John Maxwell's #18 Law of Leadership: The Law of Sacrifice
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02:15Live momentous.com promo code my let.This is the Edmilercham.21 irrefutable laws of leadership series Law 18, the law of sacrifice. Look, everybodywants the next level. Very few people ask what the next level costs because every new level ofleadership requires you have to build something and maybe leave something behind. Sometimes you leavebehind comfort. Sometimes it's control. Sometimes it's popularity or acceptance. Sometimes you haveto leave behind your old identity. And one of the best pieces of advice I share with other coachesand my kids is this. Winning is way more fun than fun is fun. Welcome back to this special series on
03:06John Maxwell's 21 irrefutable laws of leadership.Today's law is the law of sacrifice.And John teaches a principle that sounds simple, but gets more demanding the farther you go.A leader must give up to go up.And I think one of the biggest misconceptions about success is that eventually success buys you complete comfort.In reality, greater leadership usually brings greater responsibility.More people depend on your decisions.More is at stake.
03:31Your mistakes become more expensive.Your time becomes far more valuable.you're a choices affect far more people.So as your influence grows,your willingness to sacrifice often has to grow with it.When you're young in your career or new,sacrifice may mean working while other people are playing,learning while other people are relaxing,
03:51saving while other people are spending,practicing when no one's watching.But later the sacrifice becomes different.Now you have to have sacrifice,your need to control everything.Maybe you have to sacrifice being liked.You may have to sacrifice.An opportunity because it distracts from the mission.
04:08I've learned all these things the hard way.You may have to sacrifice your ego and let somebody else receive credit.You may have to sacrifice an identity that helped you get here but cannot take you there.Sometimes, listen, please, what got you to one level becomes the very thing that keeps you from the next.Maybe being involved in every detail helped you build the company.But now it prevents the company from scaling.Maybe being hyper-independent helped you survive a season.Now it prevents you from trusting your team.
04:37Maybe being the smartest person in the room made you feel safe.Now it keeps stronger people from wanting to work with you.Growth requires subtraction too.We talk all the time about what we need to add.Add another skill.Add another relationship.Add another strategy.But sometimes the biggest breakthroughs of your life will come from what you're willing to release.
04:56I've talked for years about identity and standards.Your identity is not just what you believe you are or who you believe you are.it also influences what you believe you're entitled to protect.The next version of you is going to require something the current version of you does not want to surrender.And that's why sacrifice is not usually about knowing.Most people know.They know they need to get healthier.They know they need to delegate.
05:18They know they need to stop wasting time.They know they have to have that conversation that's difficult.They know they have a certain habit that they got to leave behind.This is not new information.What it is is willingness.How badly do you want to be?the future compared to how badly do you want the comfort. And I want to be clear. Sacrifice is not theglorification of misery. You don't become great leader all the time by destroying your health,
05:44abandoning family, or endlessly suffering to prove how committed you are. That's not leadership.The point is alignment. Going back to the last law of last week, the law of priorities,what deserves sacrifice and what does not? Great leaders sacrifice lower priorities for higherones. They sacrifice ego for mission. Convenience for calling. A media gratification for long-termsignificance. That's very different from sacrificing everything indiscriminately. In fact, one of the mostmature sacrifices a leader can make is giving up an opportunity because taking it would costsomething more important. And I got to tell you that is really true. This is leadership too.Sacrifice is always connected to value. You sacrifice for what you believe is worthy.
06:30So if you want to know what somebody really values, look at what they're willing to give up for it.As you listen to John teach this law, ask yourself a difficult question.What am I asking God, life, my business, or my circumstances to give me that I've not yet become willing to pay the price for?And then ask, what is the appropriate price?Maybe your next level is not waiting on another opportunity.Maybe it's waiting on your willingness to release something that no longer belongs in the future you're building.Let's hear John Maxwell teach the law of sacrifice.Law number 18 is the law of sacrifice.
07:06And the law of sacrifice says a leader must give up to go up.In fact, I could remember several years ago now doing a leadership lesson entitled,you have to give up to go up.And into that lesson, I could remember my outline because it was very simple.I said, first of all, it was about getting up the top.and I said first of all you have to get up to go up because I know all kind of peoplethey're still in bed you know what I mean they're still in bed they haven'trealized you know you probably ought to get out of bed before you could be
07:41successful you got you got you got to get up to go up that step number oneget out of bed enter in the arena of action take some initiative to somethingokay you got to get up to go up and after you get up to go up after you dothat secondly you got to grow up to go up you got agrow up. I know people have never matured. They're still talking about the same thing, doing thesame thing. They've never, they've never developed like to. So if you want to get to the top, youknow, I have to get up to go up, you got to grow up to go up. And then in the tape, I remember I talkedthirdly in the leadership lesson about, well, you got to give up to go up. And that's what we're going to talk about in just a moment.
08:17And then the last thing I said is you need to gather up to grow up. You need to get your team together.If you really want to go to the top, you've got to gather up people because as I teach in the laws of teamwork, law numberthe law Mount Everest says as the challenge escalates the need for teamwork elevates inother words you've got to get a team around you and you've got to get that team helping you to get to the topso let's talk about the law of sacrifice a few years ago there was a tragedy at MountEverest where a couple of guides got into a storm with a few of their people and there were a fewdeaths and I can remember a 60-minute interview that I that I watched it's a veryvery interesting interview because they were talking to one of the guides who of course lived
09:04and they were talking about the tragedy. I think it was Mike Wallace, if I'm not mistakenin that interview and he asked a couple of questions that especially rested my attention.He asked, one of the questions he asked was, why do you risk your life to take people to thetop? And I remember the guide said, well, it's because that's my job. My job is to takepeople to the top. That's why they call me a guide. And Mike Wallace says, well, couldn't you get to the top by yourself without harm or injury? Oh, yes, I could do that. But it's my job to take people to the top. And the guide kept coming back to Mike Wallace and said, it's my responsibility. That's who I am. I'm a guide. And when I listen and I thought, how true to a leader that is. It's our job as leaders to take people to the top. Mike Wallace continued that interview. And then he looked at me and said,I don't think it's worth the risk.I mean, after all, to risk your life or have people in your party to not make it the dog,he said, I don't think it's worth the risk.
10:10And then he looks at the guy, he says, why do you risk your life to get to the top of the mountain?And I'll never forget that.Guy looked at him.And when Mike Wallace asked that question, the guide is looking into his face, like, I can't believe you would ask me that question.Why do I risk my life to get the top?He looked at Mike Wallace and said, it's obvious to me that you've never been.been to the top of Mount Everest. It's obvious to me. You've never been to the top of theMount. It's obvious that you've never been there. If you would have ever been to the top,
10:42you would never ask that question. When I think of that interview, I think of leaders. Oncewe have been to the top and see how glorious it is, what do we want to do? We want to go backdown and we want to fight some other people and say, I want you to take a trip with me. I want to show you thingsyou have never seen. I'm going to give you experiences that you have never experienced.That's what leaders do. Leaders have been to the top and they want to take as many peoplewith them to the top as they possibly can. Now, here's what I want you to understand. To get to thetop, you've got to give up something. It was Emerson who said, for everything you gain,you must lose something. That's why I have in your workbook, what I call the leadership pyramid.
11:30The leadership pyramid is a prime example of giving up to going up.Basically, the leadership pyramid says that when you enter an organization,you guess you've got all kinds of options left and right,but as you become a leader, and as you become a leader in that organization,the higher you go in this leadership pyramid, the less options you have.Now, I want to say that I teach this leadership pyramid all the time.I think that most leaders, and I think a lot of leaders in corporate America and in leadership organizations around the world, do not understand the leadership pyramid.For example, I run into leaders who all the time think that the higher they go, the more options they should have, the more perks they should have.
12:15I don't think so.I think the higher you go, the less options you have.I think that the greatest leaders are what I would call servant leaders.There are leaders who understand that they're a leader to make it better for the people.You're not a leader to make it better for yourself.Now, if you're a good leader, it will be better for you because you'll have the joy of taking people across the finish line.And there's no greater fulfillment and joy than that.So if you are a leader and you're taking people across the top, it's going to be very good.
12:44But what I want you to understand is this.You don't lead because of perks.In fact, what I found is this.Most leaders, they become leaders because they like leaders.the perks of leadership, but most people have not counted the price of leadership.What you're going to have to give up, what you're going to pay.My dad taught me when I was just a kid.He said, John, pay now, play later.
13:10That's the way it works.And he said, if you don't pay on the front end, you don't get a play on the back end.In fact, he said, oh my, I'll never forget that.He said, John, the longer you wait to pay the price, the higher it becomes.So learn quickly, pay on the front end.And I'm saying to each one of us today, as we're teaching this principle of the law of sacrifice,what we've got to do is we've got to understand that we have to pay on the front end.There's a price to pay to be a leader.
13:39It's not always easy, it's not always fun.In fact, when I teach leadership, one of the things I'm most concerned about is why doyou want to become a leader?Do you want to become a leader?Because you think there are a lot of perks in it for you?Or do you want to become a leader because you want to add value to people intake them to a higher level than they could ever go on their own. So let's go to the workbookbecause there are three sacrifice statements that I want to make. Number one, there is no
14:09success without sacrifice. Let's just start there. You say, John, what do you mean? What I meanis there is no success without sacrifice. There's not an escalator.waiting to take you to the top.Quit standing outside waiting for the chairliftto take you to the top.Nobody ever got to the top of a mountainand at the end of the day said, oh my goodness,how did I get here?
14:45I just took a stroll and the next thing I knew,I was on top of this mountain.No, no, no, no, no.You can fall off the top by accident,but you can't roll to the top.by accident.If you get to the top,it's because you gave up something.
15:06And let me tell you somethingthat they'll all experience mountain climbers will tell you.Before they take that big trip to the top,the main question they ask themselves is,what are the essentials I must take with me?Because they know anything except essentialswill be a detriment to keeping themfrom what that goal is.
15:26So when they get ready to go to the top,They don't back up a U-Haul truck and say, I'm going to throw this stuff in the truck.I may need it while I'm up there.No, they give up.They give up to go up.So there is no success without sacrifice.Number two, the higher the level of leadership, the greater the sacrifice.That's a fact.
15:49The higher you go in your leadership, the more you'll give up.I remember thinking when I started off in my career and my business to go to success,I remember thinking in the very beginning, boy, I was willing to do anything to get to the top.Of course it was. I didn't have to give up anything.Hey, when you have no money, it's not hard to give it up.When you have no position or reputation, it's not hard to give it up.You just say, well, why was I so foolish as a youth?You weren't foolish as a youth.
16:15You didn't have anything.But as you grow higher, one of the reasons many leaders never get to the top is because as they go higher,they get more stuff.And they have to make these trade-off decisions that become very difficult for them.The third thing I want you to know about success is you have to give up to stay up.You don't have to give up to go up.Once you get on top, you have to give it up.The reason most sports teams don't do consecutive world championships is because after they win
16:50their first world championship, all the players go on the chicken.banquet tour. They spend the next year getting fat telling everybody how they did it last year.And you don't reproduce yourself by telling your story. You reproduce yourself. You stay on topby giving up continually. About five years ago, I did a lesson that really fits this wholelaw of sacrifice. It was entitled 10 tradeoffs worth making. And I was at a very important partof my own career where I was 50 years old. I was going to have to make some major changes.and I was going to have to give up some major wonderful perksand things I had in my life if I wanted to go to the next level.
17:32And I can remember that day as I sat down at my desk with my legal padand I began to look at the trade-offs,trade-offs such as I was willing to give up affirmation.People tell me what a good job I was doing for accomplishmentto get to a next level.I was willing to give up financial gain for future potential.I was willing to give up immediate pleasure for personal growth.I was willing to give up the quantity of life for quality of life.
18:08I was willing to give up security for significance.I was willing to give up acceptance for excellence.I was willing to give up addition for multiplication.I began to work through all these things I was willing to give up.I can remember making the conscious decision to keep on going.keep on going. But I also remember, as I looked at that list, I realized that the higher you go,the price gets higher. That's why many people get about two-thirds of the way up and never climbany higher. If you haven't done it yet, click the link below. You need the 21-page workbook in
18:48your hands to track what we call the rep for every law. Plus, that's the only way to get yourquestions in front of John and I for our Q&A sessions coming up, get the guide, join the list,and let's get back to the teaching. Everything valuable has a price. Leadership is no different,but the greatest leaders do not sacrifice randomly. They sacrifice intentionally,strategically. They know what matters. They know what the mission requires, and they're willingto release something smaller to protect the greater. So the question is not whether leadershipwill cost you. It will. The question is whether you have enoughclarity about what matters to know what is worth paying for. A leader must give up to go up.
19:28And sometimes your next breakthrough begins when you finally decide to let go. This week,complete what I call a sacrifice exchange. Draw two columns. On the left, what I say I want. On the right,what it requires? Be specific. If you want to become healthier, what does that require specifically?If you want to build that company, what does that require? If you want moretime with your family, what needs to be sacrificed to protect that time? If you want to become a strongerleader, what ego, what habit, what comfort or control needs to go, then identify one intentionalsacrifice for the next seven days, not performative sacrifice, not unnecessary suffering, somethingdirectly connected to your priority. The law of sacrifice is not give everything up. It's give up
20:16the right things for the right reasons. This is the Edmireland Shaw.Thank you.
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