21 Principles of Top 0.01% Leaders ｜ John Maxwell Interview
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Summary
John Maxwell is a multi-millionaire, best-selling author, and one of the world s leading experts on leadership. He s written over 90 books on personal growth, selling over 35 million copies, and now he s about to break down the irrefutable principles of leadership, the laws that make the top 1% of leaders so rich and successful.
Transcript
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John Maxwell, multi-millionaire, best-selling author,
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and one of the world's leading experts on leadership.
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He's the go-to guy for executives at Coca-Cola,
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because he's gonna show you how to use these principles
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of just doing a thing for a long period of time
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because most people struggle to do anything for a week.
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and skills were and by the time that my brother was probably 10 or 11 he had him doing entrepreneur
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stuff and starting little businesses and and uh and he just said larry you're just you just are
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gifted in business and and with me i was kind of a kid that just had a lot of friends i was highly
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highly highly relational basically i went to school to see my friends and i played bowl i mean i was
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i was kind of a i tell i tell parents if you would have seen me at a young age you'd be greatly
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encourage for your child because because where my brother he bought his first car cash by 16
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you know i used my father's car up through college as far as i could you know i mean i was just i was
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just a fun kid but i was highly gifted relationally with people and so i was always i led everything i
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was just and so my father just said you know john you've got leadership tendencies so let's let's
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build those leadership tendencies so i i want to say that i i think that i was fortunate very young
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to kind of get on one track and and and i've always said the reason i don't do a lot of things
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is i'm not very gifted in a lot of things you know i could if you could just do one thing you
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just kind of hang there but i knew this i wanted to i what i knew was i didn't even know what the
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calling or career was going to be in the beginning but i knew i wanted to spend time with people
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and add value to them that i love leading and i loved improving people's lives and i felt that i
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knew how to do that. And so I started off in ministry, really. I started off as a pastor,
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and I was there for 25 years. Then I crossed over the business community. But here's what I know.
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I fell in love with leadership when I was 24. And I came to the conclusion everything rises and
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falls on it. That if you can lead well, you're going to do well, no matter where you go, where
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you are, no matter even what your occupation is. I so bought into that, Dan, that I said,
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And I bought into it, and I said, I think that it's true,
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and if it's true, then I'm going to teach people to lead well,
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And I have never looked back, what's really beautiful?
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That was, well, I'm 77, so that's 53 years ago.
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I believe that everything rises and falls on leadership more today
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than when I started, and I feel very fortunate.
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I feel very fortunate to be able to give my life to something that has intensified,
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that has not ebbed away from me to where I thought, well, maybe that wasn't true in every situation.
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And to give my life to something that helps people so much, and that is in the leadership field.
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Because I've never been to any organization or any group anywhere in the world that said,
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They always have a dearth, a lack of, we need more leaders.
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So I followed my heart, and I found something I think that was constantly in need and still is.
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And, you know, you stay in the game because it helps people.
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I mean, people say, why are you still in the game?
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What I'm doing is changing lives and helping people.
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You know, I mean, but, you know, if my game was golf, I'd get out of the game.
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And so I love what I do, but I also love the people I do it with.
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And I always say that if you have the two loves, if you love people, in fact, I tell
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leaders, when you stop loving people, you really need to stop leading them because then
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So I love people and I love what happens when people learn what I know, and that is leadership.
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and it's just uh it's just joy i i just i i i honestly could say i've never worked a day in
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my life i mean i woke up and i thought about us doing this today and i just got a big smile on
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my face i gotta be with dan i get to be on the podcast we get to talk about things that are going
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to help people and here i am and and i just doesn't work this is joy and i think that i'm
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very fortunate i don't think everybody has that but i think i'm very fortunate and very blessed to
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have found something that helps people that i love so much and so that's what i mean consistency is
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not hard i mean once you find something like that you just keep one consistency is not hard
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getting better is hard so so i i'm not just at rep i'm not talking about repetition consistency like
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every day every day no no i'm talking about every day but every day there's improvement every day
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there's growth. Every day there's change that happens in a person's life. So I'm very consistent
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in leadership, but I'm very growth oriented in every day I have to get better at it because the
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only guarantee anybody's future is going to be good is that they're growing right now. I mean,
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there's no guarantee that tomorrow could ever be better if I'm not still growing and developing
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myself today so there is a consistency of I've done leadership but I do leadership much better
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today than I did 50 years ago you know what in fact in fact I look back at some of my early
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books and I thought you know can I get in fact sometimes I go to the publisher and I say can I
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buy that book out you know I mean because I've learned so much more now I look and I think oh
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that wasn't that wasn't near as good as it could have been or should have been so there is a
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consistency as far as I've done it a long time but I tell people you could do something a long
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time and people are saying they're very consistent but that doesn't mean that you're really helping
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people you've got to constantly grow so there's a I continue to do it but I continue to do it
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better and I am in love with better I'm in love with growing when I think about my journey on
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that topic of where i started where i am today same embarrassed some of the ways i acted some
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of the things totally oh my gosh when you look back on your journey john what what are kind of
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like three moments that like what who did you need to become to be the john maxwell i'm sitting here
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with today from where you started well you know such a good question dan and really i feel the
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same way. I tell people if they would have seen me in the beginning, they would all be greatly
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encouraged because they really would be. My first book wasn't good. I mean, it just really wasn't
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good. It was my first book, but you're never good the first time. You know, in fact, you're usually
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not too out the second time either. You know, but why do I keep doing it? Because I may not be good
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the first time or the second time, but I do want to be good sometime. And you're only going to be
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good sometime if you're working at it and you're practicing. And so the catalyst for me was that
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when I was in my 20s, I had a mentor and he asked me if I had a personal plan for growth in my life,
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which I did not, didn't even know I should have one. And he awakened me to the fact that if I was
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going to really get better, I had to be intentional. And I would look back at that moment and say that
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was my eureka moment. Because I kind of thought if you just show up and do your work, you kind of
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improve. And I remember he said to me, you know, getting older is automatic, but getting better is
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not and you know just keep breathing and you get older yeah but but he said if you're going to get
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better and that awakened me at a very young age and i became extremely intentional in my growth
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so that's the first area i think the second catalytic time for me dan was when i asked
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myself well what i realized when i got on a growth track i thought i can't grow in every area i mean
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i'm not that smart i don't have that much time i mean how much can you read how how wide can you
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go. And I decided that with, that I didn't want to go wide and growing. I wanted to go deep and
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growing. And so that I needed, I needed to pick a few spots because first of all, I'm not highly
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gifted. So a lot of spots I couldn't do well in if I did learn. And so I sat down for about 14
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months. I can't remember doing this for really well. I would have been probably 28, 29. And I
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said, if I'm going to start writing books, I'm going to start helping people. Where do I really
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help them? And I just studied success. I came to the conclusion after 14 months that if there are
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five areas that if I could really get five lanes going, it would help. And those five areas are
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communication because to be successful, you really have to be able to communicate, connect with
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people. I mean, if you're a leader, you have to cast vision. You know, Warren Buffett says the
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most important skill that you can have. And I think he's right probably is communication to be
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ability to connect so i said okay i'm gonna i'm gonna help people communication obviously i'm
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gonna help people in leadership i will help people learn how to develop teams and equip
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people because you know as well as i do if you're going to be if you're going to compound money
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influence time you have to have a team so i said i'm going to help people do that i'm going i'm
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going to help people with attitude just mainly attitude on adversity and difficulty and and how
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do you work through the the emotionally difficult times in your life because you know how many times
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do we see people quit when they had all the gifts and all the resources to make it they just
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emotionally couldn't handle the pressure and yeah they dropped it so if i could help them with
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attitude kind of and then and then relationships the ability to really connect people because
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honestly if if you know if if you don't get along with people people really won't go along with you
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So you've got to have some pretty heavy relationship schools.
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You know, the first year, I've got to be intentional.
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And my books today, I've just finished writing my 90th book.
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And here's what, I wish we had time to talk about this.
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Well, there's a lot of things I didn't figure out.
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But it took me 14 months to discover the five things.
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I know because people tell me, well, I have a story I want to tell.
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It's always about where are you and how can I help you?
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And what I found is the moment you add value to people and they look at you and they say,
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my life is better because of you. That is your most important moment in helping develop leadership
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relationships with people. And I've spent my life specifically helping people get better.
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I had a lady the other day come to me. She said, I know why you're successful. I said,
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good, tell me why. She said, you're very successful helping people become very successful.
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i said yeah i do that that's what i do i help people get better and when you help people get
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better i don't they're they're yours for life not yours for life like slaves are yours for life as
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far as connection and relationship and and when people say well how do your book sell so well well
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it's a john maxwell book and john maxwell helps people and he adds value to people oh there's a
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title well what's the title it doesn't matter it's a john maxwell book and so that the ability to
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find these five lanes then when you get a lane obviously you could add more lanes to it but but
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so you know in some of my in leadership i probably have about a 12 lane freeway in leadership you
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know in some things it would be less lanes but i tell people you you pick a lane and get it and
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then you add another lane and and and after a while you can you can move a lot of stuff down
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the road. So that would be the second catalyst. And then the third one was I really worked
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hard getting around great people. We hear the phrase, who luck, which is who you know
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is important. I realized very early that I needed to get around great people. So I did
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everything in my power to meet people that were bigger than me, better than me, faster
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than me, smarter than me. You know, I have an expression that says, you know, if you're the
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head of the class, you're in the wrong class. I have never been in the head of the class in any
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area. I still am not. If I'm at the head of the class, I get out of that class so quick because
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if you're at the head of the class, all you're doing is talking to people about what you do
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and you're not growing. And so that's why I like to be around people like you. And that's why I
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ask questions I ask questions because you know things I don't know and I'm not going to find out
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until I ask you questions and I've never lost that appetite to be around people bigger better
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and faster than me I'm I'm uncomfortable when I'm the head of the class I'm not uncomfortable
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leading anything but I'm very uncomfortable when I look around and I say wow I think I'm probably
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I know more than the rest of them because at that moment how are you going to learn more
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and so I have been very passionate about jumping the fence going anywhere I have to go to meet
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people and ask them questions because I have this when I'm with somebody and I don't get to ask them
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questions I feel I walk away and I think there was something they know that I don't know and I
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didn't get any time with them to ask them the question so I still don't know it and that is
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very uh i i every day i i think wow i could have learned more if i could have just had a little
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more time with somebody and ask them questions and and sat at their feet and take notes and
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apply it to my life so i think those three things as i look back at it dan that's where i am today
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that's i mean that's how it got to to where i am today and they've never changed they've never i
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I mean, it's, again, back to consistency compounds.
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where I take somebody bigger, better, and faster than me.
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you have deposited stuff in me that's going to have a return.
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and let you know that you're the one that was the catalytic for it.
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But I have, I still, I would, if somebody said, what do you want to do?
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My favorite thing is learning, not writing, not speaking, not leading.
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Because every time I learn, then I have something to give to others.
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my father who is so great so good he said John keep the well filled keep he said don't don't
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ever go to the well and have have it empty you got a deposit you got to keep putting stuff in
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and he told of course the word max well literally it's a if we're Scottish max well is really means
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to fill the well to the max and so he'd say live up to your name you're a max well I mean we're
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not a mini well we're not a half full well we're not like it you know we got an empty well we're
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a max well and so he said he said the only person that can fill your well is you so you that's he
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taught me how to file every day how to ask questions and so i deposit in my well every day
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you know thoughts ideas quotes stories i have thousands thousands that i've because i've been
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doing that since I was 17. Well, I've done that for 60 years. So I never run out of material. I
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mean, I always have something to write about. I have something to talk about, not because I'm
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brilliant, but because every day I read, every day I think, every day I file, every day I ask
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questions, and every day I write. Those are those everyday essentials. Back to consistency,
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I do those every day. So people say, how do you write 90 books? Well, it's simple. Every day I
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read, every day I think, every day I file, every day I ask questions, every day I write. I mean,
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when you think about it, isn't that all simple? I'm a very simple person. There's nothing complex
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about my life at all. But I do it every day. And I also, Dan, I don't do it all day. I didn't say
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all day I write. I think intensity is overrated. I think consistency is underrated. And, you know,
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some days, like we're doing conferences here right now, at best I'll get 15 to 20 minutes to write
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today i don't get any time hardly i'm doing stuff that's okay but i do it every day that's the key
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you know 10 15 minutes every day you put that out for three or four months you've got some pretty
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serious writing going on does that make sense yeah and you said that to me on that call you go
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damn i've been doing this for 53 years it's not that impressive and i was just like just have to
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be old yeah just give it time it's working yeah in fact it's really working the longer you live i
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Where you got the 95, Dan, is he worked full-time.
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That's what I was asking because that work ethic,
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So, yeah, I mean, we grew up, and my brother turned 80,
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yeah we work just do it just do it yeah and just do it if somebody's starting from scratch today
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and like in your situation let's say you're starting from scratch today but we take everything
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away from you and the goal is to be a best-selling author how would you approach that well i would i
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would say don't write until you have something to write about i think people write too early
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i think that they still somebody says you know i got a thought i want to write a book i said
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you know, a thought doesn't fill a book. A thought fills a page. So you've got 140 pages.
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You've got 140 thoughts to go. You know what I'm saying? So what I tell people all the time is
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don't write a book, but start writing. And what you do is you write and put things that you're
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writing in different subjects or categories. And I label everything I write. And so if I'm writing
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on uh on if i'm writing on attitude i'll i'll put you know i wrote maybe a paragraph on attitude
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i'll follow under attitude just start writing and start filling up all of these little uh areas of
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things that you care about and love and and don't try to don't try to write a book just try to have
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good thoughts and then after a period of doing that for a few years you really have something
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now that perhaps has enough maturity to really write it because you know writing shows up
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writing shows maturity speaking doesn't necessarily but writing does because when
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you can see something visually you you are much more acutely aware if it's good or not
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than if you hear it through your ears and so i say speak often when you're young
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write seldom as far as books and so i didn't start i started i wrote in i started in 79 so
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i was born in 47 so i was 32 when i start writing and i and as i look back i probably started
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writing three or four years at least too early anyway and i'm not trying to discourage me i i
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don't i'm not discouraging writing i'm discouraging somebody putting it in a book because if you just
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keep writing good thoughts thinking them through there's a time when you'll have a plethora of good
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material that you can then start putting on pages that'll just it'll serve you better because you
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know better and uh you know because nothing's more embarrassing than my writing i speak and people
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forget about that but there's books i've got i mean they're still around yeah and i think only
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i've written 90 books i think only i have three of them out of print and that's so frustrating i need
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need to have like 30 out of print I really do but they won't go out of print because they sell now
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because of who I am and so when people have that book I don't want to go up and say now let me
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that's really not that good of a book you know what I'm saying it it's because it I didn't know
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I had a guy one time tell me he said I wish I could have heard you 20 years ago and I said no
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you don't he said no I really do he said and I said really just trust me you don't need to have
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heard me 20 years ago and I could tell he was baffled and he said if I would have heard 20
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years ago what you taught me today it would change my life I said if you'd heard me 20 years ago
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you wouldn't have heard what I taught you today I didn't know it then I've learned it and I think
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that's what the big miss is I think the big miss is the fact that what I'm teaching today
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i didn't know maybe 10 years ago because i'm constantly growing and learning so my material
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is constantly hopefully getting better more mature and fresh and and i think that's i think
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that's what really excites me is is not what i knew but what i'm learning and then how how do i
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pass it on to other people but i mean i didn't come out of my mother's womb with the 21 irrefutable
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laws of leadership you know that stuff has to evolve how many books did you write before
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that i'm going to guess 35 maybe that's i mean 35 i i didn't write a good book until my seventh i
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wrote a book called the winning attitude which was my seventh book and when i wrote that book
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all of a sudden i thought i'm starting to really understand how to write well because i was a
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natural uh speaker but i was not a natural writer so i had a lot of people help me a lot of good
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writers kind of helped me and it took me a while i was a little slow to catch on so i i did seven
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books before the winning attitude and then i would have i probably didn't know 25 before the 21 laws
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of leadership and of course that book is it probably that book today is still the number
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one leadership book in 100 i mean it just keeps doing and then i wrote developing the leader
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within you that was cadillac because that was the first book that really said that you can develop
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yourself as a leader up until that time there was not one book written on leadership that said you
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can develop yourself as a leader. It was basically leaders are born. In fact, what's really interesting
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about leadership, Dan, if you go back to the 1980s and go into a bookstore, there's no leadership
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books in the bookstore. They're management books. You know, Peter Drucker, and I have his privilege,
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he mentored me. Peter Drucker was the great management guru, and he owned the world, and
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businesses were buying management books. But in the late 80s, times were moving so quick, things
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were happening you can't manage speed you got to lead speed and all of a sudden managers were
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getting frustrated because they were trying to keep things together and and orderly and things
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were getting not together and messy and that's when there was a call we got to get beyond
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management of what is we got to get to leadership what can be and will be we got to get a little bit
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more futuristic so you really go about you about 1990 and i then that's right when i started i
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wrote developing a leader within you right in maybe 92 3 that I kind of I was I would to say
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would be first would not be maybe right but if I wasn't first I was an awful close second or third
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I I I saw that and I wrote developing leader within you then I wrote developing the leaders
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around you and and immediately it started catching on and and that you know that kind of
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leadership development yeah yeah well your latest book is incredible um talking about you know the
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united states we're more the divided states high road leadership but at the end of the book because
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i had it highlighted of just so many things i want to talk to you about but one of my favorite parts
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is literally almost like the last five pages you talk about kind of takeaways about people should
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show up as i will serve you and you mentioned some key people in your life that i want to ask you
00:25:32.880
about as it pertains specifically to, you know, a lot of people know me as, you know, the buyback
00:25:38.120
your time guy and productivity. I'm going to mention these names and I'm curious what they
00:25:43.160
mean to you. The first one is Linda Eggers. Who is Linda to the world? Linda's with us today.
00:25:50.140
You know, Linda, she's our executive, my executive assistant. And I think she's been with me for 37
00:25:55.100
years. My gosh, we were young and she was very capable. She was good at details. And, you know,
00:26:05.920
I didn't even know how to call her an executive assistant back then.
00:26:15.780
And every time she was doing something that I would have to do,
00:26:19.360
she was saving me time back to time, that whole process.
00:26:23.200
Very quickly, I realized that activity is not necessarily accomplishment.
00:26:28.780
so but prioritizing what you do it now now you're going to start making some progress and she allowed
00:26:37.380
me to do three or four things that i did exceptionally well of which was giving the
00:26:43.620
return it was it was giving us the return and then she picked up everything else and i watched her
00:26:49.140
you know you know the first you give her the calendar and she said the calendar and then i
00:26:53.180
said okay now you do the travel and she did the travel and you know it's like every anybody that's
00:26:58.280
anybody that's really good you give them the ball and they run with it score touchdowns so
00:27:02.000
well let me give it to you again and it's kind of like how much how much can i give her i mean
00:27:07.180
i you know hey linda can you go speak for me if you go speak for me you know then she's called
00:27:12.520
timeout i'm not going to do that for you but hey but i'll get you to the event and you won't have
00:27:17.580
to worry about tickets or hotels or anything else and very quickly my calendar my workload
00:27:24.840
as far as anything that was busy was freed up immediately and within one year with her
00:27:31.880
I was just doing the things that I need to be doing that's going to give the return for
00:27:37.500
myself or for my team that we need and I looked at her and I thought you're my most valuable player
00:27:43.260
and there will be nobody more valuable than you because I really for a person is there anything
00:27:51.060
more valuable than your time because that now now you can play the game the way you want to have it
00:27:56.900
you know if you don't have margins and you don't have that then it's impossible for you to to go
00:28:01.940
where you need to go i'd like to go there but i can't go there because i got these three things
00:28:05.780
well i don't have these three things she takes those three things so she's just been with me and
00:28:12.020
we laugh and we ask you know how long we how long gonna be in the game we have no we're in the game
00:28:17.140
we we love what we do and we love doing it together and and and I what would I ever do
00:28:23.040
without her I mean so much of my success would be because she serves me so well and cares for
00:28:31.380
what I do so much and believes in what I do so much that I'm not I'm not here without Linda
00:28:39.940
I'm not here without her it's just that simple she's indispensable yeah totally that's beautiful
00:28:46.500
when you think of the impact it's had to your ability to is it a a double a triple i mean or
00:28:53.920
it's i'm not here like when people because sometimes they're the unsung hero behind the
00:28:59.100
scenes that most people don't always and yet they produce the space for us to do the work
00:29:04.420
that everybody else gets to appreciate when you think of the headspace the energy the focus the
00:29:10.700
conversations you were able to have well here's what i know um the people that are not seen are
00:29:17.620
the ones that have helped my work to be seen and and i just want to also say i think i've tried to
00:29:24.240
take good care of her she's very valuable to me and i try to let people know how valuable she is
00:29:29.760
too but i try to take good care of her financially i tried why shouldn't i i mean she's been so
00:29:35.340
important to me and and i just think that i think the greatest way i can respect her
00:29:41.340
is to acknowledge how much she's helped me but also make sure that she's very well taken care of
00:29:47.840
because uh that's a big loss i got i got a lot of people you could lose and you could say
00:29:53.120
next you know what i mean how do you do next with an executive assistant that's been with you for
00:29:58.640
37 years who knows you well well you know what funny story one time we were talking and i i was
00:30:03.560
writing a book and I was trying to help leaders be authentic and talk about, you know, what they
00:30:08.000
don't do well or their weaknesses. And so I said, Linda, I said, you know, over the next couple of
00:30:12.740
days, just make a list of some of the things I just don't do well. I'm just, you know, I'm just,
00:30:18.040
it's not my gift. And I kind of mess it up if I do it. Just kind of, you know, take a couple of
00:30:23.480
days and just, you know, write down a few things that I don't do really well and then give them to
00:30:28.900
me and I'll put them in a book to let people know that you can be very successful and yet there's
00:30:34.500
some things you don't do very well it's so funny Dan she said well I don't need a few days she said
00:30:39.960
I can tell you right now I said I said well you mean you can tell me right now oh she said no no
00:30:47.340
no she said you gotta you know here here start writing these things down and she's going down
0.97
00:30:52.480
this and i'm going wait wait can you not even act like well yes i'll have to think about these things
00:31:00.480
no she i mean she's guess why she's lived with them and she does know me and there's something
00:31:07.620
beautiful about people who know you know your weaknesses your strengths your humanness and
00:31:14.560
that they love you and they believe in you and they help you and they support you and we've laughed
00:31:20.260
about that a lot. But I think it's very true that your inner circle, the people that are closest to
00:31:26.400
you, they see your highest moments, but they also see your lowest. They see the wind, but they also
00:31:32.860
see the valley when you're going through some very difficult times. And I kind of love having
00:31:37.580
people around me that care for me enough that we can talk about it and work through it, and
00:31:43.060
I can ask their advice. Last night at the table, I had a couple of my, well, I had her and I had
00:31:49.340
Aaron, my content curator, and I was just asking him questions to help me become more aware about
00:31:56.020
this or what am I missing? And I find that there are huge assets because I really am not sure a
00:32:04.040
person is self-aware. I think the self-awareness I have is because somebody came into my life
00:32:10.440
that cared for me enough to deal with the blind spots for me. I mean, I think self-awareness,
00:32:16.740
My self-awareness mainly is me asking my team to help me with my blind spots
00:32:25.360
And I think we have to give permission to people to do that.
00:32:28.340
I think people will not share honestly with you unless you really want to hear from them.
00:32:37.020
I look at my team all the time and say, now, look, if you see me starting to slip, raise your hand.
00:32:42.500
Because my observation is people stay too long.
00:32:45.860
I mean, look at athletes that, you know, they play two or three years after they hit their peak.
00:32:53.040
And I think people stay too long because they don't have somebody tell them that they're staying too long.
00:32:59.180
And I want people around me to talk to me and be open and honest with me
00:33:04.440
because I want to do it right and I want to do it well.
00:33:11.540
And, yeah, I just think that they can help me in that area.
00:33:15.860
because i need it i love that you asked for advice you know one of the other things that
00:33:23.180
you talked about and you just mentioned her aaron miller she's another name in charlie
00:33:27.920
because you told me you said one time you said there are speakers who or there's authors who
00:33:34.880
speak and then there's speakers who write yes and have people and support you you mentioned aaron
00:33:39.760
your content person so i met her last time i was at this event and i was just blown away
00:33:44.240
and i i went and hired my aaron miller so i've got joel harrison he's on my team they've talked
00:33:49.660
thank you for that yeah and that'll make it that'll help well we'll tell tell the world about
00:33:54.580
how you collaborate on creative projects because that's an again buying back your time it's like
00:33:59.820
sometimes it's it's a better product it's how have you set up your book writing 90 books
00:34:07.000
share with the world kind of how that works well first of all i i hired her by accident she was
1.00
00:34:12.580
all the way on the team and she was one of our coaching conferences that we're here right now
00:34:16.880
in Orlando. And every year, every time we bring our coaches together, there's one talk I give
00:34:23.060
every new coach and that is what's the DNA of a John Maxwell coach? What's our culture? What do
00:34:29.380
we look like? In fact, I gave that yesterday. And so she'd been at about three coaching conferences
00:34:35.680
and she'd heard me. She came up one time to me and she said, would it be okay if you just
00:34:40.760
gave me that talk and she said I have a couple ideas that maybe I could just and I said sure
00:34:47.340
have at it I gave her that talk and about two days later she brought it back with about a half a
00:34:53.420
dozen much better thoughts and ideas than what I was giving and I looked at her and I said you did
00:35:00.240
this she said yeah she said I just was kind of wanted to nicely said upgrade you a little bit
00:35:04.920
and freshen you up well i said this is good and then that's the day i realized that she could do
00:35:12.040
it i would i honestly that's how and i look at i gave her something else can can you upgrade this
00:35:18.940
and she upgraded that and after about three or four i looked at mark i said mark you need somebody
00:35:24.080
i need somebody to help us here we've got somebody already on the team we just didn't realize it
00:35:29.400
And so then, of course, then she became official content curator.
00:35:38.800
And I think content curators are all different.
00:35:41.360
I mean, I think some content curators are great researchers.
00:35:47.000
When I started off with Charlie, I said, I don't need a lot of material.
00:35:56.820
Yeah. Whenever there's a derivative project, Charlie does all of that for me.
00:36:00.820
He's just major help for me. He's been with me for a long time.
00:36:05.220
But I said, Charlie, I want you to do research for me, but I don't need a lot of research.
00:36:10.840
So if I'm going to deal on leadership, I don't need 500 pages on leadership.
00:36:15.240
You've got to figure out what I want out of research.
00:36:20.340
So I took quote books with Charlie and I said, I want you to mark what you think are the good quotes in this book.
00:36:27.720
And so he marked them, and then I looked at them, and I marked them,
00:36:35.540
Let me tell you why I would never use that quote.
00:36:37.840
And I started walking him through what fits me and what doesn't fit me
00:36:43.140
because I don't want him to bring me material on a subject.
00:36:46.300
I want him to bring me material on a subject that I can immediately apply and use.
00:36:51.600
We did that for three books, and by three books, we were about 80% together on it.
00:36:56.120
So you have to, you have to teach them, you have to, you literally teach your content people.
00:37:01.300
I know that's the subject we're looking at, but there are certain parts of that subject I'm never
00:37:05.960
going to talk about or I'm not very interested in. So you have to spend what I call a lot of time
00:37:11.400
with them in the beginning for them to understand. It's like Linda with letters and now emails.
00:37:16.580
You know, in the beginning I'd sit down, here's how I would write that letter.
00:37:19.560
And here's why I would say that. And then after a while she'd write and she'd look at it and I'd
00:37:29.620
So I think there's a passion and patience needed to make sure that they are on the same wavelength that you're on.
00:37:42.700
Fortunately for Erin, she'd been around the team long enough.
00:37:52.600
She's brilliant in taking something I said way over here to the right
0.99
00:37:58.020
and something I'm doing here to the left and saying, that fits.
00:38:11.640
In fact, I told her the other day, I said, your memory.
00:38:13.900
She'll say, remember when you talked about this?
00:38:17.720
Well, you know, if we pulled that out, we could put that over there.
00:38:20.160
So she has a high gift of being able to take things I've said somewhere else
00:38:26.980
and putting them in something I'm doing right now, which is absolutely huge.
00:38:33.220
The second thing that she's really brilliant in is she can take something I have said
00:38:37.720
and she can elaborate it and pull it out and make it better.
00:38:44.520
Now, I'm a pretty good work of phrase person myself.
00:38:47.040
but what she does she doesn't work a phrase dynamically like I do but she works a phrase
1.00
00:38:54.340
practically to where but that's going to help them that's where they live you've got to understand
00:39:00.140
because I have a tendency sometimes to be you follow me success has a gap in it a lot of times
00:39:06.880
she's here and I'm and she said no no John these people are wondering they're not asking that
00:39:12.060
question or asking this question so she she kind of speaks for the person that's in the seat a
00:39:18.280
little bit more than what i i would have a tendency maybe to skip it or feel my that's kind of basic
00:39:24.580
we we we don't want it we don't want to go go go there at all and the third thing that she has
00:39:29.500
really a good ability to do is take what we're doing and figure out what we could do with it
00:39:34.400
next oh you know what would happen if we went over and did that later on that is a high gift
00:39:42.000
that's a high it's kind of like a leadership creative gift that i think most people do now
00:39:47.940
those are her three i mean she has a word smith for me there's a lot of things that she doesn't
00:39:52.720
do because it's not in her strength but what i'm wanting for is a thought provoker and somebody
00:39:57.520
that could you know throw it out and so i'll talk to her i'll say here's a subject what to do i gave
00:40:02.480
one the other day i said do find some stuff on servanthood and some stuff on some just some
00:40:07.740
vulnerability for me and and what what she'll what she could do she could find it but she could say
00:40:14.320
do you remember when you did that you were very vulnerable there that would be a good illustration
00:40:18.740
that you could use so their worth their weight in gold oh one other thing she does very well
00:40:25.820
is when i'm speaking she takes copious notes yeah because i speak i watched her oh yeah
00:40:31.380
in fact just standing for she didn't look she didn't anybody else in the room
00:40:36.080
and you can't talk to her she's like nope yeah yeah and what she's doing is she's gleaning gold
0.99
00:40:43.440
because when i speak i naturally speak and i i boom boom i i think on my feet while i talk
00:40:49.380
and and so i'll say things i've never said before she catches it i say she's a gold catcher yeah you
00:40:55.780
and then because at the end of it really dan if you at the enemy asked me now you said something
00:41:02.340
was really creative i look at you i can't i can't pull it out i i that's how quick i say it and i
00:41:08.820
move it on but she's she catches it in thousands of ideas and thoughts she's caught the other day
00:41:16.500
she said i was speaking and she said i got about four things for you out of that talk
00:41:20.740
that you haven't said before well that's what's the worth of that it's huge wow so i'm very
00:41:27.880
grateful and i'm so glad that i'm so glad that you found your you know because i'll tell you
00:41:34.720
what dad they're worth they're worth their weight in gold well i thought i was pretty good at like
00:41:38.980
buying back my time in all these creative areas and i saw that and i was like john that is
00:41:43.360
fascinating and it was what you just said about the idea of listening to my talk because sometimes
00:41:48.740
i get off stage and people like i love that thing you said i'm like i don't remember saying that
00:41:52.420
oh no and i and and that would just go into the ether and i would never be able to reuse it so
00:41:57.460
having joel around to watch my talks and collaborate with and it's more fun i mean that's to me fun is
00:42:03.360
is good um the third person i wanted to ask you about because a lot of entrepreneurs watch
00:42:08.360
my stuff and you know they have this vision someday wouldn't it be cool if i could just
00:42:14.080
do the thing i do and have somebody run the thing mark cole the ceo you've been again somebody's
00:42:22.680
been in your life for a long time i think mark's supposed to be 23 24 years beautiful talk talk
00:42:29.020
to me about mark how you found him what and and i believe he said something to you that is you said
00:42:35.200
this in your book your most recent book you said he made a commitment to me that he'd always put
00:42:39.640
me at the priority of things to support the vision or something like that well when i think
00:42:45.780
of mark it's very humbling to even talk about him i i didn't find him we hired him and we hired him
00:42:51.920
to work in a stock room to very i mean we just i didn't even know him probably for three years
00:42:56.300
the company i mean somebody hired him so he's in there and then i started hearing people talk about
00:43:01.920
him i before i ever met him they just talked about how they like working with him and he was
00:43:07.880
now already moving up out of the stock room and and it was kind of like Mark Cole well Mark and
00:43:13.720
I'd ask about it I said well he's he's a good leader and people love him and they really care
00:43:18.220
for him so finally he started to get my attention and and so when I met him I thought yeah this
00:43:24.640
this kid's got some good he's got some real good potential but we really let him work himself all
00:43:30.000
the way up I mean we it wasn't like a fast climb it's just everywhere he went where he was it did
00:43:37.320
well and everybody that he was with loved him and was pushed it was kind of like they were pushing
00:43:43.220
him up and he so marks at the next spot the next spot and so so finally i had him start traveling
00:43:49.240
with me a little bit so that i could get to know him better when i got to know him better i thought
00:43:53.460
now i'm starting to understand why these people really like him so he started getting closer got
00:43:57.680
in started getting on my inner circle i kept giving him more responsibility extremely he's a
00:44:04.940
finisher he's a make it happen person and one day i looked and i said this guy just like linda can
00:44:10.260
take care of all of my busy stuff that i want to get off now this guy can start unloading some of
00:44:16.060
the important things that i'm doing as a leader what he really did is he started taking the
00:44:20.620
leadership responsibilities off of me because although i lead very well i make rain when i
00:44:27.520
write and when i speak yeah a lot of people can lead a company but not a lot of people can make
00:44:33.640
the ring that that i can make either through speaking or writing so now i'm saying i love to
00:44:39.640
lead i love leadership but now i'm giving up things i really i that i'm good at but but he's
00:44:46.020
as good at and in many ways better than i am was that hard yeah and so i so you know again when you
00:44:51.420
start giving up in the beginning you give up all the busy stuff but the harder i always say the
00:44:57.900
higher your climb the harder it is to give up because after a while you're giving up stuff
00:45:01.220
you really like to do yourself and that you're good at yourself and you say but i can do that
00:45:04.820
well that's the question not can i do it but can someone else do it because somebody else can
00:45:08.500
if somebody else can do what you're doing you need to get rid of it as quick as possible
00:45:12.820
you need to be doing what no one else can do that that's that's the distinctive that you're going for
00:45:20.500
the man just loves me and cares total trustworthy and puts me always first
00:45:28.820
he is being a second person is an honor to him it's not like i think i'm good enough i ought to
00:45:36.820
be first and i've had a lot of second people that i said you need to go be your own ceo because you
00:45:42.720
are good and you don't you know and mark can do the same thing and of course he gives him i give
00:45:47.200
him more and more and now he really has uh so much of the i mean he's part owner of the company and
00:45:52.620
it's all it's going to be a handoff to him but the thing that makes mark so incredible and so
00:45:58.080
humbling to me is that he lives, lives to serve me. And there's never been a time in my life I
00:46:09.920
questioned his motives. There's never been a time I looked at him and said, no, what's happening
00:46:16.000
over there? Total, complete trust. And the only way that you can give complete trust is,
00:46:24.620
you know, you can't trust what hasn't been tested. It has to be tested. So people say,
00:46:33.560
well, you trust Him. Well, I can give you initial trust just based on I will trust you as a person,
00:46:38.260
but you're going to have to, it's going to have to be tested. We're going to have to see if during
00:46:43.220
all times you're trustworthy. He is. And I probably, the greatest thing I could say about
00:46:50.160
him. And because he is that way, the people he leads are that way. And so the environment is
00:46:58.340
extremely safe. And the environment is whole. It's not dysfunctional. And he has created people
00:47:07.280
who care greatly about what we're doing. And he's been a phenomenal asset. And now I'm enjoying
00:47:17.520
mentoring him and his leadership level. And, you know, it's one thing to, it's one thing for your
00:47:23.940
second person to lead through you and go and say, well, here's what Dan wants. And there's another
00:47:30.080
time when no longer Dan's in the scene, here's what I want. When that handoff all of a sudden,
00:47:35.420
because if it's from Dan there, yeah, we got it. If it's from John, we got it. But all of a sudden
00:47:40.660
now it's from Mark. So I said, now Mark, you're going to have your, your leadership's going to
00:47:44.160
be tested it has to stand on its own to a great you know it's kind of like I can get you in the
00:47:49.760
room with all my peers but I can't keep you in the room you got to keep yourself in the room
00:47:54.260
and so we just what when we started we started to say we're gonna do this handoff I said you
00:47:59.360
write down the things you need from me and I'm gonna write down the things I need from you and
00:48:03.900
let's have a talk and there were I think there were nine things he needed from me I think there
00:48:08.020
were maybe 10 things I needed from him we just had open conference can I can can can you give
00:48:13.560
that to me can i receive that from you but back and forth and it was a very healthy kind of like
00:48:18.400
handoff exercise that we go over we still go over it every once we'll go back say now are we still
00:48:24.140
being true to that list and have we done it well and and is there something we need to add to the
00:48:29.220
list or maybe something now i a lot of things of the nine things he needed for me probably now he
00:48:34.460
needs maybe three or four of them he doesn't need them all because he's it's been tested yeah and
00:48:38.680
But I think that kind of understanding and transitioning is wise
00:48:50.220
Because you talked about this with Linda, Aaron, Charlie, and even Mark.
00:48:57.320
People are like letting go, and then something happens,
00:49:00.360
and you've got to sit down and help correct them.
00:49:03.620
What's your thinking behind it without being upset, trying to be supportive?
00:49:08.680
Well, I think in any type of transition, the first thing you say to that person is we're going to have some tough conversations because you can't transition and hand a baton off and it go all well.
00:49:21.480
So let's just, hey, the great news is I think you are capable of this.
00:49:27.360
The bad news is we're going to have some big boy, big girl conversations about you didn't pull this off like you needed to.
00:49:34.200
And my whole thing is, please let me interrupt you quickly.
00:49:38.680
let's not wait for our three-month review and then we go another two or three things i'm
00:49:45.320
observing i don't like that i if there's if i see something i want to walk into it immediately and
00:49:50.840
say now i may see this wrong but look here's what i saw did i miss something i love um almost uh you
00:49:58.520
know many years ago uh kim blanchard wrote a great book he's a wonderful wonderful person
00:50:04.280
called management while walking around or something like that.
00:50:09.800
And so if there's something that Charlie, Linda, Aaron, Mark,
00:50:15.060
my inner circle people that I think is amiss, we talk about right now.
00:50:25.560
And by the way, they have the same opportunity for me.
00:50:28.580
In fact, when I'm done, I'll look at them a long time and say,
00:50:33.840
And a lot of times I'll say, well, I think you're missing this, John.
00:50:35.960
And we have this relationship that we can be very open and free with each other quickly.
00:50:40.620
Because I think that the problem is never the problem.
00:50:44.660
The problem is you didn't solve it quick enough.
00:50:47.400
You can wait to tell me your victories, but you can't wait to tell me your defeats.
00:50:55.020
And the reason is most of the time, I remember one time with Charlie,
00:50:59.500
things were not moving on his side as quick as I wanted to on a book.
00:51:02.960
and so one night I was somewhere I was traveling and I called and I said Charlie I said I'm not
00:51:06.820
catching it's been about a week and a half I'm not getting anything from you on this book and he
00:51:12.180
says yeah I said I'm in a writer's block right now I said well tell me about it so he started
00:51:17.300
talking about I promise you in 20 minutes I got him through the writer's block I said well here's
00:51:22.800
what you go here da da da and it just opened it up for him and then we're done I said let me say
00:51:29.260
something, Charlie. How long have you carried that? He said, well, I carried it for probably
00:51:33.760
about a week. I said, we lost a week, Charlie. Now, Charlie is carrying it because he's
00:51:41.200
responsible. Charlie, he wants to bring it home himself. Well, of course, I want that
00:51:46.740
kind. I want people that want to bring it home, but I don't want people who want to
00:51:51.540
bring it home and they're delaying the process for three days. Bring it to me. Don't bring
00:51:57.060
it home bring it to me and let me see if I can jump in and I think we all know that and we're
00:52:01.520
all comfortable with that and it doesn't bother me at all for them to look at me and say John
00:52:06.380
you know have you ever thought of doing this well no I haven't well so I like kind of the
00:52:11.120
I like the caring enough for a person that you don't carry stuff but you share stuff and I think
00:52:20.520
that's I think that's a culture that we've created and it serves it really serves us really well and
00:52:26.320
I would say this. I would say they do this to me as much as I do that to them. I mean, they feel
00:52:33.200
very at home to come in and say, you know, I think there was a mist there. And they say, yeah, well,
00:52:38.620
let's talk about it. And I think that that's very healthy. And I'm a very impatient person.
00:52:45.580
That's one of my huge weaknesses. And I'm a get it done person. And if there's some kind of delay
00:52:51.620
over here and it's because we're not having conversation that delay is a worthless delay
00:52:56.740
let's have conversation now and see if we can fix it now or at least start creating a way to fix it
00:53:04.360
the gold you just said for everybody i want them to hear this is the the permission to catch it
00:53:09.540
early like just letting them know i'd rather be in that that mood that's so so yeah i remember
00:53:15.660
with my first executive assistant i said let me tell you something when you see me doing something
00:53:20.100
you think i'm doing wrong please tell me i don't need a historian i don't need somebody say you
00:53:26.720
know what when you did that four days ago i wonder about that can i tell you you didn't help me at
00:53:32.040
all if you wonder about it ask me now while i'm doing it to stop me from doing it because there's
00:53:38.200
a high possibility you saw something i didn't see i think that is very important so i i have to have
00:53:45.500
people around me that know that I unconditionally love them but are secure you know I if somebody
00:53:51.660
is not secure they probably would have a difficult time on our team because we're going to have tough
00:53:57.100
conversations but tough conversations are they're tough because we have a problem we're not they're
00:54:03.020
not tough because you're a problem and so there's a difference and so let's deal with the issue
00:54:07.920
and then can we please move on i mean do we now do we need to go to therapy and have three weeks
00:54:15.560
of what we did three i mean because i am a i am a fix it but you can't look here and go there
00:54:23.980
and so i am once it's fixed do we have to talk about this anymore let's keep let's go to the
00:54:30.480
next step on that vision i love the the way you queued that up faith is a big part of obviously
00:54:36.780
where you came from but even at this event all the people around you there's a lot of people
00:54:42.100
that are struggling the world right now that are still they're lacking their belief what would you
00:54:49.860
say to these people that have not come to God yet that are still wondering where they gosh Dan you
00:54:59.500
know I've walked with God and had a relationship with him since I was 17 so for 60 years
00:55:06.420
so it's hard for me to imagine my life without god i mean he is so essential he's the source of my
00:55:14.080
life and he's the joy of my life and uh i'm very careful this we don't have christian companies
00:55:21.340
our coaching company is a it's not a christian we have beautiful people from all kinds of
00:55:25.420
backgrounds and cultures and faith and they're absolutely welcome i value all of them because
00:55:30.900
God values everybody yeah so I don't value people that just do what I do or think like I think I
00:55:37.460
value everybody because God created them so for me to I can't imagine my life without God
00:55:44.920
because he's so much a part of my life what I try to help people understand is this you and I have
00:55:54.300
in fact I want to talk about this tomorrow in one of my teachings you and I have potential
00:55:59.860
giftedness opportunities and i love people who try to maximize i try to maximize my potential
00:56:07.300
you try to maximize your potential people that do well they try to steward and maximize their
00:56:12.140
potential but in my faith relationship with god i understand there are things he can do that i
00:56:19.780
cannot do and it's it's it's what i call god room when i get to the top of my potential
00:56:27.240
it's like the ceiling it's the best I can do honestly that's God's floor
00:56:34.060
and the moment that I understand that when I get there God can take over and he can do something
00:56:42.700
in my life for my life through my life that is so much more important and so much more helpful
00:56:51.900
and I just become extremely grateful and reliant upon him to be the difference maker.
00:57:09.900
And we were talking one day and I said, I know you don't believe in God.
00:57:17.120
I said, I know you don't believe in God, but you sure do miss him, don't you?
00:57:21.900
Of course he misses. You know, everybody misses God because they're born to know him.
00:57:27.160
They were born to have a relationship with him. And until they do, if they're honest with
00:57:33.960
themselves, there's something in their life that just falls a little short of what they want. And
00:57:39.400
I know that. So what I try to do is just love people unconditionally and wait for the moment
00:57:44.900
when they come to that realization, like there is something more. And when they do, my name's
00:57:51.480
john i'm their friend i i said well i know what it is and and i can help you and i have incredible
00:57:58.180
opportunities to help many many many many people know god and it's a it's a it's a real honor it's
00:58:04.720
a real joy because once that happens then they see this incredible asset i mean it's it's kind
00:58:10.680
of like the god asset i mean okay you can can you do something without him of course you can do
00:58:16.400
something without him but it's a lot easier with would you like for him to sit beside you and kind
00:58:22.060
of you know do a little with you and so it's hard for me to manage my life without god because he's
00:58:29.020
been so important in my life and i but god really has given me a major gift of of caring for people
00:58:35.860
where they are and then helping them find god and we've seen literally in my life i've seen
00:58:42.240
thousands of thousands of people really come into a relationship with him and that's my great that's
00:58:49.580
my greatest joy i mean if somebody said what's your greatest joy my greatest joy is introducing
00:58:53.960
somebody to him because once they know him that this now we're on a whole different level of
00:59:00.180
change and transformation a person's life so true john you uh you've been an incredible
00:59:05.880
uh example for me and just uh there's very few people that when i meet um i see
00:59:15.740
a person like the character traits of just the way you love people it's just
00:59:20.860
at first i was like it's not possible and then more i spend time with you i'm like
00:59:25.740
you really are that way i do love yeah and you don't judge people because they were created by
00:59:30.760
god and the way you show up for your for your team and for your for the people at this event
00:59:35.880
and just for anybody you meet just your curiosity it's um you're an incredible uh role model for me
00:59:42.280
so i just want to thank you for being on the show well i want to thank you for being my friend
00:59:46.200
because we're new friends and we've not been able to spend as much time together as i want
00:59:51.840
but i i i know god brought us together i'm not trying to be mystical but when i met you i said
01:00:00.360
can I say one more thing? Yeah. In 1981, I began to see what I thought God had planned for my life,
01:00:08.740
the vision. And it was very overwhelming. And it was much bigger than me. And so I was very open
01:00:15.880
with him. And I said, I'm willing to be obedient, but it's way over my head. And the only way that
01:00:24.260
that could ever be pulled off God is you're going to have to bring people into my life that are
01:00:29.600
bigger than me and better than me to help me. You're just going to have to. I don't have that
01:00:34.400
kind of capacity. So I began in 1981 every day asking God every day, which I've done for many
01:00:41.940
years now, send me people that you know I need, that I can't do it without them. Send me some
01:00:50.600
winners. I've got to have some winners. And over these many years now, gosh, that would have been
01:00:56.060
53 years ago, or 43 years ago. He's done that. And I can point to hundreds of people
01:01:05.560
where I just say, you're a gift from God to me. And when I met you, I knew you were a gift of God
01:01:13.120
for me. I knew I didn't deserve you. I didn't even find you. Our good friend Ed Milak kind
01:01:18.320
of put us together. And of course, Ed's one of those people in my life too. But I looked at you
01:01:23.820
And God said, yeah, yeah, Dan's one of the guys.
01:01:28.440
And it's very humbling because then what happens when all these great things happen that are happening in my life,
01:01:35.060
that are kind of beyond explainable, there is absolutely no, like, pride factor at all.
01:01:45.820
accomplishing, but there's, because I look around and say, the only reason that happened
01:01:51.120
is because God sent people into my life to help me make it happen. And so I get very grateful
01:01:57.320
for the people that he sent me, but I never ever have taken it personal, like, look what I did,
01:02:03.940
or look, I built this team. I just kind of accepted the team that he brought to me. And that's going
01:02:10.420
to be too mystical for a lot of people but i would just tell them that if that you with a
01:02:16.000
with a relationship with god you'll see things happen that you'll never explain but you sure
01:02:20.520
will appreciate so good john thanks thanks for being here thanks man appreciate it that's amazing