Best Leadership Skills Training to Influence People #1 John Maxwell

You see, nothing is great until a life is changed. You do understand that. So you can have a good conference, you can't have a great conference. Great is only what they do with it after the conference. You can have a good book, but the book becomes great when it changes the life. And so many times we count our victories before we have victories. We count our victories because we just look good when we walk across the stage. Everybody clapped and everybody was happy and we thought, oh my gosh, what a good conference. Everything escalates and gets better when the people get better. And if the people don't get better, it wasn't that good. And if the people don't change, if the people don't grow, if the people just aren't reproducing, it never becomes great. See, leaders understand greatness begins with them and what they teach and inspire their people to be and do. But the result of greatness is in the proof of the people. It's in the people. So if you say, well, I'm a great leader. How many great leaders have you reproduced? See, you're not a great leader because you have followers. You're a great leader because you've reproduced leaders. And so this is going to be a huge day. I promise you, you're going to fill pages of notes, not just a page or two. I don't know who does that, but you're going to fill pages of notes. You're going to have to go straight from here to a massage therapist. You're going to say, just work the hand, work the hand. Just work the hand. I've been taking a lot of notes because one of the things we do in the John Maxwell it's a reputation of mine to give you more than you can handle. You with me? Do you ever go to hear somebody speak and just kind of sit there for a while and kind of hope for a miracle? You know what I mean? Just say, I know it will sometime get better. And you know, and have you ever kind of sometimes kind of one just walk up and say, you know what, you're not very good. Let me give you a couple of thoughts here. Just say these, it'll help you. It'll take you to a new level. Now, the reason I say that is, is we work very hard. You're here by invitation. I mean, we do these things quite a bit. We've got to pack this thing up many, many times, but we just said, no, just, we want the right people in the room when we want the right people in the room, because then it reproduces itself. So I've worked hard. I'm going to do the laws of growth. I'm delighted today to talk to you about some of the laws of leadership. And the first one I want to talk to you about is truly the first one I should talk to you about. Now there are 15 of them, but you have to understand there's one that I think is foundational for the other 14, not more important, but foundational. And that's the law of intentionality. And that's where we're going to begin today. The law of intentionality just basically says growth is the only guarantee that tomorrow is going to get better. If you're going to grow, and if I'm going to grow, we're going to grow intentionally. Now I'm talking to leaders today. I love talking to people that lead many people. And to be honest with you, if I could just literally come off the stage and, and I could get real close to you and we'd have kind of like a one-on-one conversation. There are two questions that I would ask you. And the two questions I'm about to ask you will really determine how successful you're going to be in this business without any question. These are the two questions. It's not like there's three or there's four or there's seven, there's two. Okay. Just trust me on this. I'm an old man. I know this. I've been around the block a few times. And there are two questions that if you're going to answer in a positive way about yourself, you're going to be very successful. And if you really can't answer that in a positive way, to be honest with you, you're not going to be near as successful as you would like to be. The first question is very simple. What are you doing to develop yourself? And if you'd say, by gosh, John, I'll tell you right now, I'm doing a lot to develop myself. I, I mean, I've got a personal growth plan and, and I'm intentional in this and I'm, I'm doing this on a daily deal. If you could say that to me, then I'd say, Hey, we're, we're in good shape here. We're, we're in good shape because that's the key. You know, what, what are you doing to develop yourself? And, and by the way, the reason that's first is not because you want to be selfish. It's kind of like almost a selfish question versus, well, why do I start with myself? The reason you start with yourself is because you cannot give what you do not have. So you better start with yourself because if you're leading others and have nothing to give them, nothing to share with them, nothing to teach them, then I can promise you, you'll never be what you want to be as a leader. And I can promise you that after 40 years of personal growth, the secret of any success, if I've had any success at all, the secret of that success has been personal growth in my life. And growth has, has literally placed me where I am. So, so what are you doing to develop yourself? It's a huge question. And the 15 laws of elite, of the 15 laws of personal growth, basically, these laws are all about developing yourself and developing the second question. What are you doing to develop others? You see on the first question, you're foundational for your future. The second question is all about compounding, multiplication. That's where you build a huge business when you know how to develop other people. And what we have to understand about the law of intentionality is that you cannot develop yourself and you cannot develop your people unless you're intentional. And I discovered that in my twenties, when I sat down and had breakfast with a guy named Kirk Kampmeyer at the Holiday Inn in Lancaster, Ohio, and he asked me the question, John, do you have, do you have a plan for personal growth in your life? Didn't have a plan. Didn't know I was supposed to have a plan. Nobody ever told me I was supposed to have a plan. I graduated. I was working hard, doing my very best to reach my potential, but nobody ever walked in my life until Kirk Kampmeyer did and said, John, do you have a plan for personal growth in your life? And I didn't have one. I was embarrassed. I thought back then I had to have answers. And so I acted as if I did, and that didn't really work very long. I was kind of like a plane circling an airfield trying to come in for a landing, found I just shut up and landed that plane. And he looked at me and I'll never forget. He said, you don't have a plan, do you? And I said, no, I don't have a plan. And then he said to me, John, growth is not automatic. If you're going to have to grow, you're going to have to grow on purpose. That day my life was changed. What Kirk was saying is if you're going to grow, you have to be intentional. Now, the problem is we have what I call growth gaps. The reason that we're not intentional in our growing is there are just some gaps that keep us from getting to where we need to go. And I'm going to give you about a half a dozen of them really quickly. The first one is the assumption gap. And the assumption gap just basically says, I assume that I'll grow automatically. You see, most people, they live by assumption. 99% of people today are assuming, just assuming that somehow they'll get better. Very sad, folks, very sad. Because let me tell you something about assumption. Assumption is a huge disappointment in life. You show me a person that assumes and I'll show you a person that almost daily is disappointed. So the first gap is a gap that leaves many people short. And that's just the pure assumption gap. The second one is the knowledge gap. And the knowledge gap is basically, I don't know how to grow. And we've all been there. In other words, okay, I know that I need to be intentional in my growth, but I really don't know how to grow. I've been there. Now, I brought something with me today that's very special. It's a kit. And I'm just so pleased to have this because this kit is very important to me. Now, it cost me $799. And I got this kit back in the 1970s, okay? And this was my first personal growth kit. Dynamics of personal goal setting by Paul Meyer, personal success planner. This was my first growth experience. And the ROI on this $799 kit, it's worth millions of dollars to me. Yeah, you heard me right. Millions of dollars. And experiences and a lifetime of growth. And what's interesting is, now here's what I want you to hear. The value of this kit, the content was good, but that wasn't the value. The content was good. But as I look back now, I say, what made this so special? What made this so special is very simple. This is the kit that got me started. Hear me out. The value of what you do for people is not so much what you give to them as much as it challenges them to get started. Getting started is absolutely the key to life. And by the time I finished going through this personal growth kit, by the time that was all finished, I had six months of day in, day out personal growth. And what it did is it developed a habit in my life. And by the time I finished with that kit, now I'm used to spending time every day in personal growth. It got me started. I mean, this is worth this whole lesson if you can just get this. The reason I'm so passionate about personal growth is personal growth keeps me prepared. In other words, if I'm continually growing, I continue developing myself, and I'm continually learning, and I'm continually doing new things and going to another step higher. Can I tell you what that is? That constant growth is the preparation for the opportunity. So when the opportunity comes, here's the way, you don't go into an opportunity, you grow into an opportunity. And so I'm passionate about personal growth because for that person who says, wow, I had an opportunity, I wasn't ready. If you're growing, you're always ready. Because after I intentionally started growing, I made a commitment to grow as a leader. I started writing, I became an author. I developed growth resources for other people. I founded my first company. I began training conferences. Everything I can think of that has ever been good in my life was a result of the fact that I started personal growth in my life. I know, I know I'm known for leadership, I understand that. But my passion in life more than anything else is personal growth. Because if you grow personally, you could be a great leader. But if you don't grow personally, you can't be a good leader. Everything in life, everything in life that you're ever going to want is based upon your ability to develop yourself. So Kurt Katmyer said, John, you can't just accidentally grow, you got to grow on purpose. And so I started. And I got to thinking yesterday when I was getting ready to kind of my last preparation for this lesson, I got started. And guess what? When I got started, let me tell you what I didn't have. I didn't have experience. I didn't have knowledge. I did not have a model. I did not have a mentor. I did not have a plan. I did not have a fellow traveler. I did not have resources. I did not have money. I did not have a growth environment. But I got started. You don't stop or not start because of what you don't have. You don't start because you don't realize yet that the fruit of everything good in life begins with a challenge. There's nothing easy in life, worthwhile in life. Everything is a pill that's worthwhile. And it's not going to come to you and it's not going to fall in your lap. It's always going to be difficult. So here's my intentional growth plan. Number one, number one, make a commitment to intentionally grow. That's where it starts. You say, well, John, that seems really simple. Make a commitment to intentionally grow. Guess what? It's really simple. But can I tell you something? When Kurt Kampmeyer looked across that breakfast table and told me that if I was going to grow, I was going to have to grow on purpose. And I looked at him and I said, I'm going to start growing on purpose. Something happened within me. Something happened within me that just changed my life. It was just a simple commitment. Nothing that I thought at that time was going to change my life, but it was just a simple commitment. I'm going to grow. I'm going to grow intentionally. And it starts there. I want every one of you. I want everyone for yourself, for the people that you lead. Make that commitment to intentionally grow. Number two, make that commitment public. A commitment that is not public is worthless. Because let me tell you something, we all have a tendency to stray. We all have a tendency to give up. We all have a tendency to get off course. Come on. But the moment that we start making it public, I can remember, I couldn't afford that kit that I showed you. And I said, can you give me 30 minutes? And I lived where we were having our breakfast was close to the house. I said, I've got to show this. I got to take this and show it to Margaret. And I said, I ran home and I got to the kitchen table. I said, we can't afford this. It's $799 and we can't afford it. And so I've got to take it right back. But I just want to show you what we're going to save our money for. And we got it all out and got those cassettes out. And we looked at the material real quickly. And I put it back in the box and I went back there. But then I told my friends, I began telling my friends, guess what? I've made a commitment to personally grow. There's something beautiful about a shared commitment. A shared commitment becomes a strong commitment. Number three, identify the areas that you want to grow personally in. Identify them. In other words, sit down and say, okay, where am I going to grow specifically? Now, let me, I'm going to help you here. When you start identifying the areas that you're going to grow in, it should be at least two and no more than five. Five's probably a little heavy, but it has to be at least two. You say, well, how about just focusing on one? Let me tell you why. You want to grow in an area of choice and you want to grow in an area of skill. So that's two. So when I'm talking about an area of choice, I'm talking about maybe your attitude. That's a choice, isn't it? So I want to grow in an area of choice. Maybe it's discipline and I want to grow in an area of skill. So for me, I started off with attitude and speaking because I was speaking. I was a pastor. I want to be a better communicator. So I said, okay, speaking, that's a skill. I'm going to work on that. I'm going to work on my attitude. So identify what are the two areas at least that you're going to grow in. And then number four, invest one hour a day in those two areas. Every day, including Sundays. Every day, seven days, seven, 24, seven, every day. Okay. And when you spend that hour, I'm going to even tell you how to spend the hour. You spend the hour this way. Here's the way it works. Preparation, practice, reflection. You do it every day. Whether it's your choice or whether it's your skill. You prepare a little bit, practice a little bit, reflect a little bit. Every day. You're going to find this is just huge for your life. Now, while I was doing all of that, that preparation, practice, reflection, while I was doing all that on my speaking, I was starting to go observe communicators. And when I would listen to somebody speak, I wouldn't listen too much about what the subject was. It really didn't matter. I asked myself one question the whole time I would listen to them speak. And the question was, are they connecting with their audience? And I would write down if they were not connecting, why they were not. And if they were connecting, why they were. In about two years, I became a master in understanding how to connect with an audience. Because I studied it, and I would listen, and I would watch, and I would observe, and I would come away and say, they did three things that were just powerful. Okay, I got to go practice that. Okay, prepare, practice, reflect. And I would just work on that. And this is the cycle that I worked, okay? Number five, invest one hour a week on reflection and writing on what you're learning. To take an hour every week and say, okay, for the last seven days, this is what I've been practicing, this is what I've been preparing for, this is what I've been reflecting, and start that. Now, let me tell you the secret on this. Because I'm kind of now talking about writing, I'm talking about maybe journaling a little bit. Let me tell you something, don't try to journal a lot. Start with jotting. Jot before you journal. See, I jot every day. I don't journal every day, but I jot every day, four or five words. Oh, my gosh, they're just mental kicks for me, okay? And then at the end of the week, you may have like 12 jots down, you with me? And you go get those jots, and you say, okay, now I'm going to spend 35 minutes, I'm going to start writing. What did that mean to me? Just jot and then journal. And then number seven, this is huge. I'm sorry. And then number six, share your growth with someone. Every week, find somebody that you can share your growth with. And let me tell you how this works. You sit down with that, oh, I want to tell you what I'm learning, I want to tell you how I'm growing. Now, here's how this works. This is beautiful. When you share your growth with someone, if they're happy, do it the next week. You with me? Oh, okay, well, let me share. Can I share with you now? So if they're happy, keep sharing. If they're not happy, start moving. Don't ever spend time with people that aren't thrilled with your progress. The friends I dropped in my early years, the friends I dropped in my early years were those people that weren't thrilled with my progress. Are you with me? They weren't thrilled at all with my progress. Those are the ones I left behind. I got some new friends. That's what you got to do. Because let me tell you something, if you become intentional in your growth, you'll outgrow almost everybody you know. Everything I have today is because I have good people around me. Everything. You want to talk about any area of my success in my life, and what I'll do immediately is I'll give you the names of people. The names of people who are gifted better than I am, who complete me, who compliment me, who add value to me, who make a difference for me. And they do it with such consistency. They do it with such care. They do it with such kindness. They do it with such love. And they just do it, and they do it all the time. And it's humbling to me. It's humbling to me. I mean, this is a perfect example. When I walked out to teach you today, this is the first time I was here to teach. I mean, I did nothing. I didn't set up any cameras. I didn't do anything. I didn't do an email. I didn't do anything. They just said, John, could you get ready to teach the 15 laws? So I've been over there writing and teaching the 15, working on it, upgrading, doing everything else. But everything that you're enjoying today outside of this teaching, it's been done by others. And I can tell you right now, when I died, they could put on my tombstone, a whole bunch of people made that man. Because they have. And I'm grateful. You say overestimate what we can do tomorrow. Right. And I think we over exaggerate what we did yesterday. And I think especially when you're old like me, you sit there and, you know, the good old days, I don't think the good old days were always that good. You know what I mean? But I do think, and in fact, I know we underestimate today. And it's the only moment I have. All I have is now the only time I have. And that's why I tell people consistently, you have to live in the present. Be there, be present. Whatever you're doing, do it well right now. So in my disciplines to make the day count, I have my spiritual disciplines of things that I do in my faith walk that I do on a daily basis. I pray scripture. I have my writing disciplines. I write always in the morning. In fact, one of my disciplines is that basically I don't meet with anybody until noon because I'm a morning person. I get up around 4.30 in the morning and from 4.30 to about 10.30, 11, I am cooking. I mean, that's when I think best. That's when I write best. And I learned a long time ago. Now you may be a night person, so you might flip that. But whenever you're at your best mentally, physically, that's when you ought to be doing your most important things and making that really count right then. But you know, who was it? I think Joe Frazier, the boxing champion, said that when you get into the ring, it shows up if you practiced or not and if you worked out. And what we do in secret will be revealed in public. And it's only a matter of time. And one other quick thought on this is, I think that consistency is such an incredible asset to people that is totally underappreciated. Because, you know, consistency compounds. I'm 73, and I can tell you right now, the consistency of my life now is bringing fruit to my life that I'm surprised. I think, how is this happening? But it's because of this continual day in, day out, day in, day out, teaching leadership to so many people. And after a while, all of a sudden, this return comes back that I would have never anticipated. So today, which we say is just today, doesn't seem so great. Several todays consistently done with the right reasons and the right priorities. One day shows up. Hey, today, Sunday becomes what a day. You know, it's comes, oh my gosh, what a day we've got here. Well, that day out there that we, you know, we graduate from college or we get the promotion that, you know, when somebody graduates from college, everybody's congratulating them. Well, they didn't become successful when they got their diploma. They became successful when they enrolled in college and when they studied for the test, when they went to class. I mean, they're already successful. And I think sometimes we confuse success, which is required of us on a daily basis, with recognition of success. Right. Which that doesn't happen until someplace back there. We weren't that good when we got recognized. And we weren't that bad when we did the routine stuff that we needed to do to get recognized. But I think so many times we see the success of somebody and we kind of gravitate like, oh, I want to do that. Not realizing there was a whole process of daily disciplines that got them there. And without those, they would have never had that day. What we have to understand about developing ourselves and getting better is that it doesn't take brilliance and it doesn't take a lot of time and it doesn't even take a lot of effort, but it must be intentional. That's the word I want to implant in your mind for a moment. The fact that you don't get better automatically, you only get better because you intentionally make a decision to get better. And here's my word for you today. I met with Maxwell. Here's how this works. You have to go from being a person of good intentions to a person of good actions. That's the great separator. To develop yourself, you've got to get out of the intending world and get into the doing world. In fact, your good intentions are good intentions, but they're worthless. Totally worthless. The most overrated phrase in the world is good intentions. I know all kind of people, they have good intentions, but they never do good because they didn't act upon what they knew. So if you want to develop yourself and you want to get better, just act on what you've already expressed that you want to do. The moment you quit talking about it and start doing it, now you've got something. I had a friend named Randy one time who came to me and said, John, your talk talks and your walk talks, but your walk talks a lot louder than your talk talks. That's true. Become a person of action today.