don't know what to do, but it's over. Okay. Well, this is so good, though, because we see those people, and we work with business owners

all the time, that they've made this. transition, right? They're in the how far can I go mindset. They've got the growth mindset. And then they come to us and they say, I just want my people to get this. And they're like, I don't know, do I need to start a book club? Do I need to convince them? And I talked to a guy that had a construction company the other day. And he's like, I just want these guys to get it through their head that they are responsible for their growth. And he was so frustrated. He was like, how do I get them to get it? What are your thoughts there, John? Well, one of the things is people do what people see. So number one is they need to see growth in the leader.

Now, for example, your illustration, I'm going to assume that your leader is growing because he's growing. He wants his people to grow. So what I share with leaders all the time, here's the mistake we make. I'm growing, so I want you to grow. So I get a book and I sit you down and I say, okay, Alex, I'm going to mentor you and, hey, developing the leader within you two points out. We're going to develop you as a leader. I'm going to mentor you. Wrong approach.

right approach I take two books of developing everything you and I sit down beside you I say you know what let's grow together let's tell you what let's teach each other

let's learn let's read this book let's ask each other's question let's challenge each other let's hold each other I'll tell you what Alex could we grow let's do it together

I tell leaders all the time you gotta quit teaching and you've got to start learning with the people that you're with. Everything changes. Everything changes because we have, you know, we have our John Maxwell company. We do a lot of corporate training. Here's what we discovered. This is a fact. The corporate trade, I don't care what program. It doesn't matter what the program is. Corporate training works when the leaders come to the corporate training or the leadership training. And they sit down and say, let's all learn. Man.

It doesn't work, Alex, when the leaders say, okay, folks, you need to have a class on this. You need to all go online on this, and so we've got this program going, you go take it. It doesn't work. It only works when the leader immerses himself or herself in the growing process, too. And that's a real miss with a lot of companies and organizations. And I know what they're saying. They're saying, well, I got all this down. No, you don't.

How arrogant are you? Oh, man. I don't have it all down. I'm ready to sit in a class with you, Alex, and get a book out and have somebody teach me or watch some kind of a video or get some kind of online program. Every day of my life, I have an learn. See, it doesn't bother me to be a fellow learner with you because, guess what I am? I'm a learner every day. That's right.

So I'm not out of my comfort zone. The only difference is I'm learning beside you instead of maybe being by myself learning. But I'm learning. Gosh. Makes sense? Oh, it does. The story that I thought of as you were sharing that principle, I'll never forget. Two years ago, I was at one of our events here, Entree Leadership Summit, and Alan Mulali, who is the former CEO of Ford, was on stage. He was given the talk. Oh, unbelievable. It was one of the greatest leadership talks I've ever heard. And I will never forget, something clicked in my head whenever I was watching Alan Mulali give his talk. And I looked behind my right shoulder at the back of the room and our CEO, Dave. Jamesy was sitting there taking notes. Taking notes. And it was in that moment that I realized, oh, this is what we do here. This is who we are.

And it seems like that's what you're talking about. Oh, totally. And that's one of the reasons I love your culture because I know Dave well and Dave's great friend. And Dave never stops learning. Dave never stops asking questions. Not one time in David's life has ever felt like I got it. We don't got it.

In fact, when somebody says they got it, I cringe. Nobody got it. We're getting it. But we don't get it. There's a world of difference between those two. And he's developed with all of you, a growth-learning culture like we have in our companies. And that's why I think you're so sticking successful. I think you're successful because you all have a growth mindset.

You know, what we call it the cycle of success. You know, I have a coaching company that we started nine years ago. And it's the largest. I mean, we started this nine years ago. We have 33,000 coaches in 168 countries of the world. And people come and old things and say, how did you build this company so quickly? We have a cycle of success. And you talk about constant growth.

Here it is. And by the way, it's a cycle. It's not a journey. See, in a journey, I can pass something and never come back to it. A cycle is continually repeated. But there are five parts to the cycle. At the top of the cycle is test. We're always testing.

We're always trying new things. Hey, we're just continually saying, okay, let's see if this works. And so we are in a continual testing phase. Well, the second part of the cycle is failing. Because if you test a lot, you fail a lot. In fact, your failures will be greatly attached to your testings. So if I do one test, I may have one failure, but if I have 100 tests, I'll have 70 failures. So what I tell people all the time is you need to increase your failure.

failure rate by testing. Okay, so testing, failing. This is growth. This is huge. The third part of the cycle is learning because the value of failure is what you learn from it. There is no value in failure without learning. So when people tell me about a bad experience they've had, I can hardly wait for them to get down the bad experience because I have a question for them. The question is very simple.

What did you learn? What did you? If they can say, well, let me tell you what I learned from that, they won't do that again. They've learned from their failure. If they can't tell me what they've learned from it, they're going to do the same thing again. But so often we don't ask that question. What did I learn? Like we just breeze right past the experience and we never actually learn from the experience.

Totally. Totally. You're exactly right. And so, see, okay, as you go through the cycle, you're going to find that each component feeds off the previous. I'm testing. so therefore I'm failing. What does failure lead to? Done correctly, it leads to learning.

That's the value of it. The fourth part of the cycle is improving. So what we do, what do we do with what we learn? Well, we fix it. We improve it. Now that we know, now that we have an awareness, you can't fix what you don't know. In fact, in my laws of growth,

one of the laws of growth in my book, the 15 laws of growth, is the law of awareness. And the law of awareness is you can't grow yourself unless you know yourself. Ain't that true. So watch how this works, Alex. It really works. Learning is overrated, totally overrated, unless out of it, you're improving.

Don't learn just to learn. I mean, what do you want to be an encyclopedia? I mean, if I want a bunch of facts that somebody's learned, I don't need to learn the facts. I just call, you know, get on my iPhone and ask Siri. She'll give me what I need to know. So watch this. Out of failure done correctly comes learning. Out of learning done correctly comes improving.

Out of improving done correctly comes to the fifth part of the cycle. Reenter. Get back into the game now. Now the key on reentering is you don't get back in the game until you've improved. So in America, we love tenacity. We love the guy that's, you know, he's never down, but he's just up or getting up. And he keeps getting knocked. And we say, oh, that's America.

That's a tenacious spirit. No, that's a stupid person. Hey, when you get knocked down, I would suggest you stay down a while and ask why. And only when you can learn and improve to you get back up. So we reenter. But now, here's what's huge. This is all personal growth. So when we reenter, what do we do?

We test. We get back in the game, not to say, wow, look how good. No, no. We get back in the game to test, to fail, to learn, to improve, to reenter, to test, to fail, to learn, to improve. That is a growth mindset right there. That's a picture of a company that basically says, we will never be satisfied with who we are, will be satisfied with where we are. We'll never say, we've arrived.

We're testing, failing, learning, improving. re-entry, but we're not re-entering to say, we got it. We're re-entering to test again. It never ends. And I love that because that model can be taken for the individual. It can be taken for the team within a business, but it can also be taken organizationally as a whole. Something associated with that cycle that you kind of hit home on was that idea of awareness. And I know I've heard you talk about this before, and it seems like in a lot of your writing and a lot of your talks, you really believe this is the starting point for someone to begin their personal growth journey.

It is. So what are the questions we need to be asking ourselves to become a more aware individual and a more aware leader, John? There are questions we can ask ourselves, Alex, but a more important thing to do is ask the questions we would ask ourselves from people who know us well. Here's what I think. I don't think that self-awareness really happens to a person. I don't think, in other words, let me explain this.

I don't think I have the ability to be self-aware on my own. I think I have blind spots that will always be blind spots. And the only way that they won't be is if somebody comes beside me and says, let me share with you a blind spot you have. So what I think is important in this whole growth by awareness is to sit down with your team and say, look, let's help each other. You help me. You help me because I know I have weaknesses. In fact, I was speaking for Johnson and Johnson and I was spending, in fact, I was speaking on the 21 laws of leadership to about 120 presidents of companies. And towards the afternoon in the middle of the afternoon, I thought, okay, I can, I've got a relationship with them good enough. I can venture into a little difficult ground. And I looked at those CEOs, all the, I mean, major companies, you know, a lot of ego. And I said, what you need to do is you need to go back to your. your team, and you need to share with them what your weaknesses are.

And it got tight in that room. I'm telling you, I was given the emotional stiff arm real quick, which amused me. And so I called a break. It was time for a break. So I'm up there, signing books, talking to people, and there's a CEO, came up to me, and he kind of pulled me aside. And he said, I disagree with what you said. I said, what was that?

He said, I disagree with you about going back and sharing your weaknesses with your people. And then he gave me, he kind of went into a two-minute CEO talk about, never let him see you blink and, you know, he just, he just kind of, I just wanted to give him some shoulder pads and a football helmet and say, you know, I just think you need to charge. Okay. So he finished, and I smiled, and I said, okay, I said, I understand what you're saying. I said, but, but I said that you have, there's, there's just a, there's something you're missing here. So, what, what am I missing. I said, well, to be honest with you, what I said, go home and share with your people, your weaknesses, you think they don't know your weaknesses. I said they know them. In fact, I said,

let me tell you something. They talk about them all the time. They just have never approached you about them. And they would love to help you. But you've never given them permission. I said, I promise you, you go back and say, let me share with you. some areas, I think I'm a little bit at weekend. They'll give you a standard innovation. The fact they'll say, he's finally figured this out. And then if you really want to have improvement, say, help me with those. And here's why I think, Alex, I think if you and I are on the same team, I can go to you

and I can say, Alex, help me out. I give you permission. I not only have an open-door policy, I have an open-air policy. I give you a permission to talk into me. And when you see me assuming something I shouldn't assume, it would. When you see a blind, just would you come and just say, John, maybe this is something we ought to look at. Because here's what I believe self-awareness is. Self-awareness, I think, is a result of a secure leader who ask other people on his or her team to speak into his or her life about their weaknesses.

That's how we heard. I remember one time, this is funny. Linda Eggers, who has been with me for 33 years. I mean, hello. I mean, she's my executive assistant. I mean, she knows me very well. A few years ago, I was writing a book, and I wanted to talk in the book about weaknesses. So I'm calling her on the phone.

I was out in California. I can still remember this. I'm calling her phone. And I'm saying, Linda, I said, I'm writing a section on weaknesses, and I think I want to talk in the book about some of my weaknesses. I said, would you do me a favor? And I don't know, just over the next couple days as you're doing your work, every time you think of a weakness, just of mine, just kind of jot it down on a piece of paper. and I said, I'll call you in two or three days, and, you know, by that time you should have a decent list and you can tell me what they are. And she started laughing.

And I said, what's laughing? Well, she said, I can do that. But she said, if you want me to, I can give them to you now. And I started laughing. I said, what do you mean you can give them to me now? Oh, she said, I know, I know what your weaknesses are, you know. And she said, here, do you have a piece of paper? I said, well, I guess I do.

Or she said, just take some notes. Let me tell you what you're, let me give you your top seven weaknesses right now. And she's going down with all my weaknesses. She's just having a blast. Of course, she knows me well, and she's howling. I'm saying, well, that's not so funny. I don't know if that's funny. And here's the point.

She already knew my weaknesses. Can I tell you something? Go ask your spouse. Go ask them. They already know. They just haven't been given permission. So I think I'm a very self-aware person, but I'll tell you why. I'm very self-aware because I ask my team to speak into my life all the time.

And I say, you're going to have to talk to me. Because I can promise you, the only self-awareness I have is when selves like you make me aware of it. Now, once I'm aware of that, now I am ready to improve it. because now you can't fix what you're not aware of. So that law of awareness is a huge personal growth. In fact, when I wrote the 15 laws of personal growth, that has become the Bible for people on personal growth. I mean, you know, it's sold a million copies. I mean, it's become, I mean, when people say, I want to have personal growth,

I just said, go get the laws of growth. It'll tell you everything you need to know to grow yourself. That's right. It's so true. And it's kind of one of those that you can always come back to just to, re-center yourself on your growth journey. I love that you tell that story about Linda because I've heard you tell that story before and I was so delighted that as we were arranging this recording, I see Linda's name pop up in my email. I'm like, she's still there. She's still there. So you said

33 years she's been working with you. I would imagine that there's something to the longevity of that relationship that has to do with the fact that you have conversations like the one you had with her. and she has the trust and the safety to be able to bring up the areas where you're weak. Yeah, I trust her with my life. I really do. She's just a precious lady. And, you know, I've got a lot of people with me 20, 25 years. I'm very blessed to have the people around me.

But in personal growth and development, the awareness factor is major. In fact, one of the greatest gifts leaders give people is helping them be aware of who they are so they could become who they could become. I love that law of awareness, because everything changes once you begin to understand this isn't my strength. And a lot of people are working in areas that they're not any good at.

And I don't mean as unkindly, you're not going to be any good in it. You're never going to hit potential because it's not your strength. Isn't it crazy how almost overnight so many businesses suddenly became remote working, organizations. And for people that have done this for a long time, it's business as usual. But for businesses

like ours where it's like, holy cow, we've never done this before, we've got a lot of questions. Like, how do we maintain our culture? How do we make sure everyone's moving in the same direction? How do we structure communication and make sure that we run these Zoom meetings in a way that's not incredibly awkward? Well, the team over at Belay has a 100% remote workforce. And they've been doing this for years and they've compiled everything that they've learned in a guide that's called 13 ways to build a high performing remote team. It's going to give you a bunch of tips and a bunch of practices for making sure that your team performs and stays connected and unified while they're working remote. So if you want to download this free guide, just text Belay to 31996. Again,

to get the free guide, text the word belay to 31996. One of the things, you already talked about a little bit that I think is related to this topic of awareness is that idea of having a teachable spirit. And I know you wrote the book, Good Leaders Ask Great Questions. It's an incredible book, incredible questions in there that we can all be asking other people as well. But I know you have some pretty remarkable mentors in your life that you've had the opportunity to sit down and learn from and ask questions from. I know one of those that I've heard you talk about a lot is anytime you've had the opportunity to sit down with Jim Collins. And I'm always struck by that relationship in particular because I admire Jim Collins and I admire you a great deal. But the two of

you have two remarkably different personality styles. When you're sitting down for lunch with Jim Collins and asking him questions, you're talking to someone that is wired way different from you. And so I guess what I'd like to know is, is there increased value in that talking to someone that's radically different than you? And then what are some of the things you've learned from your relationship with Jim? I have of the persuasion that the people who teach me most are different than me. For example, Jim is very anal. He's a researcher. He's a researcher. He's a researcher. Yeah. He puts his head down for months on end and looks for the needle in the haystack. You follow me? I blew by the haystack a long time ago. I just scattered a bunch of hay and thought,

I wonder what's happening back there. I feel that people that are different, temperament-wise, experience-wise, bring to the table different perspectives. And to me, the value of conversation, I think the greatest way to grow, to be honest with you, is get around other growing people of different perspectives and toss around an issue. And it's always, it's not sometimes, it's always a fact that they add to you in a way that you could have never added to you. you could have never added to yourself. It's like I called shared thinking. I wrote a book called How Successful People Think.

And one of the things I talk about is shared thinking, shared thinking. If you have a good idea and I have a good idea, see, great ideas are not birthed out of one idea. There are always a combination of several ideas. So if you have a good idea and I have a good idea and we sit down and share it. Now, we have two ideas for sure. but most of the time we have three because two ideas when they come together

birth another idea and what happens in shared thinking is when we get collective in it it begins to multiply in greatness so I mean for example with Jim Collins what's funny is when we get together we know each other

and we know we have a list of questions he has a list of questions for me I have a list of questions for him we're like two little kids it's kind of, we get down to the table before we order, I'll start asking a question. And he'll say, wait a minute. He said, I have a question. I said, no, but I started first.

So you have to answer my question. Well, okay, but I'll answer you. But then you have to answer my question. And we just kind of tit for tat. Like two little kids playing a ping ball game or something, going back on the questions. But I could still remember we were in Vegas. We were both going to be speaking at the same conference. So we had the rare opportunity of having a lunch together.

And it was when I was just really on a learning curve. with transformation. And so I had a list of questions on transformation. How do you transform a culture? How do you transform a team? What is it that allows a team to change in such an incredible way that it just explodes the return? John, John, pause right there real quick. You need to record these conversations when you have them.

Just sit down your iPhone and hit record whenever you have these conversations. You know, that's what Aaron. my content curator. That's what she tells me all the time. She said, John, you record, record. If we could just hook up a GoPro to you and just follow you around everywhere you go, that would probably be really. And let me tell you why that would be important. You know, for 40 years, I have systematically every month had what I call learning lunches.

For 40 years. Go back to the personal growth plan now. We just go right back to it. Yeah. For 40 years. Because one of the ways I grew as a young leader, was I asked questions, and all of a sudden, I thought, why don't I take people to lunch that they're better, bigger, faster, smarter than me? And so I'd say, could I take you the lunch? I'll

buy, and I'd take them lunch. I don't even eat. I buy their lunch, and I got my legal pat out, and I had my questions. And I ask them questions. And it's life-changing. It's totally life-changing. And, you know, at the end, I thank them. I ask them how I can serve them, because they help me for sure. And you stack that up for 40 years. Think of all of the incredible help and advice that I've gotten from a lot of people. And I seek them out. When I was a young leader, I gave a lot more direction. Today I ask a lot more questions.

And it's a major change, but it's a beautiful change. And that's why I wrote, in fact, I wrote the book The Leaders Has Great Questions because I believe that as a leader, you have to find your people before you can lead them. And what I did in my earlier years is Alex, I led by a summary. I led thinking I knew where you were. So, let's go. Get on the leadership train. Come on, Alex.

I got you. Let's go. Let's go. And you maybe didn't even want to be on the train. I never sat down long enough to say, let me ask you some questions. Tell me what you love best about what we're doing here. Tell me what you would change. Because what I discovered is, boy, once you start asking people, you know, tell me how I can improve.

myself. They'll tell you. And the moment they tell me, I think, they just gave me an incredible gift. I wasn't aware. Now I'm aware. So I think that learning, teachable, always asking questions I've never arrived. I think that mindset is just, it's life-changing for people. And I'm at 73 as as excited about learning something from you or from someone else. And I believe everybody's my teacher. In other words, Alex, if you and I sat down, we're doing a program right now, but if you and I sat down for a lunch, I promise you in 15 minutes, I'd be taking notes from what you would be teaching me.

Because you have something to teach me. There's something right now that you do or that you know that if you could transfer it over to me, it would improve my life. I know that. So it's my responsibility to get it out of you. And I get it out of you by asking questions. And so people know, in fact, people who know me well, they come to the table. They've already got, because they know we're going to sit down.

I'm going to ask you a bunch of questions because, you know, that's how. And I always cracks me up. I go into a restaurant. Of course, don't do it now, social distancing. But I go into a restaurant and I'll see two people eat together and they're not even talking. And I just look at him, I think, okay, do I help them? I mean, or do I just let him look at each other? I mean, you don't even need to, if you're not going to talk to somebody, just take a mannequin with you instead of going over there.

So every once in a while, I will. I'll just go, you know, I'm waiting on my mail. I'll just grab a chair and I'll go over and sit to him, introduce myself. And just, you know, try to help them. Just ask some questions. Get the conversation going a little bit. But I know this. If you have the spirit and the attitude that every person,

has something to teach you, you will constantly be searching out and asking questions of trying to find out what that is. So we left an open loop that I know people are on the edge of their seat to hear about something you got out of that conversation with Jim Collins. So is there something specific that stands out from the questions that you asked, Jim? Yeah. In the early part of the conversation, we were talking about transformational movements. And one of the reasons I love Jim is he does research.

And he's researched transformation a lot. So he really knows that field, much better than I. And so when I'm asking him, I said, okay, what's the key to a transformation movement? I mean, I'll never forget Jim Collins bends over and gets a little passion, a little enthusiasm. He said, John, it's impossible to have transformation movement without a transformational leader. And he said, transformation is as much caught as it is taught. And he said, every transformational movement that's ever happened in the history of the world, had a transformational leader.

So he said, make sure, one, you're a transformational leader, but if you begin to spread transformation, make sure that you put transformational leaders in those different areas because you teach what you know, but you reproduce who you are. You may teach transformation, but the only way you reproduce it is if you live it. So, you know, isn't that great insight? Oh, it's so good. But I just love that you have a rhythm that you're having those conversations

every single month. And you're getting those types of thoughts, and it's like, that thought could be a book. Like, that thought could be a lesson. That thought could be something I could use to add value to other people. And I think that brings us into kind of the next topic that it's something that I think you exemplify, John. It's that law of consistency. And I think that this is something that a lot of times, when I look at people that I believe

are kind of pictures of personal growth, I see the results that they've gotten, but I don't always see the consistency that created those results. So can you teach us a little bit on that value of consistency? The fact, I love the way you just said that. I love the results they got, but I didn't always see the consistency of the results. Okay. Consistency, if you're doing the right thing, compounds ridiculously. Consistency compounds. And we've all heard the story of the guy that's got a boulder and he's, you know, he's trying to break the rock. And he's, you know, he's trying to break the rock and he keeps hitting it, keeps hitting it, there's nothing happens, nothing happens, nothing happens, nothing happened. I don't know, the 832nd time, he hits the rock and it breaks. Now, did he get good on the

832nd time? No. Every time he hit that rock, he got it closer to breaking. But he didn't get rewarded for the first 831 hits. There's no reward there. There's nobody coming up to him and say, oh, you're spectacular, aren't you? Let's give you a medal. No, no, no. You see, he's not as good as everybody thinks he is on the 830 second hit, but that's consistency. Here's what happens. Consistency all of a sudden shows up.

And people go, oh, my gosh, that was amazing. It's like the guy says, all my life, I've worked hard at being an overnight success. That's a consistent compound. But it's not a sexy word. So if I looked at Alex, I said, you know what? I like, you've got some great qualities. Let me tell you, let me just share with you two or three of the qualities I really like about you. Well, so you're going to say.

And I look at you, the first thing I say, you know what I like? What things I like about you, Alex is, you know what? You're consistent. Well, you're sitting there and you say, oh, that's disappointing. I was looking for brilliant. I was looking for creative. You have a whole list of adjectives, but consistency, wasn't one of them.

It's not a sexy word. There's nothing sexy about being consistent. And no one ever gave anybody a consistency award at the end of the first month. I mean, oh my gosh, you showed up for 30 straight days. Here, here, have a trophy. I'm like, this is amazing. No, no, no, no, no. See, the return for consistency is always on the back end.

Now, this is huge. It's like money. I mean, hey, go to. Dave Ramsey and all the stuff. It's the money thing. If you put money in some kind of an investment, you don't, after the first week, say, well, I pulled it out of that investment.

Gosh, I was, I didn't know it. I don't think I made any money on that. No, no, no. You understand, you've got to stay with it for a long period of time. It's through that long haul that it begins to show up. And so I tell people all the time, I wasn't as bad as people thought I was when I started off. I'm not as good as people think I am now.

I'm just now reaping ridiculously compound interest on all the stuff that I've done. So now when it shows up, it shows up like, oh, my goodness, look who he is, look what he's done. You know, what I mean? You know, somebody said, how did you write 83 books? Well, one word at a time. It's really how I do it. I've never been able to figure out a better, faster method. It's one word at the time.

And so the first page, nobody applauds, first book, well, that was nice. You know, about the 80th book, somebody says, he's a prolific writer. Well, yes, I am. Oh, yes, I am. But it's like graduating from college. You know, you get your diploma. They give you pictures. They give you gifts.

They give you candy. You know, you go out and party. And they say, congratulations. You graduated. Can I tell you something? You weren't a success when you got the diploma. It just showed up. You were a success.

You were a success when you went to college. You were success when you went to class. You were success when you took the test. Every day you're a success there. It's just that on graduation day, it shows up. Okay, so this is really interesting, though. I want to park there for just a second because it's interesting. Whenever we're in school, it's like we know the things that we have to be consistent on to get the diploma.

But then something that I really admire about you is you've chosen, I think it's like five or six areas. that you said these are the areas that I'm going to grow. And it's like equipping, it's leading people, it's relationships, it's your giftedness, it's all of those things that you said, these are the areas that I'm going to grow. I know that I am capable of this, but I've also seen other business owners that we work with that are capable of this, that we grow in 30 different areas. And we read books from 40 different genres and we say, I'm going to grow a little bit here, and then I'm going to do a little bit here, and I'm going to pursue this thing.

So how do you choose the areas that you're going to be consistent? because it seems like focus is part of the kind of effectiveness equation. Yeah, that's a great – I love you bringing that up, Alex. Because consistency to compound greatly has to be coupled with your strengths. And this is the miss. So if I'm consistent doing something I'm not good at, the only thing that compounds is frustration. That fact, I tell people all the time, if you really love it, love doing something you're not good at, don't make it a career, make it a hobby.

Don't get the two confused. Don't get the two confused. So if I'm consistent in a weakness, I don't get compounding return. I get compounding frustration. But if I'm consistent in my strength area, the things that I have natural giftedness. And so what a person needs to do is they need to very quickly prioritize their life. And I teach people, you know, what gives me the greatest return and what gives me the greatest reward. You've got to stay in the things that are going a compound. So consistency with strengths compounds success. Consistency with weakness compounds frustration. Something's going to get compounded, but you want frustration. So I tell people, don't work on your weaknesses. I mean, I don't have any clue why I'm more. There are 99 out of a hundred things I don't

do. And I don't do them. I don't have any desire to do them. And sometimes people say, well, John, you know, with all your leadership, I mean, how do you, because I'm not on any boards. I don't want to be on anybody's board. It's a waste of time. You know, there's no return in that kind of stuff. And so people say, well, you know, aren't you asked all the time? All the time. So how do you stay off the boards? I tell them I'm not any good. That's right. One of the most freeing things in life is just to tell people, oh, you don't want me. I'm not any good in that. Oh, my gosh, I'm terrible there. It just lets people, they leave you alone. They leave you alone. You know, well, you don't want me on the board. I'm not any good.

I'll get impatient. You know what I mean? I won't show up half the time. You don't want me. You don't want me. Trust me. I'm your friend. You don't want me.

And there's something beautiful about getting rid of all the stuff that not good at. Yeah. And so I stay with my strengths. I stay with the things I'm good at. I think we run the risk, though, of we're hitting the boulder for the 830th time. And then we look next to us and we see this other boulder and we say, oh, man, that's a nice boulder. I want to go hit that boulder now. And right before we're about to reap the rewards and the return, we switched to another boulder.

So how is it that you have this? I mean, you have some level of internal conviction and confidence that leadership is your lane. And so where does that conviction come from that you just know that you know that that's your lane? Well, it's because it's what's rewarding to me. That's what gives me the return. You got to love it. So I never work. I mean, people say, when you, if somebody told me the other day, that's that retirement is doing what you want.

want to do when you want to do it. Then I said, I'm retired. I'm doing exactly what I do. So I didn't know it, but I'm retired. Isn't that amazing? I'm retired already. Well, when you're in the lane that you love and that you're also good at it, you enjoy the work, but it gives you a huge return.

And I think that's huge. Let me tell you a great quick story. I'll make this quick. But I was with Tyler Perry, and he was talking to me about, of course, he's a mega actor, producer. He's just in that field. He's just tops. So he lives in Atlanta, and so he built a studio

in Atlanta, and of course he was successful, so he outgrew it, so he built another studio, and he outgrew it. So he said, okay, I'm going to build, I don't want to do this again. So I built a big studio, and he outgrew it. Now he's kind of, he says, I don't want to do this again. I'm tired of this building.

And for three years, he just just said, no, I'm not going to do it. I should not. And finally, he realized the only way that he could just do what he really wanted to do is to, so he went out and literally, I think, bought half of Fort McPherson. I mean, you know, for three years he built just the finest studio in the world. Big, great, whole deal. So we're talking.

We're talking about this whole process of growth in the whole process. And we're in this conversation. This got really insightful. Tyler looked at me. He said, John, I now look and say, what would happen if I wouldn't have built that last studio? So I think of all the people that are employed. I think of all the things we've done because we continued on. We continued on.

And I looked at him and I said, Tyler, here's the point. When we can afford to quit, we can't afford to quit. This is huge. This is huge. I'm 73. I've got all this compounding influence and everything's just bubbling up compounding. Now, I could quit. I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm going to say, oh my gosh, I'm going to.

I'm going to retire. But let me test something. If I quit now, I miss a huge return, huge return because of all this compounding stuff that's happened. In fact, I'm telling people, if you're going to quit, quit the first year. There's nothing compounded in it. That's right. Hey, after six months quit.

You didn't lose anything. You didn't have anything in it. So, hey, quit early or don't quit. Once you find your strength, once you find your strength, stay in that baby and stay right there. That's so good. John, I have two more questions for you. You're 73 now, which is remarkable. And I think this conversation is just evidence of you were just living in the overflow of a life in your lane, which is pretty remarkable. If you could go back and talk to, I think you said his name was Kirk Camp Meyer, who sat down with you at age 25 or 26 and started this whole personal growth journey, what would you say to him, John? on. How old was I probably, I think I was 65, so eight years ago. I hadn't seen Kurt Meyer since I had been at 25. I saw him a couple more times and then he went one way and I went the other way. No problem. No problem. It's just that we were separated. So I've talked about him,

but I hadn't seen him for 40 years, basically. And my team knew that I hadn't seen him and they got to him and they arranged a time. And we were going to have a lot of them. We were going to have a dinner as a group, and they brought him there as a surprise guest, and I got to see him. And it was, I wept. I wept. And I said, Kurt, outside of, I'm a person of faith, so the greatest gift I've ever been given to salvation. Outside of that, you gave me at age 25 the greatest gift I've ever received. And everything I am today is because I listen to you.

And I build off of that wisdom that you gave me. And we had the most wonderful, intimate time that day. I told him a lot of the things that I'd been able to accomplish, not to brag, but to let him show because I said, that's your fruit. That's your fruit. That's your fruit. That's because of you. Wouldn't have happened because, it happened because,

and I spent probably an hour and a half just helping him be full of all the things that I have done because of him that wouldn't have been done if he wouldn't have come in my life. It was an incredible experience. It was life-changing. It was something I'll never forget. I take that as an inspiration, number one, that you went on this personal growth journey, but then also he had the wherewithal to lead you on that personal growth journey at the outset, too. That's so remarkable.

Okay, second question now. You get to go back and talk to another person. 73-year-old John gets to go back and talk to 25-year-old John. and you've got some things you get to say to 25-year-old John about this personal growth journey that you're about to start. What do you tell yourself? Number one, I tell them that put themselves on a personal growth plan in the area of their strengths and never just stay with it, just stay with it. That would be one. Number two is I would tell them never separate failure and success.

Don't separate them. It's not either or. It's not like, oh, my gosh, I'm just successful and I don't fail. Success and failure belong together. They work really well together. They have a way of balancing each other out and maturing and making success what it could be. So I would tell them that because I think many young people really have never explored what they could be because they're still trying to find their own image and they don't want to look bad.

What will people think? or I would just tell them that don't separate success and failure. And the third thing I would tell them is, and you can go to bank on these three things, is every day intentionally add value to people. Every day. I don't care where you are. It doesn't have to be in your organization.

Every day intentionally add value to people. Because that compounds incredibly. I'm living now a life of adding value to a lot of, of people. I'm a father to thousands, and I'm a grandfather to tens of thousands, probably. But it's because everybody knows that they're going to sit down with me, I'm going to add value to them. Success in my day is not the harvest I reap, it's the seeds I sow.

I'm not a harvest guy. Never try to be a harvest guy. I'm Johnny Appleseed Maxwell. I sowed seeds all the time. I just sew seeds. That's who I am, and that's what I do. Because can I tell you something? As long as I'm sowing seeds, I don't need to worry about the harvest.

The harvest comes. That's the last thing I'm worried about is, oh, no, I did this for you. I wonder when I get something in return. That's a short leash life. And, you know, I was having a wonderful time with Angela Arns, who was CEO of Burbarian number three at Apple. she's a terrific lady and I ask her what the best advice she ever received

she said my father gave me the best advice I ever received she said as I was growing up he just said to me Angela give 60 take 40 she said all my life I've always been more concerned about giving than receiving

and she said if you just constantly don't keep score and you add value and you give more than you ever expect to receive she says you'll find out that 40 is a lot of stuff. It's a big return. And I just love that. I love that. I think it's add value to people. So those three things, put them together, personally grow, add value to people every day, and don't separate success and failure. Well, I'll tell you what, you added value to me today personally, but also to the thousands of people that are going to listen to this conversation. So we're grateful to you for your example, for your time, but probably more than that for the way you choose to live in alignment with your message, John. Thanks so much. Well, thank you, Alex. It's always good to be with you. Love you. Love Dave. Love what you guys are doing. Keep it up. I am so grateful to John for his time and for his insight. There's so much value in that statement that he used where he said, you will go as far as you can grow, but you will not go any further. That kind of clarifies for all of us that our personal growth from a leadership perspective is not only an opportunity, but it's a.

a responsibility because the greatest gift that you can give your team, your customers, and your business is your own personal growth. And if you don't commit to a plan and take responsibility for your growth, then no one else will. And that's one of the reasons why our team created the 10 days of intentionality resource. It's a guide that walks you through 10 actions that you can take to become a more intentional individual and a more intentional leader. So if you want to get this free PDF resource called the 10 Days of Intentionality, just text the phrase, get intentional to 33444. Again, that's get intentional, all one word, no spaces, to 33444 or just click the length that's in the show notes. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the

Entree Leadership podcast. If you did, please give us a five-star review and tell your friends to subscribe. For a chance to win a $25, Amazon gift card, you can review this episode by clicking the length that's in the show notes. And be sure to follow us on social media at Entree Leadership. This episode was produced by Tim Hull, and it was edited and mixed by Will Rudder. I'm Alex Judd, and on behalf of the entire Entree Leadership team, thanks for listening.

We'll talk with you again very soon. If you enjoy this podcast, you should check out other great podcasts from the Ramsey Network, like Borrowed Future. Not so fun fact, America has a $1.6 trillion student loan crisis, and it's out of control. I'm George Camel, host of the Borrowed Future podcast where we uncover the underbelly of the student loan industry and show you what you can do about it.

It'll inspire you to see that it is possible to avoid student loans and graduate college debt-free. Listen to Borrowed Future wherever you listen to podcasts.