#80 John Maxwell: Developing the Leader in You

John Maxwell breaks down the four traits every successful person possesses and how to awaken the leader within you, no matter what your job title says. -- Want even more? Members get early access, hand-edited transcripts, member-only episodes, and so much more. Learn more here: https://fs.blog/membership/ Every Sunday our Brain Food newsletter shares timeless insights and ideas that you can use at work and home. Add it to your inbox: https://fs.blog/newsletter/ Follow Shane on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/ShaneAParrish Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Highly successful people fail a lot is because they learn from it. You know, the value of failing is learning.

• 0:27Shane Parrish?

  Hello and welcome. I'm Shane Parrish and you're listening to The Knowledge Project, a podcast dedicated to mastering the best of what other people have already figured out. This podcast helps you better understand yourself and the world around you by exploring the methods, ideas, and hard fought lessons learned from some of the most incredible people in the world. Today, I'm talking with leadership guru John Maxwell. John is the author of The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, Developing the Leader Within You, and The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader. His books have sold more than 30 million copies in 50 languages. We talk in depth about leadership and why the greatest challenge of leadership is leading yourself, why his midlife review at 40 left him questioning why he wasn't where he wanted

• 1:11Shane Parrish?

  to be, and what it means to live a fulfilled life. Sit back, relax, and get ready for a masterclass in leadership and life. It's time to listen and learn.

• 1:58Shane Parrish?

  John, you've taught over 6 million people how to lead better. What's surprised you the most during that time?

• 2:03Speaker 00

  Well, I think the biggest surprise is that most people don't qualify themselves as a leader. They think of it as a title or a position. And so whenever I talk about leadership, it's kind of like, well, I'm not one of those. And yet, what I do is I teach leadership as influence, nothing more, nothing less. And every person has influence. And then they kind of get excited because I say, I can help you know how to increase your influence. You know, that appeals to you, a parent of children. Okay, I can increase my influence, which as you do that, it's basically you're increasing your ability to lead people successfully. So I think what's been really a wonderful surprise is that once people understand and

• 2:48Speaker 00

  equate leadership and influence together, then they're all in. They're saying, hey, okay, I may never have a leadership position, but I would certainly like to be able to be an influential person. And so they kind of dive into the leadership pool.

• 3:02Shane Parrish?

  Are there levels of influence? I think you've written about them. What are those levels?

• 3:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, there are five. I wrote a book called The Five Levels of Leadership. What makes the book so helpful to people is they begin to understand that leadership is a verb, it's not a noun, and that there are different degrees of leadership and that they can kind of find out where they are. And then if they want to, they can have a game plan to go to the next level. So it begins at the very bottom, at what we call the lowest level of leadership, which is the position level. It's where you have a job title, a job description that says you're a leader. Maybe they even call you a leader or supervisors or whatever. What's, I think, most insightful about level one, the position level, is that it's the

• 3:50Speaker 00

  lowest level of leadership and yet 80% of the people never get off of level number one. And I think they never get off of level number one because nobody's ever made them aware that there are other levels. It's kind of like, wow, I'm now a leader. In fact, when anybody just says, you know, last week I became a leader, John, I know that immediately.

• 4:11Speaker 00

  That they think that being having a position of leadership makes them a leader, which it doesn't. So, level one is position level, and that's where we that's where we normally all start. If somebody gives us a leadership shot. And then level two is the permission level, which is all about relationships. In fact, it's at level number two that that the people, the people that you lead give you permission to lead because they like you and you like them. And so there's a relationship synergy that begins at level number two. Get a lot more energy at that level from the people. Level number three is the production level. And I often say that this is where the credibility of leadership

• 4:52Speaker 00

  really begins, because people, if they're going to follow you, they have hopes that their life is going to get better. If you haven't been successful yourself, how are you going to make other people successful? You cannot give what you do not happen. So, level three is all about being personally successful, so I have the credibility and the moral authority to lead other people. Level four is the people development level. This is where I not only know how to lead myself, but I know how to help other people learn how to lead. And of course, that's, that's the, the main purpose of my book on the leader's greatest return. It's, it's all about the fact that if you want to compound

• 5:36Speaker 00

  influence, and or if you want to compound time, energy, money, anything like that, if you really want to compound it, you have to do it with others and through others, which is a level four, then a level five is pinnacle, where you've done it so well with so many for so long that after a while, you just kind of become bigger than life. And why I teach these levels of leadership is to help people understand and be aware.

• 6:05Speaker 00

  That no matter where you are, it's a journey, it's a verb, you gotta keep moving. And no matter where you are, you certainly can continue to grow and develop and hopefully go up to another level.

• 6:19Shane Parrish?

  Is it easy for us to gain awareness of where we are in this? Do we just intuitively look at these and we're like, okay, I know where I am? Or are there signs or cues that we should be paying attention to?

• 6:30Speaker 00

  No, I think that there's a lack of awareness. In fact, I wrote that book because most people weren't aware that there were levels of leadership. They weren't aware that leadership is a continual growth process and that leaders develop daily, night and day. And so I wrote the book to help a person become aware because you can't grow yourself unless you know yourself. And so I think it's very important to, as a leader, to help people with awareness of where they are, where they could be. And when people talk about being self-aware, I always say, I don't think so. I think that we all have blind spots. I do, I have things that I don't see about myself.

• 7:15Speaker 00

  And that's why I need other people to come around who care for me, but want to see me obviously reach my potential. And so they, sometimes the only self-awareness I have is the awareness that was given to me by someone else until I understood it and had a, maybe a teachable spirit and said, okay, I'm going to work on this area now that I see it, now that I know it. So I think a lot of my leadership writing and a lot of my leadership teaching really just help people be self-aware where they are. And it's kind of like, once you know where you are, now you can kind of get going in the right direction.

• 7:59Speaker 00

  But sometimes I have to find myself before I can move where I want to be. And so, you know, The Leader's Greatest Return, The Five Levels of Leadership, Developing the Leader with a U2.0, these are leadership books I've written. There's a lot of awareness in it where it's kind of like, I know that once you're aware, you're going to be able to improve yourself. So let me just kind of hold up the mirror for you, let you see yourself so that you can proceed.

• 8:27Shane Parrish?

  You've said in the past that if your level of influence is higher with the followers than the leaders, you're in trouble. Can you expand on that?

• 8:34Speaker 00

  Well, I can. First of all, most leaders never develop other leaders. They just have followers. And the reason for that's very simple. Followers are looking for somebody to lead them. Honestly, they're looking for the line. Where do I get in? And where are we going? And can you help me get there? Whereas where if you're trying to develop leaders, they're not as needy, and they're not as hungry to get in line and have somebody kind of show them the way. In fact, they kind of want to put people in their line. I used to laugh and say, leading leaders are like herding cats. So when I wrote, when I wrote this book on the leader's greatest return, it's kind of like, if you read this book,

• 9:20Speaker 00

  I don't, I don't promise you it's going to be easy, but I do promise you it'll be worthwhile. I wrote the book because as a young leader and people that have are starting off and trying to build businesses, they have so many things that demand and call for their attention. It's kind of like, I don't have time to invest in my people. I don't have time to mentor them because I've got to keep, you know, just try to keep this door open here. And it's a huge mistake because if you invest in people, they'll help you keep that door open and you won't have to be doing it all yourself. But many people just don't see the return, or the fact that they have so many other pressing needs right now that

• 10:04Speaker 00

  they see the return, but they say, I don't have time to go there right now.

• 10:10Shane Parrish?

  And it's only too late you realize that you

• 10:12Speaker 00

  Oh, yes.

• 10:13Shane Parrish?

  You should have, yeah.

• 10:15Speaker 00

  Well, that happened to me, Shane, when I, you know, when I turned 40, I did a kind of a review of my first half and I became a little discouraged because I had really developed and grown myself and in the eyes of a lot of people, I'd been successful, but, but I hadn't achieved yet what I wanted to achieve. And so I kind of, you know, just said, well, why am I not where I want to be? And I came to the conclusion, I had not spent enough time developing and investing in other leaders. And so in fact, it was out of that experience that in when I wrote the book, The 21 Refutable Laws of Leadership, it was out of that experience that I wrote the law of the inner circle. Those who are closest to you determine the

• 10:58Speaker 00

  level of your success. And what I discovered was that, that I hadn't reached my potential because I hadn't spent and invested the time and the people around me enough so they could help me raise that level. And so I made a commitment at 40, I'm now 72, and that was the rest of my life, I was going to spend that in investing in my people and, and developing them and helping them learn how to lead. And it was the greatest business decision I ever made because in the last 32 years, the return has been pretty, pretty huge. But it's been a huge return because all of a sudden I, I took the vision from me to

• 11:43Speaker 00

  we, and I created a leadership culture and an empowering environment. And when I did that, these people came alongside of me and, you know, helped me lift the load and helped me do things I couldn't have done on my own.

• 11:58Shane Parrish?

  That's really interesting. I'd love to hear more about that sort of audit you did at 40. Like, how did you define success when you said you weren't as successful as you wanted to be?

• 12:07Speaker 00

  Well, I think every person has kind of an idea. You know, you've got a dream and, and you're not sure how it's all going to end up. But at 40, when I kind of was checking in with myself, what I knew was that, one, I worked very hard. And number two is that people that from the outside would look at me would already consider me to probably be successful.

• 12:33Speaker 00

  But I felt within me that I had not yet achieved near the level of my potential. And yet I looked at myself and I said, well, I'm, you know, I'm working very hard. I'm not a lazy person at all. And so why am I not satisfied? Or why am I not to the level I think I want to be? And my conclusion after not a long time, a few days of just inventory was that my team that I had, I brought them in to do a workload or to carry a workload for me, but I hadn't developed them. And so they weren't getting any better. And if they weren't getting any better, then the company wasn't going to get any better. And so I said, okay, I know what I'm going to do now.

• 13:16Speaker 00

  I'm going to, I'm going to pour my life into these people and help them to get better, which is going to give, increase their capacity to help other people to grow too. And that's what I did at 40. And in the last 32 years have been just incredible, but they've been incredible because I, I made a change. I, you know, I called an audible at 40 and said, okay, John, your number one priority from now on is developing other people. And the leader's greatest return is really a result. It's, it's kind of like the end of the story of what I began at the age of 40 to do. And now I'm looking at it and I'm saying, oh my goodness.

• 13:57Speaker 00

  I wish when, when I was 20, I would have had somebody talk about developing the people around me and, and showing me how to do it. Because now I know where the return is. When I was young, I just, I just thought, work hard and you'll stay focused and, and you'll get everything that you want to have or that you need to have, but that's not true.

• 14:17Shane Parrish?

  That's a really interesting insight. Have you had any other sort of insights as you've, you've gotten older with how you determine success or satisfaction or happiness in life?

• 14:28Speaker 00

  Of course, I, you know, I mean, Shane, when I started off, it was all about, you know, building my career. And I did that, I did that. But I, I began to realize as the years have matured me that, that success and significance are not the same thing. And success pretty much is about me and about what I've done in my career. And, you know, how I've taken care of my family and the money I've made, you know, and the house that I have, et cetera. And all of a sudden, I realized that there was a higher level of living there. And that was what I would call a living a life of significance. And significance is all about others.

• 15:12Speaker 00

  It's how did I add value to you today, Shane? And how am I adding value to your listeners? And it's not about me. It's about improving the life of others. And I bet you do too. I know a lot of successful people. They're not happy. I mean, they have a lot of stuff, but they're not happy. But but I've never known a person that committed to significance, which is adding value intentionally to others on a consistent basis. I've never known anybody that lived a significant life, which was all about others, that was unhappy. And all of a sudden, I realized that our unhappiness and sometimes disappointment, disillusionment is based on the fact that we thought that if we would take care of ourselves,

• 15:57Speaker 00

  our life would be fulfilling. And it's not. We're too small. We're, I mean, it's got to be more than just about me. And the moment that I kind of lose myself and pour it into others, I honestly start to find myself. And that's been a that's been a major transition in growth area of my life also. But I mean, there are so many of them.

• 16:20Shane Parrish?

  That's an amazing answer. I sort of see things very similarly to what you do. I mean, happiness aside, one of the areas that you've spent a lot of time researching and you've spent a lot of time with successful people. I'm curious as to not only what successful people do that other people don't do, but also what do successful people avoid doing that other people seem to do?

• 16:46Speaker 00

  I had a mentor. Let me tell you a story. I had a mentor and he wrote books. And I hadn't written any books. In fact, I didn't have any desire to write any books. We were having lunch one day. And so I asked him, I said, Les, why do you write books? He said, well, I write books to influence people that are beyond my personal touch. He said, I want to have influence and help people that I'll never get to know. And when he told me that, I mean, something within me just clicked and I looked at him and I said, "Well, then I'm going to write books too." Well, I, I, I wrote books not because I wanted to write a book. I wrote books because I wanted to expand and extend my influence

• 17:26Speaker 00

  beyond me. And so, literally, that, you know, that, that was the catalyst to get me to writing books. And, and then, after that discussion, I thought, well, if I, if I'm going to add value to people that I'm never going to know, uh, I mean, what is it that I could say, or what, what, what is it that the reader needs to hear for me to do that for them? And, and, and, you know, how can I help people be successful? So about sixteen, eighteen months for that period of time, I just studied success and observed successful people, did a lot of Q and A, and, and I just dived into this area of,

• 18:06Speaker 00

  of what does it take to be successful? I came up to the conclusion that the successful people do four things, really well, regardless of what their occupation is or career. Those four things, Shane, are, are relationships. Highly successful people are just, are they're good with people? You know, people won't go along with you if they can't get along with you. So, I said, "Okay, then I'm going to write on relationships. I'm going to, I'm going to help people learn how to connect with other people."

• 18:39Speaker 00

  And, and then the second thing I discovered about successful people is they had the ability to, to form teams and, and get people on the team. And, and then to, uh, you know, equip them and mobilize them. And, uh, you know, begin to empower them to, to help for the cause. And, and so I said, "Okay, I'm going to write books not only about relationships, how to get along with people, I'm going to write books about equipping and, and how to train and develop people and how to, how to build teams." And then the third area, I came to conclusion after my study was that successful people have a, what I would call an attitude tenacity that allows them to get through and overcome adversity.

• 19:24Speaker 00

  I said, okay, then I need to help people do that. I need to write about the attitude, which the attitude isn't everything, but it's the main thing. It's the main thing. And, you know, attitude only shows up during difficult times. Attitude, the attitude gives you no advantage during good times because during good times, everybody has a good attitude. I mean, when things are going my way, I mean, I'm, my attitude's fine, but it's when the adversity comes and the challenges come, that's when my attitude becomes what I call the difference maker. So I said, okay, then I'm going to write books that, that, that will help people have an attitude that will overcome adversity and difficulty and challenges. So now I've got relationships, I've got equipping, I've got attitude.

• 20:09Speaker 00

  And then the fourth area, I came to conclusion was that successful people influence others and, and, and know how to lead. And so I said, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to write leadership books. I want to teach people how to influence others and, and, and how to make their influence really count. So that was clear back in, when my first book came out in 1979, for 40 years, my books have that continual theme of relationships, equipping, attitude, leadership. And what I discovered was that when I did that, you know, and what is it, you know, 34 million books later, I, I was, I was every time writing, right, not only in a felt need

• 20:54Speaker 00

  of a person, but in something that was going to make a difference for that person, that if they truly could do these four things and develop in these four areas and improve these four areas, their life, their business, everything was going to be vastly improved. So I stayed in those lanes with all of my books and, you know, some lean maybe more towards leadership than anything else, others lean more to relationships or attitude, but, but pretty much those books are going to continually be in those four areas because I think that's, successful people do those things, you know, really well. And I do think that sets them apart for many times from people that are not successful.

• 21:37Shane Parrish?

  All those things seem like choices or different, a different way of thinking. Is that, is that a good way to think about them?

• 21:44Speaker 00

  That they're choices?

• 21:45Shane Parrish?

  Yeah, you choose to engage in relationships with people. You choose your attitude.

• 21:49Speaker 00

  Shane, the most exciting thing about what I do in writing books is that what I write about,

• 21:59Speaker 00

  if a person truly makes a choice to, to improve themselves in that area, they'll have improvement. It's, it's, you know, I, I only want to write about things that people can grow and develop in. I mean, it's, there's no need for me to write something that's unachievable or unreachable. I, I, it, it needs to be something where a person, when I write a book, I want a person to pick up that book and basically say, I can do this. And the moment that they have confidence that they can, that they can begin to do this, now I become their best friend.

• 22:39Speaker 00

  And, and again, the books that I write, I want it to be simple and practical and applicable. So everybody that can look at them can, you know, not only understand them, but they can do something with them. And I think that's a lot of the joy of, of writing is that what I write about is within the choice realm of an individual. And they can choose if they want to, to improve themselves. And, and those who do choose that, they're, they're my kind of people. They're the ones I keep writing for.

• 23:09Shane Parrish?

  Talk to me a little bit about confidence. Is, is that something we're born with? Is it something we acquire? If we acquire it, how do we go about acquiring it?

• 23:18Speaker 00

  Well, I think, well, first of all, I, I believe that there are people that some people in comparison to others have a natural leaning towards being a confident person. I think that there are some people that just, okay, there's a, there's a, a naturalness about that to them, that they, they're not working as hard on it as someone else that you'd have to say is maybe a born inward trait. So I think that there's a part of that in a person's life, whether it's leadership or confidence or whatever, but even if it's a natural inclination or a leaning that a

• 23:59Speaker 00

  person has to be self-confident, they have to develop it. You know, no matter what kind of natural gifts and talents you and I have, there still is a responsibility of ours to maximize those talents and learn, grow, improve, and you know, order our life so that we're going to continue to grow. And so when it comes to leadership and all of these, what I would call success issues in a life, it's kind of like, what are you doing with your life now to make it better or to improve it? And I think that we all, to improve our life, have to be committed to a process.

• 24:39Speaker 00

  There's no quick way to get to the top, and it's an uphill, steady climb. Leaders are not made in a day, they're made daily. And I think that I help people buy into that process of every day I'm getting better. But it's not like it's one event or it's one moment that all of a sudden, you know, quote, "made me." I think that it's in the consistency, you know, consistency compounds. And I think it's in the consistency of doing the right things over a period of time that one day you wake up and you just say, "Wow, look, look what's happening in my life."

• 25:22Speaker 00

  I know that I could say that to be true in my life. At 72, I look back and I honestly, shame, I could hardly believe these things have happened to me. But as I look back and reflect on what has happened to me, I do know this, they didn't happen all at once, they didn't happen with a secret formula. They were a combination of day in, day out, making today count and, and, and learning and, and, and staying the course. And all of a sudden, there's a compounding on the back end that's pretty, that's pretty amazing, but it only happens on the back end because you were consistent on the front end.

• 26:04Shane Parrish?

  One of the, the most underappreciated things, I think, about compounding is that most of the results come at the end, not at the beginning.

• 26:10Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 26:10Shane Parrish?

  And we're always looking for the results at the beginning and rarely at the end.

• 26:15Speaker 00

  That, that's, that is just absolutely true. And so in the area, as you, we talked about confidence for a moment. I think this is, I think this is a big miss for a lot, a lot of people. I may have a natural bent to being confident, so therefore that gives me a little bit of a, of, of an edge in the, in the confidence game. But here's what I know. If I don't back up that confidence that I feel with success, that confidence will become very shallow and very hollow after a while. And that's why I tell people, you know, you could, like for a parent, you could affirm your children, tell them they're wonderful and, and you know, they're going to do amazing things. But can I tell you

• 26:58Speaker 00

  something? That they need to do some amazing things. The more I tell a person how good they are without them proving it to themselves, the more that that, those words just have lack of meaning and they lack influence. And so I think in a, one of the things I love about The Leader's Greatest Return is that I really talk about developing a leadership culture in that book. And a leadership culture is, is all about behavior. It's, it's kind of like, vision is, is what you see for your future, but culture is who you are now. And my behavior today is determined what I would come tomorrow.

• 27:38Speaker 00

  And I think that I, I think that in confidence, developing a leadership culture, where people have an opportunity, in one chapter, I talk about come to the leadership table, where they have an opportunity to get in their leadership environment and, and, and get a leadership discussion and ask leadership questions, have leadership interaction. It's at that table that they kind of get emboldened to practice leadership and, and how a person really develops their leadership skills or develops the skills and leadership of others is by, by practice, by doing it. And, and, and here's what I know. If I have some success in leading others and get some wins under my belt,

• 28:22Speaker 00

  all of a sudden, I, I replace the confidence that has been given to me by affirmation. I replace that with confidence that is given to me by accomplishment. And if you're just affirming me, but I'm not seeing results in my life, that, that confidence gets shaken very quickly. But, but if I've lived in an affirming, affirming kind of a, a culture, and then I'm starting to see some success, I'm getting some wins under my belt, now all of a sudden, this confidence begin, I begin to own it. It's, I'm not borrowing belief from someone else. I'm, I'm now experiencing belief from what I've seen accomplished.

• 29:04Speaker 00

  And I think Shane, that is a, a big turn for a lot of people in their life. That once they, uh, once they do the things that, that they need to do to get a few wins under their belt, then that cough, they own it now. I, I don't have to continually give them affirmation. I think affirmation is very important, but, but they're not waiting on that for, because they now have experienced some success themselves. And, and so they have that self-confidence that really allows them to achieve on a higher level.

• 29:35Shane Parrish?

  I like that a lot. And, and I think part of it comes down to yourself too, right? Like before you, you can lead others, I think you, you in some ways have to learn to lead yourself.

• 29:44Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 29:45Shane Parrish?

  And get results through accomplishment, which will create confidence.

• 29:48Speaker 00

  No question. You know, the, people ask me what my greatest leadership challenge is, and I always tell them what my greatest challenge as a leader is, leading me. You know, it's easy to. To tell other people what to do, or, you know, it's easy to, you know, say, go ahead and charge that hill, but I gotta go charge that hill and I've got to make these improvements. And it's easier to tell somebody what to do than to do it yourself. So I think all great leadership with others begins with a personal leadership myself. The first victory I want to have in my life is, is a personal one. And, you know, if I've got a few of those, I can help you get some victories in your life also, but, but I, I definitely believe that the credibility of leadership, the confidence

• 30:32Speaker 00

  of leadership, all begins when I, when I lead myself well. If I can lead myself well, then I've got potential leading you well. But if, if I can't lead myself well, you know, why would, why, why would I want someone else to follow me? I, you know, I, to be honest with you, a lot of people, they wouldn't be able to, and wouldn't want to follow themselves because they haven't done that.

• 30:53Shane Parrish?

  What are some of the mistakes that we make when we're trying to lead ourselves that get in our own way?

• 30:59Speaker 00

  Well, I think that most of my sabotaging self-leadership issues has been the fact that I, I was unaware. I, I don't think people purposely.

• 31:13Shane Parrish?

  You had a blind spot.

• 31:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. I don't think they purposely go down the wrong path. I just think that they're unaware and somebody has to come alongside and help me to, to see myself. And, you know, I told somebody one time, I said, they, you know, blind spots means that they're blind spots. You have no idea. You're, you're totally surprised when all of a sudden you see something that you have never seen before. And one of the greatest things we could do for others is to come alongside of them and, and help them with those areas. And again, in the leader's greatest return, I, I talk about that. I, I talk about the fact that, you know, with the people that are on your team, they need, they need to make some tweaking, they need to make some adjusting.

• 31:58Speaker 00

  And, and I can either let them go and, and quote offend them, or I can basically look, I've said, look, I care enough for you that I'm, I'm going to confront you on this issue. I'm going to, I care enough for you to, to be honest with you, you know, Max DePree said, the first responsibility of a leader is to, is to define reality. And the first definition of reality I have to have as a leader is, is for myself. And the moment that I can do that, I build a foundation for me to now build leadership on. And that's a big difference. And, and, you know, I tell people if they want to reach their dreams, make sure your foundation is, is solid and realistic.

• 32:38Shane Parrish?

  I've talked with a lot of people and one of the, the things that surprises me is, nobody's ever come up to anybody that I know of and said, here's the one thing that's holding you back at work. I work with you. I know it. I believe in you. I want to help you. Nobody ever does that. Why do you think that is?

• 32:53Speaker 00

  Well, I think that, I think a lot of times we don't speak into another person's life because we, you know, we don't want to hurt them. You know, we, maybe we want them to like us. As a, as a young leader, one of my greatest weaknesses was that I wanted to make everybody happy. And I, and I mistakenly thought that good leaders made everybody happy. And so I was, I was much more concerned on making them happy than I was helping them. And in fact, I remember when I wrote the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, I was signing books, Shane. And so this guy brought up the 21 Laws book to me and I started to sign it. And he said,

• 33:34Speaker 00

  John, he said, I've read the book. And he said, I disagree with, with, with, with one of your laws. And I smiled. I said, well, that's okay. I signed the book and handed it back to him. He never moved. He said, wait, he said, I don't think you understood me. He said, I, I read the 21 laws. And he said, I, I disagree with one of those laws. And I, I got, I said, I understand what you said. And it's okay. It's okay. You don't have, you don't have to agree with all the laws. I'm okay with that. Well, I was okay with that, but, but he wasn't okay with that. So he's kind of, you know, kind of wanting to press me a little bit more. And it's, it's kind of like somebody coming up to me, Shane, and said they don't agree with the law of gravity.

• 34:19Speaker 00

  Well, okay. It's okay. I mean, I, I guess it's okay. Here's what I do know. If you jump, go up to the top of a four story building and jump off very quickly, you buy into the law of, of gravity. I mean, the, you know, the, the law of gravity doesn't ask you if you buy into it or you agree with it. It just is, it's, it's, it's, it's just a law. And I looked at him that day and I said, you know, I said, I don't write books to make you happy. I write books to help you. And that's, that's, that's just, that's just life changing. Once you realize that, that, you know, in my beginning leadership career, I just tried to make everybody happy.

• 35:02Speaker 00

  And I wasn't helping people, but I was trying to, you know, get them all to like me and like what I was saying. And one day I came to the realization that, you know, I'm, I'm supposed to be a leader, not a clown. So let's, let's just be honest with people and, and hey, do it in the right way, do it privately, always have their best interest at heart. I mean, there, I can give you a whole list of ways to approach people, but you know, we don't help people by letting them stay in their areas of blind spots and awareness. There's no improvement to be made there. And people say, well, I think as they get older, they're going to get better. We're not, no. If it's a blind spot, they're not going to get better as they get older, they're just going to get a little more blind.

• 35:46Speaker 00

  And so I think we really help people when we, when we are open with them and kind. And obviously you do it, there's a right way to do that, there's a wrong way to do that.

• 35:59Shane Parrish?

  That seems like a great lesson to learn. So much today seems actually about learning and unlearning and relearning. What have you uncovered about learning?

• 36:07Speaker 00

  Well, I found that this learning, unlearning, relearning process is essential to a person's success. And in fact, I wrote another book, Leader Shift. And in that I, I, I talk about that this process of learning, unlearning and, and relearning. You know, Harvard Business Review in the last year has come out with a statement that if you have a bachelor's degree in five years, that bachelor's degree only has about a five year shelf life now. And well, what does that say? That being true, I've got to keep learning new things and, and what I learned in college, I've got to unlearn and, and then I got to turn around and, and, and relearn again.

• 36:52Speaker 00

  And that cycle never stops of learning, unlearning and relearning.

• 36:59Speaker 00

  And it's, you know, I have a, I have a, we have a wonderful company called the John Maxwell Team. It's a coaching company. We have 30,000 plus coaches, 162 countries around the world. And it's just been the fastest growing, largest successful coaching company in the world. And people ask me all the time, how, how's that been successful? Well, we have a, a cycle of success that we go through it. And, and that cycle has five parts to it. The first, you know, the first part is to test, you know, okay, let's go try something. We're not even really sure that it'll work, but, but, but we, we need some new ideas. And so let's go

• 37:40Speaker 00

  try it. Well, right behind the test is the failure. We, we, if you test a lot of new things, you're going to fail in a lot of it because you, you never tried it before. And, you know, often I say we're never good the first time. And so you, you test and, and you fail. In fact, the reason you test is to find out what works and you find out what doesn't work. Now, when we fail, and by the way, failure, and I think people miss this all the time too, Shane, failure is not the opposite of success. It's, it's not like one, they're, they're, they're way apart and, and you're either succeeding or you're

• 38:20Speaker 00

  failing. And if you're failing, you're not succeeding. And, and, and failure, you know, failure and success go together. They're, they're not even supposed to be apart, you know, it, it's not like I succeeded and never failed, or I always failed and never succeeded. In, in all success, there's quite a bit of failure. And, and, and the reason that highly successful people fail a lot is because they learn from it, you know, the, the value of, of failing is learning. So when people talk to me, they say, well, you know, John,

• 38:56Speaker 00

  Wow, I messed up in this area and I failed. I could hardly wait for him to finish the story so I could ask him a very simple question. Well, what did you learn from that? Because it's in the learning from our failures that really allow us to do very well and to just really to excel. So you test, you fail, you improve, or you learn. And the value of learning is to improve. Learning is overrated unless it brings positive change in our life. And when you improve and get better, guess what? Then you re-enter. And you're back in the game. And when you re-enter, guess what you're going to do again?

• 39:41Speaker 00

  You're going to test, fail, learn, improve, and re-enter. And that learning, unlearning, relearning cycle really, really never once, never stops. You never want it to stop. Because you've got to continually do the testing, pushing the envelope, to have some failure, to learn from it, to improve and make yourself better so that you can get back in the game.

• 40:09Shane Parrish?

  The process is so important for where you end up. It's the process for just sort of not being focused necessarily. The goal is obviously important, but it's the actual process by which you accomplish that goal.

• 40:23Speaker 00

  Totally. You're exactly right. In fact, I think the mistake most people make is they're goal-oriented instead of growth-oriented.

• 40:31Shane Parrish?

  It's who you become along the way that matters.

• 40:34Speaker 00

  That's exactly right. You know, when you're goal-oriented, you basically are looking for a number or a time and a date, and you judge how well you did by, you know, did you hit that goal? Or did you, you know, did you reach that timeline? And we begin to lose sight of the fact that if we're growth-oriented, we're continually developing ourselves, we'll hit all of our goals. Growth helps you reach your milestones in life.

• 41:07Speaker 00

  But the difference is that if you're continually growing, if you reach one of those milestones, it's not the finish line. It's not like, okay, now what do I do with my life? How many times have I seen people who are goal oriented and they worked hard and they finally hit that goal and then they kind of almost lost their way instead of understanding the value of growth. Now, when I started off as a young leader, the first personal growth kit I had was a was a goal setting growth kit out of Waco, Texas with.

• 41:38Shane Parrish?

  That was $700, right?

• 41:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, it's that $799 kit. And it was all on goal setting. And I'm very grateful. I took the course and listened to all the tapes, did all the exercises, and it helped me immensely. And so, you know, I started off being very goal oriented. But remember, if I go back to the story of my mentor, you know, who said he wrote books to influence people, if I want to influence people, what will I write about? I came up with Relationships Equipping Attitude Leadership. The moment I began to focus on being a person that relationally connects with people, being a person that develops teams, being a person that has an

• 42:20Speaker 00

  attitude that that just absolutely gets me through the dark times, being a person that influences, leads me. The moment that I tried to be that kind of a person, I left the goal side and I went to the growth side. And that was life changing for me. I mean, to this day, I'm, you know, if you're goal oriented, there's a finish line. If you're growth oriented, there's no finish line at all.

• 42:45Shane Parrish?

  I like that.

• 42:45Speaker 00

  Yeah. And, you know, the leader's greatest return again takes us back to the fact that we want, we want to grow ourselves and we want to grow our people. And if we're just committed, be committed to growing them and growing ourselves, then we have potential of having a very high return. But you're in the game for the process, you know, again.

• 43:09Speaker 00

  We overestimate Shane what we can do in a day and we overestimate the event and we underestimate the process. And again, developing leaders is all about not just for today and equipping them to do something in leadership right now, but it's all about building people and developing people and expanding their life so that they are bigger people and they're bigger people and they're better people. And that just makes everything bigger and better for you as far as the return.

• 43:45Shane Parrish?

  Yeah, I totally, totally like agree with that point. I want to come back to two things. One, you mentioned dark times and things seem to come so easy for you from turns of phrase to connecting with people. I'm sure there's times when you felt like nothing is working. How did you persevere in those times? What did you do?

• 44:07Speaker 00

  Well,

• 44:08Shane Parrish?

  Wait, have you had those times?

• 44:10Speaker 00

  Oh, I've had so many of those times. That's why I'm laughing Shane, you know, first of all, when you see anybody and you just say, I think things come easy for them or they seem to be quite, you know, simple. You're just not seeing the total picture. You may be seeing a person that's just produced something wonderful or had a high return or a terrific result. So yeah, that you may be seeing, but, but it's, it's, it's like the iceberg, you know, two thirds of the issue is under the water. You just, you may be seeing the tip of the iceberg and it all looks good. But, but trust me, you know, one of the things

• 44:51Speaker 00

  I teach people all the time is that everything worthwhile is uphill and it just is. And I think that the greatest way to build tenacity in a person's life

• 45:06Speaker 00

  Is to, is to let them know in the beginning that it's not easy. Because I think that when we assume that success should be easy, or that there is a secret to success, which there isn't, I, I think we set people up for failure. And the moment that I, I no longer, don't, when, hey, the moment's no longer easy, or the moment that I'm not, no longer finding that secret, I begin to question myself. And, and so I think it all begins with a, with, with a mindset of, of life is difficult, everything worthwhile is uphill. I think we also have to teach with this mindset, not only is everything worthwhile is uphill,

• 45:49Speaker 00

  but I think we need to teach the value of, of failure and, and the value of, of mistakes and shortcomings and, and humanness. I, I don't think that failure is the opposite of success at all. And I think this is a big mistake people make. I think it's kind of like failures in one corner and successes in the opposite corner. And boy, you just don't want the two of them to meet. Well, they do meet. And they not only meet, they live together. And that with every success, inside of that success is failure. And, and I, I've never met anybody who just said, you know, I, I built the company and honest to God, it was easier than I thought.

• 46:32Speaker 00

  And we, we, we built it quicker than I thought. And we've made more money than I thought. You know, that person's not building the company. They're on drugs. I mean, they're delusional. It's just not possible. And so if I believe that everything worthwhile is uphill, it gives me a mindset that I will always be climbing. It, it, no such thing as it's uphill, then it's downhill. No, no, it's all uphill. It's all uphill. And, and so I, I now, I start my life based on the fact that I'm going to have to consistently climb. Now, if I also help people understand that success and failures, they go together.

• 47:17Speaker 00

  And so that that when I'm succeeding, there will be some misses. And when I'm missing, if my spirit and attitude is right, they'll, I'll get some hits. And it's not like my life has been all misses and no hits, or it's been all hits and no misses. It's been hits and misses. And I think that a mistake that leaders make, Shane, is they don't talk enough about the misses. And so what happens is people, people see a successful person and, and they begin to idealize way too quickly. And that bothers me greatly.

• 47:56Speaker 00

  I, I tell people, I mean, they're seeing me at a, at a good time of my life and a high return time of my life. And, and my biggest disappointment, if, if somebody said, John, if you could do one thing, one thing, and only one thing, to encourage people to reach their potential, what would you do? What I would do is I would, I would be able to show them how I got started. I, they, I would be able to put on the video where they would hear me speak when I wasn't a good speaker. And, and, and where they would see me making my mistakes and, and, and questioning what I was thinking or what I was doing.

• 48:38Speaker 00

  And they would see my hesitations and they would, you know, they would, they would hear my apologies when I'd look at the people and say, oops, I'm sorry, I, I missed that one. And, you know, I got, we gotta do a little U-turn here. We gotta back up because if, if they could see me in my beginning days, they would understand the power of process and, and, and compounding. They, because the, first of all, they'd be very encouraged because I wasn't exceptional in the beginning. I didn't, I don't think there was anything exceptional about me. There, if there's anything exceptional about me, it would be my attitude. I think my attitude was way above most people's as far as not quitting and getting back up and being my best friend and encouraging myself.

• 49:22Speaker 00

  So I, I think that, I think they would see a, a pretty amazing attitude at a young age, but they wouldn't see amazing leadership and they wouldn't see and hear amazing communication. And I think what, the, the reason I hate that this can't That they can't see this is that they don't get a complete picture. They just have the finished product and the finished product looks a lot better than what really the life was all about. So I feel as a leader compelled, literally, to let people know about my failures and my mistakes and let them know that, you know, I didn't always

• 50:03Speaker 00

  make the right decisions. And in fact, I'm not even certain making the right decisions is even right. I mean, when I look at my failures and mistakes, Shane, honestly, you know, somebody said, well, would you like to go back and do them over? Would you like to have another chance? And there are a lot of things I should do over. Of course there are. But I don't think I want to do them over. I really, I just don't think, and here's why. When I look at my failures and mistakes and misses, what I learned from those difficult

• 50:43Speaker 00

  hours and that dark times, what I learned really helped develop my character. And to have all wins and no losses would be a person that, in the long run, would lack character. Because character is literally birthed out of adversity. And you really never know much about a person until you watch them go through adversity. And then all of a sudden, quote, "The true colors begin to show." And so, you know, would I have liked to have made all right decisions? Well, I suppose for the ego I would have, but I think I'm a better

• 51:25Speaker 00

  person because of my mistakes and failures and what I've learned from them than if I wouldn't have had the mistakes and failures. I think it makes me more human toward other people. I think it makes me more understanding to them as a leader. I think it removes the gap. And I think that's important.

• 51:44Shane Parrish?

  Helps you connect and develop relationships.

• 51:46Speaker 00

  No question. All the time, Shane.

• 51:49Shane Parrish?

  How do you go about learning from your past experiences? Do you have a process? Do you, like, what does reflection look like to you? How do you walk me through that?

• 51:58Speaker 00

  Well, yeah, I'll be glad to.

• 52:02Speaker 00

  We hear a lot, people say that, uh, like, experience is the best teacher. Well, it's a wonderful statement, it's just not true. If experience were the best teacher, then everybody, as they got older, would be getting better. And so, I, when I think of experience being the best teacher, uh, I, I look and say, no, a lot of people go through experiences and they learn nothing. And they don't improve themselves. I think evaluated experience is the best teacher. I think after the experience, we pull ourselves away and ask ourselves, what, what did I learn from that?

• 52:47Speaker 00

  What, what, what did that experience have to teach me? My children, when they were growing up, when we'd have an experience, I'd ask them two questions. What did you love? What did you learn? And I'd always start with, what do you love? Because kids migrate to, oh, dad, that was so much fun. Okay, that, you loved that. Well, what, what did you learn from it? Well, what I was doing with those two questions is I was training my children to evaluate every experience that they go through. And, and, and it's, it's, and, and what does evaluation do to the experience? It again, it brings an awareness to us. And anything that awakens our awareness, or brings it into a, what a, a, a, a much

• 53:32Speaker 00

  more clear light, it's a real benefit to us. And so, uh, as I look at, at where I've come through and, and what I've done and, and where I'm going, there's, without any question about it, um, the ability to reflect. Reflection turns experience into insight. And so, the moment that I realize, uh, that if I spend some time reflecting, uh, I'm, I'm gonna pull out what that experience taught me. So, I, I tell people, get beyond, you know, how you felt. Ask yourself, you know, what, what did you learn? What did you know?

• 54:14Speaker 00

  What, you know, what, what did, what, what, what did you experience that has potential to, to make you a, a better person?

• 54:24Shane Parrish?

  I think that's great. I want to thank you for the time, John. I want to end on maybe a more philosophical question in the sense of what does a fulfilled life look like to you?

• 54:36Speaker 00

  Well, I love the question. And I love it for two reasons. A fulfilled life, I love that question because I think it's possible to have one. And I think many people do not. And I love that question, not only because I think it's possible to have one. But I love that question because I believe that most people don't know the process to have a fulfilled life. And so when anybody asks me a question that I think is within reach of a person, I get very excited because it improves them. So I think a fulfilled life is a life is lived for others.

• 55:20Speaker 00

  And that it's not about me. You know, I teach a lot of communication. And when people say, I want to be a great communicator. Rule or law, number one is very simple. If you want to be a great communicator, get over yourself. Just get over yourself. If I haven't gotten over who I am and I have got to, well, I hope they like me. I hope I sound good. I hope they think I'm a good teacher. I hope I've got some depth. The moment that I'm concerned about how people perceive me is the moment that I began

• 56:02Speaker 00

  to put limitations on my communication skills. And so, you know, I tell people all the time, if you want to be a great communicator, get over yourself. Well, if you want to live a fulfilled life. Get over yourself. And the reason for that is, is that we are created and designed to be people that help each other. Society and culture works best when we are our brother's keeper, works best when we value other people. And so a fulfilled life is one that I have, I have forgotten myself, or I haven't forgotten,

• 56:47Speaker 00

  that's not a good phrase. I, I've gotten over myself. I don't think we forget ourselves. I don't think that's what I want to go to. But, but, but what I have the ability to realize that focus has got to be on others, not myself. If you, if you put that with valuing people, because what, what happens when I value people, I now begin to respect them in such a way that I will add value to them. Remember this, you only add value to the things that you value. You only add value to the people that you value.

• 57:30Speaker 00

  So valuing people is core to living a fulfilled life. So it's, it's not about me, it's about others. And it's about others because they have value. And then you put on top of those two thoughts, this would be good, this is huge. And I love this one. It's not only that they value others, but they value them in such a way that they want to add value to them. And, and now all of a sudden, you're not only your brother's keeper, you're your brother's lifter.

• 58:10Speaker 00

  And, and, and now, every time they are around you and every time they see you and experience you, it's better for them. And, and I think that the moment that you live for others, value others, and intentionally add value to them, I think you're living a fulfilled life.

• 58:35Shane Parrish?

  That's beautiful. Thank you so much.

• 58:37Speaker 00

  Thank you, Shay.

• 58:45Shane Parrish?

  You can find show notes on this episode, as well as every other episode, at fs.blog/podcast. If you find this episode valuable, share it on social media and leave a review. To support the podcast, go to fs.blog/membership and join our learning community. You'll get hand-edited transcripts of all the podcasts and so much more. Thank you for listening.