John Maxwell's #18 Law of Leadership: The Law of Sacrifice

📥 Download the free Leadership Workbook and submit your question for our Q&A with John and me here: https://mailchi.mp/edmylett.com/21lawsworkbook 👇 SUBSCRIBE TO MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL - so this show can reach more people 👇 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIprGZAdzn3ZqgLmDuibYcw?sub_confirmation=1 Everybody wants the next level. Very few people ask what the next level costs. This week is about the Law of Sacrifice — the principle that growth is not just about what you add to your life, but what you are willing to release. Law 18 in John Maxwell's 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership is the Law of Sacrifice, and John teaches it with one of the most demanding lines in the entire series: a leader must give up to go up. I open this episode by breaking down why greater leadership usually brings greater responsibility, not greater comfort, and why your willingness to sacrifice often has to grow with your influence. I share the difference between early-career sacrifice and later-career sacrifice, because what got you to one level can become 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 the smartest person in the room made you feel safe, but now it keeps stronger people from wanting to work with you. Growth requires subtraction too. I also explain why sacrifice is not the glorification of misery. It is alignment. Great leaders do not sacrifice randomly — they sacrifice intentionally, giving up lower priorities for higher ones, ego for mission, convenience for calling, and immediate gratification for long-term significance. And I walk you through what I call the sacrifice exchange: a two-column exercise to close the gap between what you say you want and what you are willing to pay for it. Here is what you will gain from this episode: Give up to go up: Why every new level of leadership requires you to build something and leave something behind. Knowing vs. willingness: Why most people already know what they need to change — the real question is how badly they want the future compared to how badly they want the comfort. Early vs. later sacrifice: How the nature of sacrifice shifts from working while others play to letting go of control, ego, and identity. Growth requires subtraction: Why the biggest breakthroughs in your life may come from what you are willing to release, not what you are willing to add. Sacrifice and value: How to tell what somebody truly values by looking at what they are willing to give up for it. The sacrifice exchange: A two-column exercise — what I say I want on the left, what it requires on the right. One intentional sacrifice: How to identify a single, meaningful sacrifice for the next seven days that is directly connected to your priority. At the end of your life, nobody is going to give you an award for holding onto everything. Your next breakthrough may not be waiting on another opportunity — it may be waiting on your willingness to release something that no longer belongs in the future you are building. Decide what is worth paying for, and let go of the rest. This is part of a new series releasing every Thursday. Click the link above to download the free workbook and track your rep for every law. Thank you for watching this video—Please Share it and get the word out! Try QUO for free PLUS get 20% off your first 6 months when you go to quo.com/mylett 👇 SUBSCRIBE TO MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL 👇 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIprGZAdzn3ZqgLmDuibYcw?sub_confirmation=1 ▶ Visit My WEBSITE | https://www. EdMylett.com #EdMylett #JohnMaxwell #Leadership #Motivation Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 2:28Speaker 01

  This is the Ed and Mylet Show.

• 2:32Speaker 00

  21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership Series, Law 18, the Law of Sacrifice. Look, everybody wants the next level. Very few people ask what the next level costs. Because every new level of leadership requires you have to build something and maybe leave something behind. Sometimes you leave behind comfort. Sometimes it's control. Sometimes it's popularity or acceptance. Sometimes you have to leave behind your old identity. And one of the best pieces of advice I share with other coaches and my kids is this. Winning is way more fun than fun is fun. Welcome back to this special series on John 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.

• 3:16Speaker 00

  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. Your mistakes become more expensive. Your time becomes far more valuable. Your 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, saving 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.

• 4:01Speaker 00

  Maybe you have to sacrifice being liked. You may have to sacrifice an opportunity because it distracts from the mission. I'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. Maybe 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.

• 4:46Speaker 00

  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. I'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. They 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.

• 5:30Speaker 00

  How badly do you want the future compared to how badly do you want the comfort? And I want to be clear. Sacrifice is not the glorification of misery. You don't become a great leader all the time by destroying your health, abandoning 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 higher ones. They sacrifice ego for mission. Convenience for calling. Immediate gratification for long-term significance. That's very different from sacrificing everything indiscriminately.

• 6:10Speaker 00

  In fact, one of the most mature sacrifices a leader can make is giving up an opportunity because taking it would cost something 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. So 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.

• 6:54Speaker 00

  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.

• 7:02John Maxwell?

  Law number 18 is the law of sacrifice.

• 7:07John Maxwell?

  And the law of sacrifice says, a leader must give up to go up.

• 7:15John Maxwell?

  In fact, I can remember several years ago now, doing a leadership lesson entitled, "You have to give up to go up." And in that lesson, I could remember my outline because it was very simple. I said, first of all, and it was about getting up to the top. And I said, first of all, you have to get up to go up. Because I know all kinds of people, they're still in bed. You know what I mean? They're still in bed. They haven't realized, you know, you probably ought to get out of bed before you could be successful. You've got, you've got, you've got to get up to go up. That's step number one. Get out of bed. Enter in the arena of action. Take some initiative, do something. Okay, you got to get up to go up. And after you get up to go up, after you do that, secondly, you got to grow up to go up. You got to grow up.

• 7:59John Maxwell?

  I know people have never matured. They're still talking about the same thing, doing the same thing. They've never, they've never, they've never developed like to. So if you want to get to the top, you now have to get up to go up. You got, you got to grow up to, to go up. And then in the tape, I remember I talked thirdly 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. And 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 number four, the law of Mount Everest says, as the challenge escalates, the need for teamwork elevates. In other words, you've got to get a team around you. And you've got to get that team helping you to get to the top.

• 8:39John Maxwell?

  So let's talk about the law of sacrifice. A few years ago, there was a tragedy at Mount Everest where a couple of guides got into a storm with a few of their people and they, there were a few deaths. And I can remember a 60-minute interview that I, that I watched. It was a very interesting interview because they were talking to one of the guides who, of course, lived and, and they were talking about the tragedy. I think it was Mike Wallace, if I'm not mistaken, in 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 the top?

• 9:23John Maxwell?

  And I remember the, the guide said, well, it's because that's my job. My, my job is to take people 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? And, and, oh, yes, I, you know, 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, that's who I am. I'm a guide. And when I listened, I thought, how true to that, to a leader that is. It's our job as leaders to take people to the top.

• 9:57John Maxwell?

  Mike Wallace continued that interview and then he looked at me and said,

• 10:02John Maxwell?

  "I don't think it's worth the risk." I mean, after all, to risk your life or have people in your party that not make it, I said, "I don't think it's worth the risk." And then he looked at the guy and said, "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 guy is looking into his face like, "I can't believe you'd ask me that question." "Why do I risk my life to get to the top?" He looked at Mike Wallace and said, "It's obvious to me that you've never been to the top of Mount Everest." "It's obvious to me." "You've never been to the top of the mountain." "It's obvious that you've never been there." "If you would have ever been to the top, you would never ask that question." When I think of that interview, I think of leaders.

• 10:47John Maxwell?

  Once we have been to the top and see how glorious it is, what do we want to do? We want to go back down and we want to fight some other people and say, "I want you to take a trip with me. I'm going to show you things you 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 people with them to the top as they possibly can. Now, here's what I want you to understand. To get to the top, you've got to give up something.

• 11:18John Maxwell?

  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. The Leadership Pyramid is a prime example of giving up to going up. Basically, the Leadership Pyramid says that when you enter an organization, I 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.

• 11:55John Maxwell?

  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. I 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. They're 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.

• 12:40John Maxwell?

  So, if you are a leader and you're taking people across the top, it's going to be very good. But what I want you to understand is this. You don't lead because of perks. In fact, what I have found is this. Most leaders, they become leaders because they like 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." That's the way it works. And he said, "If you don't pay on the front end, you don't get to 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."

• 13:25John Maxwell?

  So, learn quickly, pay on the front end. And I'm saying to each one of us today, as we're teaching this principle, 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. It'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 do you 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 and take them to a higher level than they could ever go on their own? So, let's go to the workbook. Because there are three sacrifice statements that I want to make.

• 14:06John Maxwell?

  Number one.

• 14:09John Maxwell?

  There is no success without sacrifice. Let's just start there. You say, "John, what do you mean?"

• 14:18John Maxwell?

  What I mean is, there is no success without sacrifice. There's not an escalator waiting to take you to the top.

• 14:29John Maxwell?

  Quit standing outside waiting for the chair lift to take you to the top. Nobody ever got to the top of a mountain and at the end of the day said, "Oh my goodness, how did I get here?"

• 14:45John Maxwell?

  Instead of saying, "I just took a stroll and the next thing I knew, I was on top of this mountain." No, no, no, no, no, no.

• 14:53John Maxwell?

  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. And let me tell you something that all experienced 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 essentials will be a detriment to keeping them from what that goal is. So, when they get ready to go to the top, they don't back up a U-Haul truck. Say, "I'm going to throw this stuff in the truck. I may need it while I'm up there." No, they give up.

• 15:37John Maxwell?

  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. The higher you go in your leadership, the more you'll give up. I remember thinking when I started off in my career, in 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, you say, "Well, why was I so foolish as a youth?" You weren't foolish as a youth. You didn't have anything.

• 16:18John Maxwell?

  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.

• 16:26John Maxwell?

  And they have to make these trade-off decisions that become very difficult for them.

• 16:32John Maxwell?

  The third thing I want you to know about success is, you have to give up to stay up. You not only 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 can do consecutive world championships is because after they win their first world championship, all the players go on the chicken banquet tour. And they spend the next year getting fat, telling everybody how they did it last year.

• 17:02John Maxwell?

  And you don't reproduce yourself by telling your story. You reproduce yourself. You stay on top by giving up continually.

• 17:11John Maxwell?

  About five years ago, I did a lesson that really fits this whole law of sacrifice. It was entitled, "Ten Trade-Offs Worth Making." And I was at a very important part of 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 perks and things I had in my life if I wanted to go to the next level. And I can remember that day as I sat down at my desk with my legal pad and 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 accomplishment to get to a next level. I was willing to give up financial gain for future potential.

• 17:55John Maxwell?

  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. I 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. And I can remember making the conscious decision to keep on going. But I also remember, as I looked at that list, I realized that the higher you go, the price gets higher.

• 18:35John Maxwell?

  That's why many people get about two-thirds of the way up and never climb any higher.

• 18:42Speaker 00

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• 20:54Speaker 00

  Coming up, get the guy, join the list, and let's get back to the teaching.

• 21:00Speaker 00

  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 willing to release something smaller to protect the greater. So, the question is not whether leadership will cost you. It will. The question is whether you have enough clarity about what matters to know what is worth paying for. A leader must give up to go up. And 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.

• 21:44Speaker 00

  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 more time with your family, what needs to be sacrificed to protect that time? If you want to become a stronger leader, what ego, what habit, what comfort or control needs to go? Then identify one intentional sacrifice for the next seven days. Not performative sacrifice, not unnecessary suffering, something directly connected to your priority. The law of sacrifice is not give everything up. It's give up the right things for the right reasons.

• 22:21Speaker 01

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• 22:27Speaker 03

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