THE ED MYLETT SHOW - 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Q&A Season 1, w/ Ed Mylett

Episode Date: July 30, 2026

📥 CLICK HERE to Download the free Leadership Workbook and submit your question for our Q&A with John and me.   Season 1 of the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership has been the most downloaded series in the history of this show. And the questions you have been sending in have been just as good as anything John and I have covered together. This one is just me speaking directly to you. You all submitted thousands of questions through the workbook, and I sat down to go through the ones that kept coming up over and over again like: How to build real confidence when you don't feel qualified How to walk into a broken culture without making it worse What the most important law is in the age of AI How to balance results with actually investing in your people What I would go back and tell my 27-year-old self if I could That last one is the one I want you to pay close attention to. Because I made mistakes as a young leader that cost me relationships, cost me trust, and cost me time I will never get back. I talk about them honestly in this episode because I think you learning from my mistakes means you might not have to make your own. These are the questions I wish someone had sat down and answered for me when I was coming up. Nobody did. So I am doing it for you now. Go watch this episode. And when you are done, send it to somebody who needs it. Season 2 starts next week. We are going into Laws 8 through 14 with John Maxwell and I promise you it goes even deeper than Season 1. If you thought the first seven laws were good, you have not seen anything yet. Make sure you are subscribed and make sure you have the workbook so you can follow along and submit your questions as we go. Maxout   🗓️ New law dropping every Thursday so make sure you're subscribed so you never miss one. Click HERE to Subscribe to my email list to MAXOUT your life (all value, no fluff) Thank you for listening —Please Share it and get the word out! 👉 SUBSCRIBE TO ED'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL NOW 👈 → → → CONNECT WITH ED MYLETT ON SOCIAL MEDIA: ← ← ← ➡️ INSTAGRAM ➡️ FACEBOOK ➡️ LINKEDIN ➡️ X ➡️ WEBSITE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify.

is the Edmireland show. Welcome back to the show, everybody. So session one of the 21 irrefutable laws of leadership has been an absolute success. We've had viral downloads all over the internet, and the show is now doing better than it's ever done in its history. And so what I wanted to do is add additional Q&A opportunities where you can ask me questions about the laws that we go through

from time to time. And so I'm adding one of those Q&A sessions now. As a reminder, if you want to submit your questions, all you have to do is click the link either in the show notes or below here that get your free workbook that we've created. We've created a 21-page workbook that's completely free for you. And once you've done that, you can then submit your questions and maybe it'll show up here on the show. And so we're going to do, you know, what we do after each law is we have a rep that we do after each law. And so not only you're getting the workbook, but you're getting

the rep that we have you do, kind of like a homework or a practice assignment, which each of the 21 irrefutable laws from John Maxwell. And so what I'd love to do now is kind of get to the Q&A and answer a bunch of your questions. So let's get to that right now. Perfect. Sounds good. So I'll read you a couple of questions that we had from fans and subscribers

that downloaded the workbook and submitted it through the website. So first question we have is how do you build confidence as a leader when you don't always feel fully qualified yet? Well, I don't think you're ever going to feel fully qualified. You know, people ask me often, you know, when I work with one-on-one coaching with, you know,

executives or even some of the top athletes, even world championship fighters and athletes, golfers that have won majors, they don't have total confidence all the time or feel qualified. And so it's your ability actually to deal with that lack, a little bit of the imposter syndrome. That's actually one of the keys to your success. But what I found with confidence is it's a foundationally, it's keeping the promises you make to yourself.

So when you make a promise to yourself, even if it's small, and I'm not exaggerating this when I say, making your bed in the morning, how much water you're going to drink it. You say, I'm going to get a gallon of water, or getting to the gym, or amount of contacts you're gonna make in business. When you start keeping the promises you make to yourself, you begin to build a reputation

and a relationship with yourself that you can trust you. What I meet people that don't have self-confidence, what I know is this is somebody who consistently has not kept the promises they've made to themselves. They've started a diet or a nutritional program and they've quit it. You know, they got, they tried a business and it didn't work and they got out,

and then they did that again, or they've been in a bunch of different situations where they've set goals and not achieved them. And so self-confidence is, oftentimes like self-trust. And so foundationally, it's beginning to keep the promises you make to yourself, not to other people, but the ones you intimately make to yourself. And then the other thing I teach in my book, the power of one more is I teach like a holy trilogy, I call it, of self-confidence. And I say that that is faith, associations, and intentions. So let me break those down for you very quickly.

The first is faith. If you believe you come from a loving God who made you in his image and likeness, if you have that faith, how can you lack confidence? If he lives, within you. If he's got your back, if he's your father, if he's going to give you grace, you ought to have tremendous confidence. It's interesting. So many times I meet people that they have a lot of faith on Sunday at church or if they go to a Wednesday Bible study, but somehow when they walk around in their real life, they feel alone and abandoned. That's the antithesis of faith. And so connect to your faith. That ought to give you boldness and strength and confidence that you have that supernatural comfort and knowledge that

comes with having that faith. And so faith is the first one. Second, and you can mix them up is associations in order, I mean. Associations means you are who you hang around. If you hang around five or six people who are incredibly fit and eat healthy, you will begin to eat healthier and be more fit. If you hang around five or six people who are incredibly wealthy all day long and are building businesses and have ideas to be successful and save and accumulate money, that will happen for you because you have that thermostat setting I've talked about before

where your identity is your thermostat setting on your life. And a lot of times if your thermostat setting is like at 72 degrees, and you start getting 80, 85 degrees of results, you'll turn the air conditioner on of your life and cool it back down to get what you believe you're worth. And so the easiest way to changing that setting, what you believe you're worth, is get around other people who could heat you up

that live in a particular area at a higher setting than you do. So I've done that in many areas in my life. I've got a business group that's my associations that heat me up there. I've got another one in my faith life. I've got some that are in my physical body or my energy or my wellness. And so associations can change.

your self-confidence. And then third is intentions. When I was very young, I met Wayne Dyer. I'll fast forward the story. And when we were done, Wayne said, Ed, you're going to change the world. And at the time, as a young man, I figured, he probably never said that to anybody. Now looking back in hindsight, he probably said that to a lot of people. But he stayed my friend the rest of his life. But that day, he said, Ed, you're going to change the world. And I said, I am. Why? And he goes, well, it's not because of your unbelievable ability to communicate or your IQ or your way you think, although I love the way you think.

And I don't know if I've met a communicator as good as you, but that's not why, Ed. He goes, would you just do me a favor? I said, yes, he said, all your life attach your confidence, not to your abilities or your results, because you'll be chasing that tail all your life. They'll be up and down, which means your confidence will be up and down. Attach your confidence to your intentions.

You're a good man, Ed. You intend to do good. Before every meeting you have, every big event in your life, even the small ones, Ed, get connected to your intentions again, and you'll have tremendous confidence because you know you're a good man. No one had ever given me a compliment up until that time in my life, Max, where I believed them. It's the first compliment I ever got where I believed them where he said,

you're a good man. I do kind of feel like I'm a good person. And so my confidence has been beaming most of my life because I keep the promises I make to myself. I have faith. I have great associations. And I connect to my intentions, not my results or my abilities. Long answer, but hopefully a thorough one.

Definitely was a thorough answer. That was absolutely great there. One of the next questions we have coming up here, too, is what is the most effective way to increase your identity as a leader if you're just picked one specific tactic that they could take away? Clarity. Complexity is the enemy of execution. And I've said this before.

I'm blown away by how many people even pay me six and seven figures to coach them, that after they've paid that money, money when we get on the first call and I say, what's your outcome? What do you want to get done here? And they're vague. Well, I'd like to be happier. I'd like to be richer. Well, specifically what? Where performance has measured, performance improves. If you don't know specifically what it is you want, your mind can't go to work on producing it, and it's a vague thing. So many people are vague, they're wandering generalities in their life. You have to get incredibly specific about what it is you want, what it is you want in your culture and your company, the goals you have, the ambitions.

like not get in better shape, exactly what body weight, what body fat, what heart rate, what HRV, what, you know, whatever it is, exact specific things. I want to be rich. What does that mean? What's the dollar amount? How much else to be saved? How many assets? The more specific you get, that actually gives you speed.

It gives you the speed to execute quickly. Clarity does that. Great coaches, great leaders. They're just better at specificity and clarity. And most of the average people have average clarity. In fact, sometimes the longer somebody does this, they complicate things and they make it complex. And like I said, that is the enemy to executing at a high level. So clarity creates high identity.

I think that was a great answer there. I definitely seen that too from being around you and some of the events that we've ran as well. One of the other questions we have too is, have you ever been in a situation where you inherited a broken culture? And what would be your first step to fix that? Listen, don't talk. First thing I would do if I inherited a broken culture is I'd walk in and acknowledge that it's broken. And then what I would do, you know, there's two types of leaders in the world. There's a type of leader that walks in and says, here I am.

And there's another one that walks in and says, there you are. But here I am leader comes in and kind of beats their chest and says, I'm calling the shots, we're going to do this. I'm going to fix everything. I'm going to change it. I'm going to change it. There's already a broken culture. You get people to resent you, almost fighting. against you and resist you.

And so what you wanna be is, there you are. And what that means, that's a metaphor, but what it means in terms of leadership is it means, listen, then call the shot. If you're the leader, you call the shot, you're in charge, but not before you've got buy-in, not before you've got feedback, not before you've listened. When people believe they're a part of the turnaround,

they will turn it around. But if they believe they're being subjected to a turnaround, they may take that personally. You think our culture's broken? Well, I'm the one that's been here for six years, you're the new one. And so then they resist you. So I'd walk in and say, listen, clearly things have been broken around here.

There's obviously a higher standard and a higher level. I'm interested in what you think about what's worked and what isn't working. And then let people express themselves. And then once you've done that, then paint the vision of where you want to go. Paint that vision and call the shot. Remember this. Great leaders sell a big enough vision that the dreams and goals of everybody within their stewardship can fit inside the dream themselves.

So most times, most leaders don't sell it big enough. So if I'm on your team, I gotta believe that my dreams and goals can come true if the overall companies or teams big dreams and goals happen. Most leaders don't include people. And so here's where we're going as a company. Here's our sales goals this month. Who cares? I don't care if I'm just a, but if somehow in the way you do it, you sell it so big and

so bold and so clear that I go, wow, I could see the things I want to, I don't know, I on in my life happening if that thing he's selling happens or she's selling happens. So sell a big enough dream that the dreams and goals of everybody you're leading can sit inside the one you're selling. And now you're on to change in that culture. Would you say that that would fit with going to this series of the law of navigation? Oh yeah. The law of navigation is if you're a leader by position you're in front, right? So you ought to be able to see things that other people can't see. We discount this all the time. One of your job as a leader to say, hey, here's where we're going.

Here's what it's going to take to get there. It's not going to be easy. But here's what it's going to be like when we get there. It's going to be amazing. It's going to be awesome. And then there's going to be all these other things. And by the way, when you have a big vision, you have to repeat it over and over and over again in order to navigate that direction.

Your job as a leader is to navigate because you can see. And not enough leaders are conscious of, here's where we're going. Here's what it's going to look like when we get there. Here's how tough it's going to be. Here's how worth it it's going to be. Can you imagine when we get there? It's going to be awesome. Most leaders never do that.

Or if they do, they do it once. Great leaders, repeat it. Because what you talk about repeatedly is what ends up happening. It actually creates the culture and the standards. Most leaders don't ever sell a big vision, don't include other people in it. Or if they do, it's too sporadic. And they'd suffer from something called leadership fatigue. Here's what happens as a leader.

You get tired of hearing from yourself. And you start thinking, I've got to come up with something new. I've got to make it spicy all the time. Business in life, even with our children, is more about, like, especially on the business side, I would say this. It's caught, not taught, but you can't get tired of saying the same things over and over again. Business is more about saying old things to new people than it is about saying new things to the same old people. The more you add new people that get on the bus, so to speak, like what Jim Collins talks about. The more you begin to do that, and the more you begin to stretch their vision and repeat it, then they know you're serious.

And then if you talk about it, then you back it up with your example. They see you in there earlier. They see you there later. They see you working on yourself. They see it changing you. You validate the words with your actions. Now you got something. Too many leaders just talk and talk and they show up at 10 o'clock or they leave early

or they're on vacation all the time. But when I start to see this leader, sell this big vision, include me, and it repeated over and over again. Then back it up with your example. Man, now you're delivering on the law of navigation. Guys, I got to tell you about. chime. Let me tell you why. Chime is changing the way people bank. They offer the most rewarding fee-free banking. They're not like traditional banks that charge you overdraft and monthly fees. They have thousands of free ATMs. So why do we pay to get our own money? It's insane. So they don't

do that. It was built for you. Chime members can benefit from up to $1,150 in annual rewards. Fee-free. Direct deposit unlocks the most rewarding way to bank a chime. Chime is rated five stars by USA Today for customer service. Real human. you deal with, by the way, 24-7. So you're not just switching banks. You're upgrading to America's number one choice for banking with a chime checking account. So I've got to tell you, when I was younger, I would have loved to have had something like this, and I love it now. I would use this, and I think you should too. Chime is not smarter banking. It's the most rewarding way to bank. Join the millions who are already banking fee-free today. Head to chime.com slash my lead. That is chime.com

slash my lead. It only takes a few minutes to sign up. So what happens when your dunking stops being a one-night contest and becomes a professional sport? This is Dunk Man. Presented by Shaquille O'Neal, Dunk Man, brings together 24 of the world's most explosive dunkers for a season of high-flying competition, unbelievable athleticism, and some serious pressure. Across four group staged events, these elite athletes will battle head-to-head, throwing down their biggest, boldest, most creative dunks for a chance to advance. This is a so cool. But only the best were on a spot in the Dunk Man World Championship where a massive $500,000 grand prize is on the line. Every jump matters. Every dunk could change everything. And when

the lights come on, there's nowhere to hide. Dunkman is a partnership with Eli Lilly, premieres live July 21st and every Tuesday at 8 p.m. on TNT and streams on HBO Max. Get ready to witness Duncan like you've never seen before. Dunkman on TNT presented and commissioned by Shaquille O'Neill. Good time. Wow, that was a very good insight. Next question we have, if you're welcome. In a world with AI,

because that's what a lot of people are talking about right now. People can generate more strategies, they can analyze data, automate communication, or even simulate leadership behaviors. Out of the 21 laws of leadership, which one do you think would be most important for leaders to master moving forward around this topic? They're all so good,

but what comes to my, when you first say that to me is the law of influence. You know, you can't allow the robots and the machines and automation and ease to begin to dominate your culture. And so I would say the law of influence, which obviously we covered here. And, you know, in my mind, it's your ability to remain influential. You know, people matter, things don't. And as AI begins to march forward, it's going to be leaders that lead, Andy Fursell and I talked about it on the podcast, ethical leadership, utilizing AI as a tool to enhance human performance, not to eliminate humans. Now, there are going to be things that AI is going to be, we're going to eliminate some jobs. There's no question about that. And a lot of business

leaders are going to try to, because they don't value people. John talks about valuing people so often as well. Because they don't value people, they're going to do everything they can to just cut costs and cut costs and cut costs by using AI, in my opinion. And so that's going to give a huge opportunity in lane to those leaders who truly value people. And so it's all perspective. Are you going to use AI to illuminate jobs, cut costs, reduce it down to bare bones, or are you going to utilize AI to enhance human performance and teach your people to use AI to increase their influence per the law of influence? And so I'm committed that AI is going to be an enhancement to these wonderful people that I lead. and any chance I get, I want to do it to create influence and impact for them and not be something

that eliminates them. And I actually think that's good news for leaders to take the approach I just said, because I do think there's going to be a come of convergence over the next three, four, five years, particularly in business between companies and leaders where people know, man, they value people first and the leaders who value robots first. That may sound, oh my gosh, are we really in that time? I think we're entering that time really soon. And I think the companies, who begin to build a reputation in a culture and an environment where they value people, I think not only they're going to draw the best of the best to work for them, but I think people are going to want to patronize those businesses.

I think people are going to want to do business with companies that value people and that they know continue to increase the role of the influence of people in their business as opposed to those that are just streaming it down to profit. Profits important in business, it always will be, especially if you have investors. but I think hacking short-term jobs to increase short-term profitability, long-term, I think the companies who value people and utilize human means, because you'll never replace the heart of a champion. You're never going to, you can't replace part of their thinking or their mind. You can't replace heart. You can't replace emotion. You cannot replicate emotional connection

and an experience that a company or a business can provide to the people that work there and their customers. So law of influence. Yeah, I definitely would agree, especially from what we've been seeing on the podcast lately. I think that relates very well. The next question we got would be, how did you balance delivering results while still investing in the people? Yeah, I think sometimes in business, we start to get presented with false choices, right? So I actually think, I'm not in business for a year or six months. I'm in business long term to build something great to achieve a big vision and mission.

And so the other reason this big vision, everybody matters so much, is if you're not caught up in the big vision and you lose your sight of that, you will do things short term that may increase profitability short term and sabotage any chance of getting to the long-term vision. There's all kinds of decisions you have to make early on in a business as it's growing or even when it's mid-size that you probably could turn a higher profit at that time, like even taking more money out of the business yourself. You know, I didn't take money out of a lot of my businesses for seven and eight years. I was at some points the lowest paid person in my business. People that work for me made more money. Why? Because pouring capital back into that business is going to get the long-term vision. So it's just a decision as a leader in perspective.

Is your perspective that you want to do something great long-term? Are you in it to dump the business and sell it and get rich quick? We're in this culture in business right now where everything's about an exit. That's all you ever see on Instagram, right? getting investors, the shark tank stuff, which is fine. You know, Rob Hirschnebec and I talked about this on the show as well. But what that's also done is it's caused business people to prematurely do things, sabotage the long-term vision.

And most importantly, long-term impact, right? And so this is true with our children and raising them. It's true in our marriage. It's super true in business. And so I think it's a false choice. I'm always going to invest in people and develop people, mainly because my overall mission in business and life is to, use the business to serve people, not to use people to serve the business.

And so you've got to have an outcome and a vision for your life and your business that's beyond profitability, but includes profitability. So I want to develop people to build the business, not use them. That's great. I don't think you've ever said anything this in depth in the podcast in a very long time. This is the best stuff people are getting. This is great. Thank you.

Last question we have here. And again, all these people submitted it for downloading the workbook, which will be in the link in the description. But if you could go back to yourself, I'm 24. This person's 27 years old. If you could go back to that time period, what would you be focusing on or what would you change? Okay. Well, what I would focus on, I did actually do.

So that's the good thing. And then the list of change, this would be a 900-hour podcast of what I would change. But what I did do well is the first investment I made all of the, the time other than tithing was in myself. I continued to grow myself. I continue to invest and read and get to events and listen to, they did have podcasts, I listened to cassette tapes and, and I'm really grateful that I continue to invest in myself. I really believe that my results will never receive my identity. They'll never exceed it. So I've got to be able to invest in myself. I'm really, really glad that I did that. I'm really glad I learned to communicate and sell. I think that

one of the most underdeveloped skill sets in this day and age is ability to sell. You may think, well, I'm not in sales. Everything is sales. Heck, getting your kids to brush their teeth and go to bed as sales, right? All the way up to closing a big deal or closing an account. And by the way, never thinking you haven't figured out. Remaining curious, always be a learner. You know, Tom Bill, you and I from Quest Nutrition, we're talking,

and we both kind of identify as learners. And what that does is it keeps you humble as a leader, but it keeps you growing as a leader. John Maxwell's been really impactful on that. John always tells me, which is really funny to me, I always go, Ed, every time I'm with you, I learn something. And I'm like, no, you know, I learn something from you. But I actually, over the years, they've begun to believe him

because he's seeking to learn still, even in his late 70s. And so I would say always be growing, always be learning, always be curious, always invest and pour in yourself because it starts with you. What I regret, as I wish I would have relied on God's grace more when I was younger. I wish it would have given myself a little bit more peace, but I wasn't as connected in faith at that time. The other thing I wish that I would make the biggest mistake is I let my temper get the better of me when I was younger. I think I led too much

by intimidation and force than vision, grace, and belief. And at some point that shifted where I realized if I could pour belief into people and get them to believe in themselves and get them to believe I believed in them, that they're going to want to live up to that investment of belief. And that was just an invisible thing to me. And so I allowed my temper, I allowed emotions to rule me. I made decisions during emotional states. Oh, as I've told you, Max, never making a decision in high emotion. It's always when you make the bad ones, when it's too euphoric or you're too down. So I don't make, I don't make massive life decisions when I'm in an emotional state. I wait until I'm in a neutral state because when emotions are high, intellectual.

is usually low. And so I wait till my emotions subside. You know, now when I do get angry or frustrated, I pause and say, I'm a way today to send this email. I'm a way today to send this text. And I find that by the time that that time passes, when my emotions change, 99% of the time, the tone and message I'm going to deliver is different. Most people decide to quit when things are going really bad. That's not when you audit your life. You audit it actually when they're going well. Is this still juicing me? Is it still fulfill me? Does it still make me happy? And so allowing your emotions to rule you. I'm a very emotional person. I transfer emotion to people well, but I wish that emotion would have been checked with a little bit more poise, a little bit more grace, a little bit more faith,

frankly, just maturity. And I don't think you have to wait 10 years to make the mistakes I made. I think you can learn from mine as you're listening today. And the great leaders that I've been around value people and have what I would call emotional regulation and self-awareness. And when I was younger as a leader, I didn't have emotional regulation nor did I have any self-awareness. I didn't really, I wasn't even know who I was. Heck, I didn't even know who other people thought I was. I was just always trying to make an impression. Once you know who you are and you're comfortable with who you are, you don't have the need to impress all the time. And When you lose that need to impress or prove how influential you are, that's actually when you become the most powerful.

So those would be some of the changes I would make, but we could be here for a month with all the mistakes I made. That's absolutely great advice. I'm so glad people are getting access to this. Me too. This is cool. Great questions, by the way. Keep submitting them, everybody because one thing I know about our audience, the millions of people that are out there, I really believe that there's a culture in our audience, even, of people who care about their life

and care about making a difference. And their life matters to them maybe more than the average person. And so as a consequence of everybody wanting to make such a big impact and change their life, we're getting great questions. And all I would say to everybody is, you know, make sure this Thursday episodes are great, but our Tuesdays are unbelievable. And so are our Saturdays. Stay connected to the show.

Make sure you get the workbook. Make sure you're doing the rep every single week. But more important than even these 21 weeks, I'll be here if you'll show up. And so I would just ask you to start to make a great commitment to our show. I'm always going to offer you everything I do for free with very rare exception. There's no upsells. There's no funnels. There's no agenda.

I've been blessed in my life, you know, even where I'm doing this podcast from right now, with tremendous blessings. I did not get here alone. I got here with the grace of God and a lot of people around me who poured into me and helped me. In this podcast, the last decade, has just been my version of paying that forward. And people ask me when I run into them in public all the time, how can I, how can I, you know, pay you back? And you can pay us back by sharing the show, getting other people to be involved and listen, and you can pay us back by taking what you learn here and applying it for good in the world. And so, stay tuned. We got more great episodes coming, everybody.

God bless you. Max out. This is The Edmiron Myland Show. a $3,000 a month payday for life, what would you feel free to do? Maybe take a long weekend, every weekend, or try a bunch of new hobbies? Would you feel free to upgrade and listen ad-free? Don't worry, we get it. Every $20 ticket could win you $3,000 a month for life and supports life-saving cancer research at the Princess Margaret. Feel free to buy your payday for life ticket today. Raffle number 155-214. Please play responsibly.