The Three E’s of Developing Leaders

Mark Cole:

Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Podcast. This is the podcast that adds value to leaders who multiply value to others. My name is Mark Cole. I’m the CEO of Maxwell Leadership, and today I am a co-learner with you in the Maxwell Leadership Podcast. See, the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers. As John Maxwell reminds us today in this lesson, leadership is more caught than taught. So today, John is going to teach on embracing the three E’s of developing leaders. This is a great lesson for all of us who want to build a winning team of people who can take our organization to the next level.

            After John’s lesson, I will be joined by my co-host Traci Morrow, and we will discuss how we develop leaders within Maxwell Leadership and how we’re learning along the way. I’ll tell you right now, developing leaders isn’t always easy, but it is fulfilling. So be sure to download our bonus resource, it’s a free PDF that accompanies John’s lesson this week. This PDF will help you capture all the points, all the key takeaways from John’s lesson. So just visit maxwellpodcast.com/developing and click the bonus resource button. If you would like to watch today’s episode on YouTube, visit maxwellpodcast.com/youtube or click on the YouTube link in the show notes. That’s all for now. Now here is our friend John Maxwell.

John C. Maxwell:

Leadership is developed, not discovered. The truly born leader will always emerge, but to stay on top, natural leadership characteristics must be developed. So the question is this, how do we develop our leadership qualities and characteristics and our leadership skills? About a month and a half ago, I was thinking about this because I was in a Q&A and while I was in teaching leadership, somebody raised that question. They said, “John, you talk a lot about developing leaders, can you give me a handle? Can you just give me some things that I can really remember that’ll help me to do so?” And just off the cuff, I shared with them basically the outline that I’m going to give with you today with some content in between. So let’s look at it.

            There are what I call the three E’s of leadership development. The first is environment. I have found that leaders that are developed, they’re developed because they are in some kind of a leadership environment. This is incarnation. This transfers leadership is almost in an incarnation or a way that this is how leadership is flushed out. Leaders do what leaders experience. When I talk about environment, I’m talking about putting an environment in a person’s life that they began to experience leadership. They see it around them. They feel it and they understand it. They understand it not because they sat down and took a lesson on leadership. They understand it because they were around leaders. They understand it because leadership principles and leadership values were talked about, lived out, fleshed out, embraced. Okay?

            So let’s talk about, let me define incarnation since that’s a phrase I use. Really, it’s a theology phrase from my background. Incarnation is really connecting abstract ideas to human characteristics. In other words, it’s taking something that is subjective or an abstract idea and flushing it out until you can see it visualized in the life of a person, or the characteristics of a person’s behavior. And what I’m saying here is that leadership is more caught than taught. That’s what the leadership environment is all about, creating an environment where they catch leadership.

            Now I grew up in a leadership environment so I can talk a long time on what it means to have a leadership environment. And I can just say this: I can never think of a time when I did not realize the importance of leadership. I didn’t have to have anybody sit down and say, “John, it’s really important for you to learn how to lead. It’s very important for you to learn leadership characteristics.” I saw them in my family. I watched them fleshed out around me. You need to develop a leadership environment until leadership is not something that is extraordinary and exceptional, but leadership is something that everybody does. Because really, leadership properly understood, everybody can influence and everybody can lead within an organization. The right environment allows people who are good to get better, just like a wrong environment allows people who are good to become worse. Look at environment as that which helps to create something for you that enhances already what you can do and what you already do know.

            Now, the second E is equipping. And that’s probably the one we know the very best as far as developing leaders because equipping is intentional, and basically, leaders do what leaders learn. See, in the environment, leaders do what leaders experience. Now we’re going to talk about leaders really do what leaders learn. And the function of leadership is very simple, it’s to produce more leaders, not more followers. Now I’m going to read something to you. I just picked this up recently and I thought, this is the approach. This is the wrong approach, wrong example of how most people get in trouble in this area of equipping.

            Henry Ford was a genius when it came to automobiles and the methods of mass production, but I believe his understanding of the worker was too limited when he asked… Here’s what Henry Ford asked, “Why is it that I always get the whole person when what I really want is a pair of hands?” What was he talking about? The assembly line. He was just basically saying, “I don’t want anybody who can think. I just want somebody who can put the part there. Just two hands. I don’t want your mind. I don’t want your spirit. I don’t want your soul. I don’t want your will. I don’t want your commitment. I don’t even want your loyalty. Just, I want your two hands.”

            I know most people, when they look at the people that they have in their company organization, this is a downfall of a lot of people. They don’t understand the development of the whole person. They don’t understand the big picture. They just basically see the job. They see the job and they said, “This is what’s required for the job. So what do I have to do to teach you what’s required of the job? Do you have the two hands? And can’t you put that in the assembly line and keep it going?”

            Equipping begins with expectations. Let’s start there. To really develop a leadership equipping organization, it begins with expectations. And the first, and there are three I’m going to give you, I’ll give them to you kind of quickly. One, leadership determines growth. One of the first expectations you place upon people when you equip them to lead is the fact that the reason you’re equipping them to lead is if they learn how to lead, it will bring growth to the organization. The second expectation that I gave them and equipping them is that leadership can be learned. Leadership can be learned. The third expectation is that each leader equips leaders.

            And I was always very careful to say this to them, work your way out of your job. If you got a good job, that’s great. Now, let me tell you what I want you to do. I want you to work your way out of your job. Go find somebody else, train somebody else, develop somebody else, equip somebody else. In the hospital emergency room, there’s a saying, and it’s just a simple saying because they got to do training the equipping quick in an emergency room. Okay? I mean, it’s not like you get a lifetime for this. They say, “Watch one, do one, teach one.” You have to be very intentional in how you’re training them and equipping them.

            Then the third E is exposure. How do I expose them? Now this is the inspirational side of developing leaders. Leaders do what leaders see. Okay? In fact, I love this statement. A little exposure upsets a lot of theory. I think kids should not be allowed to go to college four years in a row. I think they should go for one year to meet their friends, party, then I think they ought to go get them a job. Because do you remember in class when your teachers would ask you, profs would ask you, “Do you have a question on what I’m teaching?” Of course, we didn’t have a good question. We didn’t have any experience. We didn’t even know what good question to ask. We were just stupid kids with a textbook. Filling in blanks, making profs happy. The only way you’re ever going to have real questions is to go out there and try it, be exposed to it.

            Now, can I tell you something? I had no questions when I was working on my bachelor of theology degree. I mean, I had very little and I went through it and got pretty decent grades and graduated the whole deal. But can I tell you, six months after I had my first church, I had a boatload of question. Now, what happened? Exposure. Now, all of a sudden I’m into a real world and all of a sudden, all of the stuff that I need to know that’ll help me to be successful in life, I don’t know. So when I talk about exposure, expose means to make accessible to some action or influence. I want to tell you what, expose your leaders, first of all, to great leaders.

            In my world, what that’s meant for, oh my goodness, 20 years, is that I’ve intentionally, every month, had what I call a learning lunch where I sit down with somebody that’s smarter than I am, faster than I am, better than I am. And I buy their lunch. And what that means is, they get to eat and I don’t. I ask questions and I just learn from them and I just glean from them. Okay, what kind of exposure am I getting to great leaders? How do you learn leadership? How do you develop leaders? By exposing them to leaders. And one more thing, one closing thought on exposing people. Expose your leaders to the works of great leaders.

            Here’s what I tell people. You may never have the privilege of being around all the great leaders you want to be, but I can tell you right now, you can almost always get through the works of great leaders. The three E’s. Environment, that’s incarnational. This is what people experience, people do, what people experience. Equipping, this is intentional. This is where we teach them. This is how they learn. And then exposure. This is something that they see, that they experience in their own life. The three E’s of developing you.

Mark Cole:

Before we jump in today’s content, let’s talk about time and how 24 hours never seem to be enough to get anything done. As a leader of a growing business, you eventually realize that you can’t do everything on your own. At least not well. Your job is to be the visionary, but instead, you spend countless hours on tasks that could be done easily and arguably better by someone else. And that’s where the powerful multiplying effects of delegation prove mission critical. Our friends at BELAY know the demands on leaders all too well. They are the incredible organization that is revolutionizing productivity. With their virtual assistance, their bookkeepers, social media managers and website specialists, they grow businesses just like yours and mine.

            So to help you start delegating, BELAY is offering their latest book, Delegate to Elevate, for free. In this ebook, you’ll learn how to reclaim time to focus on what only you can do by delegating to unleash the power and unleash the multiplying effect of entrusting others. To claim this offer, just text the word Maxwell to 55123 for your free copy today. That’s M-A-X-W-E-L-L to 55123. In no time, you’ll be back to doing what only you can do: growing your business.

            Hey, welcome back, podcast listeners, podcast viewers. We’re so glad to have you in the studio with us today. As I was listening to John teaching, I was reminded of a Jack Welch quote. He said, “Before you are a leader, success is about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” And Traci, I’m glad to be in the studio with you today. I’m glad to be learning and growing with you because, wow, is that not one of the greatest rewarding yet challenging things, is to see others develop around us as leaders?

Traci Morrow:

It absolutely is. And you know what cracks me up? When he kicked off this lesson, Mark, by saying, “This is just something I came up with off the cuff.” And I laughed, literally laughed out loud because I thought to myself, if John Maxwell came up with this lesson just off the cuff, these three E’s, maybe it’s encouragement to all of us that if we keep studying, if we keep growing, we keep tuning in and showing up for this podcast, you and I included, then maybe at one point in our life, off the cuff, we will come up with a lesson like this one at some point in our career. But Mark, I love how he kicked it off. There’s so much rich content here. There’s so much for us. We could chew on this for an hour, I feel like. But one of the first things he said was when he dove into environment, I feel like there is so much meat there.

            One of the first things he said was that leaders do what leaders experience together. And one of the things that I remember John always saying is that you can’t transfer the emotion, the lessons, everything that you have and you experience when you go somewhere and you try to bring it back to your team. And anybody who has ever gone anywhere and they’ve experienced something so powerful, you try to come back and you tell it to someone and it’s like, you just can’t transfer it. So can you talk a little bit about the value of those experiences and that environment? And how do you bring your team with you to experience that so you don’t have to come back and try to explain it to them?

Mark Cole:

I love this part of this lesson, Traci, because, and I love what you just said, when you’ve been given a lot, a lot is required.

Traci Morrow:

Mm-hmm.

Mark Cole:

John’s often talked about the leadership bubble. I’ve been with John now for 22 years, and I’ve seen people come in, I’ve seen people excel, I’ve seen people leave, and I’ve seen them almost go back to where they were before they ever joined John Maxwell’s team. And that was perplexing to me. How can you Excel as such a great leader then you go try something new and it’s harder than you thought? I don’t take great joy or pride in that, that people are very successful here and then not as successful other places, because I’ve seen the exact opposite. Two people, be very successful in John’s organization, leave for one reason or another, and then go be very successful.

            But I think what John is teaching right here on environment that there does exist in all of us. There is a leadership bubble. There’s a learning bubble. There is a relationship bubble. We can get into environments that actually make us look bigger, better, and more effective than perhaps we would be in another environment. So what is that? Why is that? And again, today, podcast listeners, viewers, we’re talking about the three E’s of developing leaders. Traci and I could take all day on talking about this as its application to you, but we’re talking about how do you create that kind of a bubble or that kind of environment for those around you because we’re trying to develop leaders. In fact, John says this, this is really the standout statement, “You develop yourself and you add, but when you develop others, you multiply.” And how do we then create this environment to where we really exponentially raise the level of effectiveness of the people around us.

            I’ll tell you one big way, Traci, that I have observed with John, I’m trying to replicate in our organization now. And that is by showing people, not telling people. You ever worked with those leaders that they do more telling than they do showing?

Traci Morrow:

Mm-hmm.

Mark Cole:

They tell you the way you should go rather than demonstrate the way you should go.

Traci Morrow:

Right.

Mark Cole:

I think the biggest, biggest part of building an environment is by the leader living the example. You’ve got to live the example rather than talk about what you want the example to be. And the greatest environments I’ve been in are the environments to where the leader is going the way, showing the way, and knowing the way.

Traci Morrow:

I agree with that. I agree with that. So what would you say would be a good way for a leader who wants to bring their people along? What would be something… Someone’s listening to this and they’re like, “I want to do that. I want to do that. How do I start that?” Because sometimes we feel frozen in that “I want to do that, but I don’t know where to start necessarily.” Who do I trust to take them? I mean, obviously, they’re showing up for John and so maybe let’s talk a little bit about some places where a leader could take their team. We have a great idea, don’t we? Of where they could take their team to join John and all of us.

Mark Cole:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So let me say this, and you and I are going to go down to John’s equipping and exposure comments too, and the idea that you and I talked about, how do we give you application on environments? I think one of the ways is as you do expose them to environments that really work. So it’s a little bit of exposure. It’s a little bit of environment.

Traci Morrow:

Right.

Mark Cole:

But what are you doing to demonstrate to your team? One of the things, Traci, in fact, you’re heavily involved in this, is an event we call the International Maxwell Conference. So we call it IMC for short. Doesn’t every organization have something to shorten it too? But IMC or the International Maxwell Conference is all about taking people that want to make a difference in themselves so that they can make a difference in others and come into a common environment to where they learn that personal growth, that growing themselves, demonstrating growth within is important before you expect growth from those around, those outside of you.

Traci Morrow:

Mm-hmm.

Mark Cole:

And so we start with a growth day and then we allow people that want to go deeper to develop themselves as professional coaches, speakers, trainers, or people that want to become more effective, grow their influence in their companies. And we call this experience, this environment, the International Maxwell Conference. So some of you… In fact, we’ve never opened it up to the public before. We’ve been doing this 11 years. We’ve had over 40,000 people come into Orlando. Twice a year, they come in and they experience this conference. And for the first time ever, Traci, you’re going to be speaking, I’m going to be speaking, John Maxwell’s going to be there with some additional friends. And for the first time ever, we’re opening this up. And today, this is the first time I’m announcing this, today you can bring yourself and others into this environment in Orlando, virtually or in person. I hope it’s in person, by the way. I’m ready to see you.

            But we’ll put that in the show notes. Go to the show notes, we’ll show you how you can register for that to be a part of it live in Orlando or in person. But again, Traci, it comes back to this question: What are you doing to create an environment for yourself and for the people you’re trying to multiply and inspire to be greater? What are you doing to create this environment in their lives?

Traci Morrow:

I do feel like it did hop it because they always feed each other, don’t they, John’s lessons. And the things that we do as leaders do feed into one another. And so environment and exposure, environment in the day to day but also exposure in events and places where you can go and experience exponential growth together. There’s another E, exponential. I just came up with that off the cuff. No big deal.

Mark Cole:

I love it.

Traci Morrow:

But I think if we move to that middle E just for a bit, John talks about equipping and that leaders do what leaders learn. And he goes into the three parts of equipping. But one of the things that stood out to me that I missed as a young leader, and I didn’t realize it until I was farther along in my leadership journey, was that equipping begins with expectations. So I’ll quickly tell how I missed it. And that was that I set up the expectations of what my people could expect of me. What I missed was that I did not set up what the expectation that I had of them in our team and working together. That was a huge miss. I can remember talking with you and John about how do I write that wrong.

            There was this whole lesson, and I may have talked about it before, about me coming back to my team and saying, “Old Traci, new Traci. Old Traci did this. New Traci does this.” It was really setting clear, defined expectations of there’s a break in the old way of the way things worked and the way things are going to work moving forward. I missed it. I think it was just a blind spot for me, but why do you think that setting expectations for leaders, why do you think that that is so hard for leaders?

Mark Cole:

Well, because a lot of leaders intuit their leadership. They’re intuitively learning. I’m in the process of equipping new leadership around me in a project we call Free Mark. I mean, trying to get me out of the day-to-day operations so people can lead it better, Traci, to be honest with you.

Traci Morrow:

Free Mark. [inaudible 00:23:32].

Mark Cole:

Free Mark. And really, that’s, “Get him out of our way.” That’s probably more what we’re trying to say. But what happens a lot of times is, for 22 years, I have developed a style and an effectiveness of leadership that now I subconsciously do more than I ever consciously did to lead John’s organization. So when you began to try to equip, set up expectations, as we’re talking about, when you do that, you forget more than what you even remembered or learned in trying to transfer that. So expectations are really important to slow down as a leader and say, “Okay, I know this is natural for me or it’s intuitive for me, but I’m still going to have to get elementary in how I set up expectation for others.”

            You and I, right before this podcast, what did we do? We’re working on a program called CLEAR together. Now, again, I got to go ahead and tell you, this almost feels like the promotion podcast right here, because I got to tell you guys, if you have not heard about CLEAR, you need to join Traci Morrow and I and three other John Maxwell selected people to be a part of what we are doing within the CLEAR program. Everything John’s ever written, every message he’s ever given, every spoken comes in five categories. It comes in the area of communication. It comes in the area of leadership, in the area of equipping, attitude, or Traci, drum roll, the one you love so much, relationship. And that comes from everything John’s done. He believes that leaders that are growing and leaders that are leading more effectively today than yesterday is because they have a clear approach to their growth and a clear path to better leadership. So you can go right now to maxwellleadership.com/clearapp, maxwellleadership.com/clearapp. You can get more information on that, as well as we’ll put that in the show notes.

            But Traci, when we set expectations, that’s how we begin to equip leaders to do more effective, better, multiply ourselves and develop them. I’ll never forget when I was sitting down with my leadership team about 10 years ago, John said, “Mark, you need to give them expectations of what it means to be on your leadership team.” I sit down with seven things and gave them very clear expectations of what it meant to be on the Maxwell Leadership leadership team. I won’t teach all seven of them here, maybe we’ll do a future podcast, but things like, we will have difficult conversations.

Traci Morrow:

Mm-hmm.

Mark Cole:

Hey leaders, there is a responsibility. There is a price to leadership, and that’s going to be, iron sharpens iron. We will have difficult conversations. Number two, you will be growing. You cannot be dormant in a Maxwell organization. You can’t be status quo. You can’t let yesterday’s lesson give today’s effectiveness. You do have to demonstrate clear, tangible growth. Again, I could go on. Here’s my point. Leaders develop others better when they have upfront expectations, and they equip them better if they give them those expectations.

Traci Morrow:

I love that. I love that because I’m sure everyone is leaning in and saying, “I want the rest of that list. I want to know more about that,” because every person does better when someone believes in them.

Mark Cole:

Yeah.

Traci Morrow:

John just said that to me last week. We had a phone call and he said, “People do better when you believe in them.” I know I do. And when assumptions are moved aside and expectations are clear, how can we exceed expectation if we don’t know what those expectations are? So I’m so glad that you’re going to be diving in a little bit more for our listeners. And I know that we’ll all be taking copious notes, but let’s move back. I know we kind of hit on exposure when we were talking about environment, but John talked about leaders doing what leaders see. We hear John talk about that so much, but he used a great quote, “A little exposure upsets a lot of theory.” And he made the joke about that kids shouldn’t go to college more than a year. I’m sure that parents are like, “Oh, thank goodness. Do we not have to pay for college for four years?” I don’t think that’s what he was saying necessarily. But he went on to say that exposing your leaders to great leaders.

            I know that for me personally, when I dug into my leadership and my growth by taking it to the next level and going in to expose myself to other leaders who are better than me, faster than me, smarter than me, I just grew just by being around them and hearing what they were talking about and hearing the things in the way that they were challenging themselves and how they responded to those challenges. So can you talk a little bit about what that looks like for your team and your life and your leadership for exposure for your team?

Mark Cole:

Well, I can, Traci, and I don’t know that I can, in the brief amount of time we have left. But I’ve heard John say often, he says, “When people say, ‘Man, John, you’re such a great communicator. How did you do that?'” And they kind of began to put him on a pedestal because of his communication. And John always tries to shrink the success gap, the gap where people perceive you as more successful, that you’re too out of their range of being able to obtain better versions of themself.

Traci Morrow:

Right.

Mark Cole:

So one of the ways John does that is, when people go, “Man, you really communicate effectively,” he goes, “I’ve spoken more than 12,000 times. If I can’t speak by now, take me out back and tie me up and leave me for no effectiveness type thing.” Everybody kind of laughs like you’re doing right now, Traci. And we just kind of laugh. I feel the same way when people go, “Wow, Mark, where did you come up with that leadership idea?” “Mark, you’re really a good leader. Where did you figure that out?” And I go, “I’ve been traveling everywhere with John observing leadership for over 20 years. If I can’t lead by now with the exposure I’ve had, replace me quick, I’ll never get there.”

            Here’s why. Exposure leaders are… Let me say it differently. Exposure is everything to potential leaders. Expose them to difficulty. Expose them to challenges. What most of us leaders do, we do no up and coming leaders a favor when we don’t let them feel the hardship of a situation. And too many of us try to mother followers rather than lead followers. And Traci, you can speak into this-

Traci Morrow:

I’ve done that.

Mark Cole:

… because you’re an incredible mother and you try to protect them from the leadership difficulties. And it does them no good because if you don’t kick people out of the nest and allow them to feel the weight of leadership, they’ll flap their wings all the way down to a flap on the ground.

Traci Morrow:

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mark Cole:

They won’t be able to do it. And so as leaders, if we’re really going to develop leaders and not foster followers, we’re going to have to let them feel the difficulty of leadership, and that is by creating environments. We talk a lot about environments, “Give people a great culture. Help people get what they want and you’ll get what you want.” All of those are true and all of those are great components of culture. But when you’re developing leaders, don’t protect them from the hard stuff because there is an environment that we’ve got to create to where leaders can feel that there are no two good consecutive days in a leader’s life. You know what that means? When you’re trying to be the candy man, you’re trying to be the cheerleader and you’re trying to make everything all positive, you’re giving people a false sense of reality of what it means to be a leader.

Traci Morrow:

Mm-hmm.

Mark Cole:

Create an environment of leadership, which means sometimes, going back to my last point, we will have difficult conversations. You will leave a meeting with me going, “I think he’s having a bad day.” No, I’m having a leader’s day. And that means the day was a day that was difficult and it’s time for you and I to step up and be a great leader.

Traci Morrow:

Mm-hmm. I love the way you, once again, wove in environment and exposure together because they are connected. And when you talked about mothering, and then I’ll let you close out, I do just want to talk to you, parents out there. It’s not just mothers, mothers and fathers. I remember what John saying one time when I asked him about parenting advice. He said, “I think we saved too soon as parents.”

Mark Cole:

Mm-hmm.

Traci Morrow:

And I think leadership and parenting is so parallel and interwoven as well. I think you can look at parenting and leadership lessons. They are one and the same, that when you said we want to develop leaders, not foster followers, we as parents want to do the same thing. We can apply leadership principles to parenting, but we can’t always apply parenting to leadership. And so exposing our kids as they become budding adults, when he talked about they don’t need to go to four years of college consecutively, but I’ll tell you something. As my young adults children went from childhood to young adulthood, I exposed them to Mark Cole and John Maxwell. I brought them to IMC, bringing back in the International Maxwell Conference.

            I brought my kids to be exposed to leaders like that, so they weren’t just seeing their mom and their dad. I wanted them to see, “Whoa, the world is bigger, what’s possible for me.” It might be like drinking out of a fire hose, but I wanted them to see what it was like young so that it set the bar high, the lid high, by exposing them to that kind of environment. And I think that is, exposing them to those kinds of leaders young really does open up the world to a leader, whether they’re your kids or someone on your team.

Mark Cole:

Traci, this is so apropo to where we are in the Cole household. Eight days ago, July 19th, my baby girl turned 16th.

Traci Morrow:

Oh my. Oh, congrats.

Mark Cole:

We’re putting an all points bulletin out saying, “Where is Macy?” Because now she wants to drive everywhere. I mean, she’s ready to go. But let me tell you this. Leading up to her 16th birthday, I found Macy beginning to be a little lazy at practicing in front of her parents. About a month before a birthday on Father’s Day, I was wanting her to drive because I had been traveling a bit. And she said, “Dad, the last time I made a mistake and I didn’t like how you responded because…” I remembered it.

Traci Morrow:

Of course.

Mark Cole:

It was not very safe. She said, she didn’t look at the turning lane when she was turning right. She didn’t know that’s the turning lane coming of hometown traffic, she had been yell to. And I gave it to her and I think it was little harsher. She said, “I don’t think I want to drive today. I said, “Do you want to drive on July the 20th? Or today, July the 27th?” She said, “Oh yeah, I’ve got plans.” And I said, “Let me tell you this. To get there, we got to get here. Get in the driver’s seat.”

Traci Morrow:

Mm-hmm.

Mark Cole:

We’ve got to teach leaders and developing leaders how to lead in the difficult times so that they’re not always missing and coming up short when we’re not around.

Traci Morrow:

Right.

Mark Cole:

Because we’re not developing leaders. And Traci, I love that. We’re just kind of going to wrap up. But there’s a book John did recently called The Leader’s Greatest Return. If you’re watching on YouTube, which I highly recommend, I’m holding it up here and it’s called The Leader’s Greatest Return. And Traci, it’s right behind you there. Your version looks a lot better. But this Leader’s Greatest Return is a book that has helped me know how to lead and develop others better than anything else John has done, which is exactly what we’re talking about today. We’ll give you a 15% discount. In fact, if you’ll go to the show notes, we’ll put a link in there. You’ll be able to use the promotional code that we put in the link and be able to get a discount on that book. Don’t stop developing yourself as you develop others. We’ve given you a way to be a part of IMC today. We’ve been given you a way to be at the CLEAR app, obviously, to get this book, The Leader’s Greatest Return.

            I want to close today with an incredible listener comment that just kind of fits with this. How do we develop others? And it’s Scott, he was listening to the Why John Wooden’s Team Won? podcast that I did. By the way, Jake team, let’s put that in the show notes. That podcast was exceptional. But here’s what Scott said. He said, “I wanted to share how I use these podcasts. I work for a Fortune 50 company and I conduct a weekly podcast review ‘Think Book Club.'” Scott, I got to figure out how to get that book, that right there, because I’m already intrigued.

            But he said, “I do that for my direct and indirect reports, which is about 600 people.” Scott says, “We find ways to add value to leaders who multiply value to others.” Scott’s listening. He said, “We’ve been doing this going on a year. And as a team, we have grown together, leveraging on leadership principles and showing our teams we are true players. I want to thank Mark Cole and team for putting this amazing resource together so we can show up for our teams and give them a more meaningful way to lead.”

            Scott, that’s why we do what we do. I love that you are developing leader, Scott. You’re our north star, buddy. We appreciate that. Hey, and here’s why we do all of that, because I want each of you to be a leader that brings about powerful, positive change. Why? Because everyone deserves to be led well.