John Maxwell's #15 Law of Leadership: The Law of Victory

HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT Come spend the day with me for an event in my home https://daywithed.com/⁠ 📥 CLICK HERE to Download the free Leadership Workbook and submit your question for our Q&A with John and me. Approval in minutes, small business funding same day for up to $500k. Apply Now https://cardiff.co/ED Anybody can lead when the scoreboard looks good. True leadership is revealed when you're behind. Season three of John Maxwell's 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership is here, and we open with Law 15: The Law of Victory. Every leader hits the moment when the plan stops working, the market shifts, or the numbers don't look the way they should. In that moment, everybody looks at you with one question: do you still believe we can win? John has spent a lifetime building leaders, and he teaches this law through the people he has watched live it, from presidents and prime ministers to a man who walked out the door on Thanksgiving Day and refused to come home until the job was done. His message is simple: leaders find a way for the team to win. I know this lesson firsthand. I've felt lost. I've lost a little of my swagger. I've made moves that weren't right and didn't know the next one. In this episode, I break down why winners don't experience less adversity than anyone else, why your identity shows up in your losses instead of your wins, and why your team catches how you respond long before they hear a word you say. Before you press play, ask yourself something. Have I actually lost, or have I just stopped looking for the way to win? Those are two totally different things. In this episode you'll learn: Finding a way vs. knowing the way: Why great leaders do not always have the answer, and what to do when it happens to you The question that changes everything: The difference between "why is this happening to me" and what winners ask instead. Contagious leadership: What your team picks up from your language, your tonality, and your patience under pressure. A picture of the law: John makes the Law of Victory tangible with a set of traits you can measure yourself against. Victory is not an individual trophy: Why the leader's job is to bring everybody across the line. The one-page rep: The one winning move to make within 24 hours. Somewhere in your life, you've started accepting something you were never supposed to accept. Don't let one loss become who you are. Find the next move and make it. Max out. 🗓️ 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

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

• 0:00Ed Mylett?

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• 0:45Ed Mylett?

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• 1:06Ed Mylett?

  This is the Ed and Myron Show. 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership Series, Season 3 premiere. Law 15, The Law of Victory. I'm glad we're talking about this one. There are moments in leadership when the plan just stops working. The market changes sometimes, the team gets hit, opportunity disappears. Maybe you lose somebody important, or the numbers don't really look the way you thought they would, or you'd like them to look. And in that moment, everybody starts to look at the leader. Not because they expect you to magically solve all the problems, or that you're going to somehow make the problem disappear. They're looking at you to answer one question. Do you still believe we can win? Because anybody can lead when the scoreboard looks good.

• 1:50Ed Mylett?

  Leadership is revealed when you're behind, when you feel like you're losing, when you feel like it's slipping away. When everybody else is losing their minds, you keep yours. Calm, cool, collected, focused, and believing. And great leaders have something inside of them that refuses to accept defeat as the final answer. They find a way. That is the law of victory. Welcome back to the final season of this series on John Maxwell's 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. In this series, John Maxwell teaches the law itself, and my role is to try to bring that principle into real life, into business, family, teams, leadership, influence, you name it. Seasons 1 and 2 covered the foundation and influence of your leadership, your leadership abilities as well. Now is where the fun comes in. The ultimate test of a leader is not what they accomplish well present,

• 2:35Ed Mylett?

  but what continues once they're gone. This final season explores the high stakes laws of sacrifice and succession. This is where success turns into significance. Today's principle is the law of victory. John teaches that leaders find a way for the team to win, no matter what's happening. And I want you to really hear the wording of that. He does not say leaders always know the way. He says they find a way. That means there's going to be times when you don't know. There's going to be times when the plan fails, when you call the wrong shot, where you make a mistake. There's going to be times when the answer is not obvious. And I think sometimes we create this false picture of leadership where the great leader walks into every single situation, and they can just call a shot and it works. They can predict the future. They know exactly what to do.

• 3:20Ed Mylett?

  That's not true, and that's not a great leader. And that's never been my experience. I know there's been many times, I want you to hear this, that I feel lost, that I'm not sure, that I've lost a little bit of my confidence, a little bit of that swagger. Maybe some of the things I touch all of a sudden didn't turn to gold. Maybe not all the moves I was making was, were right, and maybe I didn't even know what the next one was. But I knew quitting wasn't the next move. See, that's different. One of the greatest qualities a leader can possess is resourcefulness. Resourcefulness says, there may not be an obvious way, but I'm going to find one. There may not be enough resources yet, but I'm going to create some. We may have been knocked down, but we are not finished. And this is where leadership and identity intersect. You've heard me talk about identity through my work.

• 4:05Ed Mylett?

  Most people think their identity is something that gets revealed when things are going well. I actually think you find out a whole lot more about your identity when things are going badly. Because pressure asks you, who are you when the result doesn't validate you? When somebody you trusted leaves or hurts you? Who are you when the dream takes longer than you probably thought it would in the beginning? You know, I made a post about this on social media very recently. They got literally over a million views in just a few days. And you want to know why that is? Because everybody goes through these times. Everybody can relate to this. Everybody has that time where it's just not working. A winning identity does not mean you never lose. A winning identity means you refuse to become a loser internally because of an external loss. That distinctions everything.

• 4:49Ed Mylett?

  Look, I've been around a lot of athletes, some of the top in the world, some of the top entrepreneurs, coaches, business owners, very incredibly successful politicians, for like decades. One thing I've noticed is that winners do not necessarily experience less adversity than anybody else. In many cases, they experience more. What separates them is the interpretation. Average people encounter a setback and ask, why is this happening to me? Winning leaders ask, what does this require from me? That is an entirely different question. One question produces a result of helplessness. The other produces leadership. You know, the quality of our life is often the quality of the questions we ask ourselves, especially under pressure. Tim Grover, who's been on the show multiple times,

• 5:31Ed Mylett?

  categorizes when people go between coolers, closers, and cleaners. Coolers will give in to pressure and ask why things happen to them. Closers will step up when something's on the line. But cleaners find a way to dominate and win no matter the situation in front of them. And when you lead other people, your interpretation becomes contagious. Everybody catches it. Your team is watching how you explain difficulty, how your emotions settle in, what your physiology is, how's your language change, your facial expressions, your tonality, your patience. They're watching everything. Most things are caught, not taught. So if every obstacle causes you to panic, eventually they panic. If every setback causes you to blame somebody, eventually they blame somebody. If every loss causes you to lower the standard,

• 6:14Ed Mylett?

  eventually the whole organization learns that adversity gives them permission to become less. But the reverse is also true. When the leader becomes more focused in adversity, the team begins to focus. When the leader becomes more resourceful, more optimistic, people start looking for solutions. When the leader refuses to let disappointment destroy belief, the team starts believing again. This is why leadership is emotional before it's tactical oftentimes. There are moments when your team doesn't need another spreadsheet from you. They need clarity. They need belief. Not certainty that you know exactly how everything's going to happen. Certainty that you are not going anywhere. Certainty that you are going to stay engaged. Certainty that you're going to keep searching. Certainty that the mission still matters.

• 6:58Ed Mylett?

  In the power of one more of my book, I talk a lot about the idea that sometimes your breakthrough is one decision, one conversation, one phone call, one relationship, one attempt away. Everybody says that now, but do they really believe it? I could tell you, I don't believe it, I know it. And that mindset is incredibly relevant to the law of victory. Because defeat often wins when people stop one rep too early. They stop making the calls, they stop adjusting, they stop asking questions. Most importantly, they stop believing. And the leader's job is often to keep the team in the game long enough for the next answer to reveal itself. But there's another side of victory that I think's important. Victory can not only mean you win.

• 7:40Ed Mylett?

  John calls this the law of victory because the leader finds a way for the team to win. See, that changes everything. An insecure leader wants personal credit. A real leader wants collective victory. Sometimes it means changing your strategy. Sometimes it means that somebody else had the better idea. Sometimes it means looking at your original plan and saying, I was wrong. We're changing direction. That's not weakness, that's leadership. If winning matters to you, more to you than being right, you become a very dangerous leader in a good way. Because your ego's no longer controlling the strategy. And I've always believed that most powerful leaders have tremendous conviction, but very little attachment to being personally celebrated. The mission wins, the team wins, the people win. That's victory.

• 8:25Ed Mylett?

  So as you listen to John teach this law, think about the area of your life where you've started accepting something you were never supposed to accept. Maybe you've accepted that the business can't grow, or grow at the rate you thought it could. Maybe you've accepted that a relationship just isn't going to improve. Maybe you've accepted the team is just not good enough. Maybe you've accepted a version of yourself that is so much smaller than who you know you can become. Ask yourself, have I actually lost, or have I just stopped looking for the way to win? Because those are two totally different things. Let's hear John Maxwell teach the law of victory. This episode is sponsored by Ro. A lot of people assume GLP-1s cost a fortune, and that assumption keeps them from even looking into treatment.

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• 9:53Ed Mylett?

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• 11:04John Maxwell?

  Law number 15 is the law of victory. And the law of victory says leaders find a way for the team to win. In other words, leaders have the ability to bring victory to the people. In your notes, I have this statement. Victorious leaders find the alternative to winning unacceptable. So they find out what needs to be done to achieve victory. And then they go after it with everything at their disposal. Now, if you'll let me just use a sports illustration just for a second. The classic example of somebody that understood the law of victory was Michael Jordan. He just had the ability to bring the team to victory.

• 11:47John Maxwell?

  And even when he went over to the Washington team in the NBA, a team that had been lowly, lowly, lowly, they almost made the playoffs. Why? Because anything less than victory is unacceptable to Michael Jordan. You show me a person, a leader, that does this law well, and I'll show you a person that absolutely hates losing.

• 12:12John Maxwell?

  As I've looked at the great leaders in history, they all excelled in this law.

• 12:19John Maxwell?

  Whether it's in our country, George Washington, who absolutely is determined to allow our country to be free from British rule

• 12:30John Maxwell?

  and stakes his life in six years, never hardly goes home to stay out there with his soldiers as they are undermanned and underrated to make sure that they bring this victory home. And finally, he does. Whether it's a George Washington or an Abraham Lincoln, who knows that the bloodiest time in our history is going to be a civil war, but he's willing to go through those dark hours so that we can eventually take this injustice off of our African-American and friends and bring us to a new day. All of the great leaders, all of the great leaders, understand and bring forth the law of victory. Perhaps my favorite leader of all is the leader of England, Winston Churchill during World War II, who absolutely refused to allow the Nazis to gain control of Europe.

• 13:16John Maxwell?

  And in the darkest hours, spoke great words of victory to his people.

• 13:22John Maxwell?

  I love the statement I have in your notes about him. Winston Churchill asked the question, "What is our aim?" I answer in one word, victory. Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be. For without victory, there is no survival.

• 13:41John Maxwell?

  So what does the law of victory look like?

• 13:48John Maxwell?

  Let's put a picture on it so we can understand it. Let's make the law of victory tangible.

• 13:56John Maxwell?

  First of all, leadership is responsible.

• 14:01John Maxwell?

  You show me a leader that brings his or her team to victory, and I'll show you a leader that takes responsibility. They take responsibility when defeat happens. They take responsibility. They say, "Look, it was my problem. I was the leader." So the first part or component of the law of victory in leadership is that the leader takes responsibility.

• 14:23John Maxwell?

  No excuses.

• 14:27John Maxwell?

  Boy, don't you know some people? Every time there's a problem, they got 17 reasons why it's not them. Huh? If and but, and if and but. If ifs and buts were candies or nuts, we'd all have a Merry Christmas.

• 14:46John Maxwell?

  The other day, I love this.

• 14:49John Maxwell?

  I picked this up. This is just some true explanations why people had automobile accidents, as reported to the police when they were doing the report. And some of these excuses just crack me up. Such as this person said, "As I reached an intersection, a hedge sprang up."

• 15:11John Maxwell?

  Hedges will do that often, obscuring my vision. Wasn't my fault. The hedge grew fast.

• 15:20John Maxwell?

  An invisible car came out of nowhere, struck my car, and vanished.

• 15:28John Maxwell?

  The telephone pole was approaching fast.

• 15:35John Maxwell?

  Those moving telephone poles do it every time. "I attempted to swerve out of its path when it struck my front end."

• 15:44John Maxwell?

  I hate it when telephone poles do that.

• 15:48John Maxwell?

  "The indirect cause of this accident was a little guy in a small car with a big mouth."

• 15:56John Maxwell?

  "I'd been driving my car for four years when I fell asleep at the wheel and had an accident."

• 16:03John Maxwell?

  After four years, you'll do that. "I was on my way to the doctors with rear-end trouble when my universal joint gave way, causing me to have an accident.

• 16:16John Maxwell?

  To avoid hitting the bumper of the car in front, I struck the pedestrian."

• 16:25John Maxwell?

  Makes perfect sense to me.

• 16:28John Maxwell?

  "I was coming home, pulled into the wrong driveway, and hit a tree that I did not have.

• 16:36John Maxwell?

  The pedestrian had no idea which direction to run, so I ran over him."

• 16:43John Maxwell?

  Make up your mind, make up your mind. "The guy was all over the road, and I had to swerve a number of times before hitting him."

• 16:53John Maxwell?

  This was not easy. This was not an easy deal.

• 16:58John Maxwell?

  "I pulled away at the side of the road, glanced at my mother-in-law, and headed over the embankment."

• 17:08John Maxwell?

  That's probably the only one that wasn't an excuse.

• 17:12John Maxwell?

  Now, it's just simple. The law of victory says, very simple, leaders take responsibility. Own up.

• 17:21John Maxwell?

  The second thing the law of victory looks like is losing is unacceptable.

• 17:27John Maxwell?

  Losing is just not acceptable. Thirdly, passion is unquenchable. You show me a person in the law of victory, and I'll show you a person that is passionate, passionate about winning. Creativity is essential. Why? Because you're going to have to constantly be creative to work yourself out of messes to bring victory.

• 17:49John Maxwell?

  Victory is not an escalator to the top.

• 17:53John Maxwell?

  Quitting is unthinkable. They will not quit. Commitment is unquestionable.

• 18:02John Maxwell?

  And because of those preceding things, victory is inevitable. That's just a fact.

• 18:13John Maxwell?

  I'm very fortunate because I have people around me who understand this law very well. And in my inner circle, they really do understand the law of victory. David Sutherland, who's the president of Enjoy Stewardship Services, that's an organization that raises money for nonprofit organizations.

• 18:32John Maxwell?

  David, I many times go to him and I say, "David, of all the people I know, you are Mr. Law of Victory. You just don't allow, you don't allow my team to lose. You don't allow my company to lose. You're going to make it happen." And I knew he was the law of victory when I brought him into my organization. It was very, very small. And it was right after Thanksgiving. I was over at the office one day, and I saw his wife, Roxanne, and I noticed Dave was gone. And I said, "Roxanne, where's Dave?" Well, he said, "You know, John, his goal was X amount of contracts this year, and he's seven contracts short.

• 19:09John Maxwell?

  So on Thanksgiving Day, he left and said, 'I hope to be home for Christmas,

• 19:16John Maxwell?

  but I won't be home till I have the other seven contracts.'" So Roxanne said, "I'm not sure when he'll be home, but when he comes home, he'll have the contracts." He came home two days before Christmas. All seven of them signed. You see, Dave's a leader that isn't going to allow the team to lose. He just is not going to allow the team to lose. Kevin Small, who's the president of Enjoy, we got ready to put together a major leadership simulcast all over America with some of the major players, such as Jack Welch and Rudy Giuliani and that whole process. And I can remember the day that Kevin came to us and said, "I want to do this simulcast." And my brother and I looked at him and said, "Well, it's going to take a lot of money, and we're going to have to probably have a cash flow issue.

• 20:01John Maxwell?

  And the only way we're going to let you do that is if you go out." And we threw out. We said, "You're just going to have to get leaders like Jack Welch or Rudy Giuliani for us to do this simulcast because you're just going to have to make it so great that everybody's going to want to watch it."

• 20:15John Maxwell?

  And he disappeared. And I went to his assistant. I said, "Where's Kevin?" She said, "He went after Jack Welch and Rudy Giuliani. Said he would be back when he had him."

• 20:30John Maxwell?

  Eight days later, he came back with signed contracts, Jack Welch, Rudy Giuliani, and an all-star team of lineup. You see, Kevin understands. He understands the law of victory. It's just a very simple law. It's a law that basically says, if you're a leader, you realize your responsibility isn't to get across the line first. Your responsibility is to take everybody that's on your team across the line. You see, the law of victory is not an individual award. The law of victory is not an individual trophy. It basically says, because you got across the line

• 21:15John Maxwell?

  and helped everybody else get across the line, you took everybody on your team to a higher level. The law of victory says, yes, you won, but so did all the players around you. The law of victory can probably be expressed best in the words of Bill Russell, who said, "After every basketball game with the Boston Celtics, which he led to many world championships, he said, 'After every game, I evaluate my game, not based on how well I played. I evaluate my game on how well the players around me played.'" Because, he said, "My main job is to make them all just a little bit better." So the law of victory is not a single award for a single person doing a single job. No, no, no.

• 22:00John Maxwell?

  You see, you're a leader. And leaders don't go to the top by themselves. Oh, they go to the top.

• 22:08John Maxwell?

  But when they go to the top,

• 22:11John Maxwell?

  they're like my friend Jim Winnaker, who took 20 people to the top of Mount Everest. He said, "The greatest joy is not getting there myself. Once I did it, I knew I could do it." Now, the question is, can I bring victory to everybody else? That's the law of victory.

• 22:33Ed Mylett?

  Huge announcement. So I wanted to make you aware of an event that I'm hosting in my home with less than 20 people. So it's a chance to be in a very small intimate environment with me and interact for an entire day. I do this event every year. Typically, when I put the message out like this, it sells out within 48 hours. But this is a day where we're going to cover all of the mental cognition, visualization strategies, business tactics, time management, as well as physical, spiritual, emotional strategies that I teach. But more importantly, it's a chance all day long to interact with me and get your questions answered that you would like for an entire day with me. And again, this is go to daywithed.com to get the information. daywithed.com. This is not a cheap event. And so if you can't

• 23:18Ed Mylett?

  afford it, that's okay. I don't want any pressure put on anybody. I don't have a sales team. There's no high-ticket closers. I'm not like these other influencers. I simply make an offer to spend a day with me. And if it's right for you, I would love to spend the day. And if it's not, that's why you've got all my free content here as well. I'm here to help everybody. If you want to spend a day with me in my home, go to daywithed.com to get the information. And if it's right for you, I look forward to spending the day with you. God bless you. Max out. If you haven't done it yet, click the link below. You need the 21-page workbook in your hands to track what we call the rep for every law. Plus, that's the only way to get your questions in front of John and I for our Q and A sessions coming up. Get the guy, join the list, and let's get back to the teaching. The law of victory reminds

• 24:01Ed Mylett?

  us that adversity does not remove leadership responsibility. It actually reveals it. When things get difficult, somebody has to keep thinking. Somebody has to keep believing. Somebody has to keep adjusting, and somebody has to remind the team what they were fighting for from the beginning. And that somebody is the leader. Great leaders do not promise that the road will be easy. They communicate something a whole lot more powerful. They say, we're going to keep finding the next move. Because leaders do not allow one loss to become an identity. They learn, they adjust, they rally people, they get resourceful, and they find a way for the team to win. This week, identify one area where you have quietly

• 24:44Ed Mylett?

  begun maybe accepting defeat. Write it down. Then divide a page into three sections. Number one, what is true? No exaggeration, no emotion. What are the actual facts? Number two, what can I control? Write down every decision, action, conversation, resource, relationship, adjustment that is still available to you. And then third, what is the next winning move? Not the entire plan, one move. Then take that move within 24 hours. Make the call, ask for help, change the strategy, have the conversation, try again. And if you lead a team, bring them into this exercise. Do not walk into this room saying, here's everything

• 25:26Ed Mylett?

  that's wrong. Walk in saying, hey, here's where we are. Here's what we know. Now help me identify the path to victory. One of the things I've learned from John is saying, I need your help, is a key quality of a great leader. This rep for this law is resourcefulness under pressure. Train yourself to respond to setbacks by searching instead of surrendering. Because winners are not people who never encounter defeat. They're people who refuse to let defeat have the final word.

• 26:05Speaker 02

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