Tests of Timing (Part 2)

Mark Cole: Hey, welcome to another episode of the John Maxwell Leadership Podcast. Now, if you’re a regular, you know that we are in part two of the Test of Timing Series. If you’re new, where have you been? We are so glad that you have made it. But you do want to go back, maybe not right now, but after you listen to this lesson, you want to go back and listen to part one of the Test of Timing Series. 

Sometime ago, John Maxwell did a talk about leaders, and really it was for some of us leaders that are not naturally gifted in the area of intuition or in the area of the law of timing. And so John did a talk about building the right environment to make correct timing decisions. So we decided in this time of uncertainty, in this times of crises, that we should bring this lesson to you. 

John is just getting ready now to teach the next three parts of making the right environment. Jason Brooks is with me today in studio via Zoom. And we are going to break that down for you when John is done teaching. So if you would like to download the worksheet, go to maxwellpodcast.comtiming, and you’ll click on the bonus resource button, print out the worksheet and follow along as John teaches part two, Test of Timing: Building the Right Environment. Here is John Maxwell. 

John Maxwell: Number four, we not only have the opportunities before us and the influencers behind us and the needs around us, but number four talks about, here’s another timing question and issue, and that is the mentors beside us. What kind of mentors do I have at this time in my life that will help me if I make this timing decision? Emerson said, our chief aim in life is somebody who will make us do what we can. 

And you’ve heard me probably say this before, experience is not the best teacher. Whenever you hear somebody say, “Well, experience is the best teacher,” just understand that they like cliches but they don’t have a clue. Experience isn’t the best teacher, evaluated experience is. And let me tell you the value of mentorship. 

A good mentor will pass on to you evaluated experience. In other words, you’ll share with them where you are in your life and they’ll say, “Let me tell you something about that.” And they will come extract out of their life an experience that they’ve had that’s similar to your, only they will share it in the light of how they evaluated that experience. 

Consider this, understand this is going to take place, realize that this is a part of that decision making. That’s the value of mentors. You bring a mentor along, not because they’re smarter than you. In fact, when you get to their age and have their experience, you’ll be just as smart. So it’s not an issue like they’re brilliant and you’re dumb. It’s an issue like they’ve had some experience and they have learned to evaluate their experience and extract from it. 

Remember, reflection brings insight out of experience. That’s the value of reflection. You reflect and you extract insight out of an experience that you just went through, and that’s what a good mentor does for you. So you don’t look for somebody that’s just had experience, you look for somebody who has evaluated experience and understands what they’ve gone through and why they’ve gone through and what they’ve learned because they’ve gone through it. 

So you got to look around in timing and say, do I have some good mentors beside me? Now, when you do let’s look at the example test here for a moment. Would my mentor do this if he or she were me? In other words, if you’re getting ready to make a timing decision and you’re kind of feeling the rush of things, what would my mentor do in this situation? Try to place your mentor in your situation. 

Next is the belief test. Do my mentors believe that I can do this? Sterling Livingston said, people perform consistently as they perceive you expect them to perform. That’s very true. Thirdly is the experience test. Can my mentors teach me from their evaluated experiences? 

And let me just say this, how do I know that a person has evaluated their experiences? In other words, if you’re sitting down with a mentor and you’re saying, “Well, I know they’ve had experiences, how do I know that they’ve evaluated those experiences effectively?” If you’re asking that question, I think I can give you some words or phrases that will help you to know if they have evaluated their experiences. Words such as, number one is humility. 

One of the first things you and I will discover, if we are truly working with somebody who has evaluated their experiences, they’ll be a great sense of humility when they talk to you about their past, because they realized that it wasn’t easy. They didn’t have all the answers, they made great mistakes. They had a lot of set backs. They failed a lot. 

And when I hear somebody talk about their experiences and they don’t have a lot of failure and a lot of hurt and a lot of questions and a lot of oops in their journey, I know they truly haven’t had an evaluated experience, and humility is one. Number two is openness. I had discovered that people who evaluate their experiences are very open in sharing their experiences with you. 

Number three is change. They would tell you quickly how their life has changed, how they at one time thought this, but found out that’s not true, or they did this and found out that did not work. Number four, they speak of lessons learned. They speak of lessons that they’ve learned in their life. And number five, they have a big picture view. They’re not consumed with the smallness of the picture, they have a big picture. 

And number six, they practice reflective thinking, they really do. They practice reflective thinking. So when you get mentors beside you, do the example test, do the belief test, do the experience test. Next, do the availability test. In other words, will my mentor be available to me through this process? 

What I have discovered in my mentoring is this. I don’t mentor very many people because of time commitments, but it’s very simple. I say to them, it’s your job to bring all the issues to me. I don’t provide curriculum for you, I’m not your teacher. I’m not the person who’s supposed to make you. You bring the questions to me. You have the issues. 

I’m going to try to answer those questions, but I want to scratch where you itch. So you’re responsible. You bring the agenda, you ask the questions and I’ll see what I can do. And what I’ve discovered in my mentoring is I do as much mentoring in when to do something as how to do something. In fact, I’ve discovered early that young men learn the how to much quicker than they do the when to. 

Again, that’s why we’re doing a lesson on timing. And even for myself, I try to at least once a month, I love to do it more than once a month and many times I succeed, sometimes I don’t, but at least once a month, I have what I call my learning lunches. And this is a lunch where I’ve scheduled it with somebody that’s bigger, faster, quicker, smarter than I am. 

And I want to sit down with him for a couple of hours and I want to ask the questions and I want to get feedback and I want to probe their mind. And I want to probe their experience a little bit and I want to push back a little bit to see what I could learn. But here’s what I know. If you’re going to make a timing decision, ask yourself are the needs around me? 

If there are no needs around you, there’s no decision to make. Or if there are needs around you, are there opportunities before me? What are the opportunities before me that I can do something about this? Or perhaps maybe I can’t do something about this. And by the way, if I’ve got a green light there, are the influencers behind me? 

Do I have the influencer say, let’s go with it? And is there support vocal or is there support even more in the area of resources? And then fourthly, do I have mentors beside me that can take me through this timing issue? Number five, I think the fifth thing that we want to consider in making a timing decision, are the victories under you? 

Because happiness is not pleasure, it’s victory. And consistent winning produces momentum and momentum produces confidence. So the timing question is have I had some wins under my belt? The momentum test basically asked the question is the big mo with me? Is the big mo with me? And if the big mo is with you, hello, it’s a happy day. If the big mo’s not with you, don’t do anything. Go back to bed, take a pill, try next week. 

You know I file. I’ve been filing since I was 17. So I’ve written and filed every day of my life. And I pulled this out. This is an old Reader’s Digest article back in March of 1995. And I’m just going to read it to you because it’s a classic example of momentum. In July, 1862 in the midst of the civil war, Abraham Lincoln summoned his cabinet members to the White House to inform them of a decision that he had made. 

Now, get the picture, 1862, with the front end of the civil war. The president read aloud to them, the emancipation proclamation intended for freeing the slaves in the Southern States at war with the union. When he finished the cabinet members were silent. It was a radical idea for the time. And it was bound to stir controversy even in the North. 

Then the secretary of state, William Seward spoke up. The Confederates had recently routed the union army and Seward said, “Lincoln’s proclamation might be interpreted as a desperate move. Why not wait until the picture is brighter? Lincoln welcomed Seward’s advice and delayed the proclamation until September when a decisive battle had stopped the Confederates’ advance. The decision was then well received by supporters of the union. 

That’s a classic example of making a timely decision based upon, “Is the big mo with you?” Now, here’s what I want you to note. The more opposition you expect to a decision, the more important it is to choose the right moment. The more opposition that you and I are going to have to any decision that we make in our life, the more important it is to make the decision at the right moment. 

In other words, the more opposition we have, the more important timing is in making it. Another test that we want to take under the victories under your scenario is the morale test. If I do this, will this boost morale? CFI Consulting firm said a 5% boost in employee satisfaction translates into a 2% increase in customer satisfaction. 

So it’s very simple. Is this going to boost the morale of the organization if we do this? And if we do it now, how’s that going to turn out? And then there’s another test I think you need to take when you look at the victories that you have under your belt, and that’s the standalone test. What makes me feel that we can be successful this time? 

In other words, take what you’re going to do and separate it from your other victories. I know you’re on a roll. I know that you’ve had just several months of good things happening. Don’t just expect because you won the last four times that you’re going to have an automatic win now. Let it stand alone. Let whatever decision it’s going to be, standalone from all the other victories. 

And the reason I say that is the greatest detriment to tomorrow’s success is today’s success. No question about it. When we have been successful for a period of time after a while, we began just to think we have found a way to be successful and we just kind of basically think success is going to take us through it. 

So there are some questions I would encourage you to ask yourself, questions that I think are very important, such as why did it work the last time? In other words, if you’ve got some victories under your belt, why were we victorious last time? Then another question, what has changed this time? In other words, is there been something change between the last victory and this victory? And will that change make a difference? That’s the victories under you. 

The last thing in considering the right environment to make a timing decision is number six, the courage within you. Or as C.S. Lewis said, courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at its testing point. The other day I was pulling off the shelf a book that I wrote called The Right to Lead. 

And in that book, The Right to Lead, I put a quote by Emerson that I want to read because it’s so important at this part of the lesson. Whatever you do, you need courage, whatever course you decide upon, there’s always someone to tell you that you’re wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. 

To map out a course of action and follow it to the end requires some of the same courage which a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men to win them. The courage test. Do I have the courage within me to venture out in this timing decision, especially when not everybody’s on board. And remember this, on the front end of timing decisions, not everybody’s excited about it. 

Then there’s a risk test that you want to take. When you look at the courage that’s within you, ask yourself the risk test, is this decision reasonable or is it reckless? In other words, I’m going to take a risk, but is it a reasonable risk or is it a reckless risk? And I put the two categories side by side. 

For example, if it’s a reasonable risk, it’s built on strategy. If it’s reckless, it’s built on hope. If it’s reasonable, it plays to your strengths. If it’s reckless, it plays to your weaknesses. If it’s reasonable, it has some margin of error. If it’s reckless, it has no margin of error. If it’s reasonable, it is an extension of what you do well. 

If it’s reckless, it has no connection with what you do well. If it’s reasonable, it will challenge you. If it’s reckless, it will discourage you. So when we’re going to take a risk, we have to ask ourselves the question, is this reasonable or is it reckless? Another test we want to take when we look at the courage that is within us is the emotional stamina test. 

And the emotional stamina test basically says, can I handle the heat? In other words, if I do this, if I make this decision, am I able to handle the heat? Mark Twain said, courage is the resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not the absence of it. Or John Wayne said, courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway. Great paragraph by C.V. Whitney. 

The man who makes the success of an important venture never waits for the crowd, he strikes out for himself. It takes nerve, it takes a lot of grit. But the man that succeeds has both. Anyone can fail, the public admires the man who has enough confidence in himself to take a chance. These chances are the main things after all. The man who tries to succeed must expect to be criticized. 

And then these next couple of lines I just underlined, they’re so good. Nothing important was ever done, but the greater number consulted previously doubted the possibility. Success is the accomplishment of that which people think can’t be done. How true that is. The emotional stamina test, can I take the heat, especially when there’s a lot of disagreement about what I’m doing? 

The passion test, this is a great one under courage. Is there a burning desire within me? Again, in the book Right to Lead, I quote Ken Hemphill who said, vision does not ignite growth, passion does. Passion fuels vision, and vision is the focus of the power of passion. Leaders who are passionate about their call, they create vision. I really believe that. 

Then there’s the responsibility test, will I take ownership for this? Doug Larson said, the reason people blame things on previous generations is there’s only one other choice, the responsibility test. Then there’s the intuition test. The intuition test asks the question, what is my gut feeling? What’s my gut feeling about this? 

And again, as I said earlier, but I repeat it because it’s so important, people are intuitive in the area of their giftedness. They’re intuitive in the area of their giftedness. You know how I discovered that, don’t you? When people ask me leadership questions, they always seem very simple to me. I don’t mean that unkindly, but they just seem very simple to me. Or when people ask me communication questions, it always seems very simple to me. 

In fact, Margaret and I have laughed, every once in a while somebody wants Margaret to speak at some function. And she has a teaching degree. She used to teach many, many years ago in school, but communicating is not her gift. It’s not her strength. And whenever somebody asks her to speak at a banquet or something, I always hate that because I know what’s going to happen. 

She’s going to come to me and she’s going to say, “What do I say?” Which if you are going to speak and you have to ask somebody what you’re supposed to say, speaking is not your gift. And so she’ll say, “John what do I say?” I say, “Oh, Margaret. Okay.” And so I’ll throw one of my talks and say, “Here, try that one.” And then she’ll say, “Well, okay, okay, okay. Tell me, how do I start?” 

Now, what I’m about to tell her just frustrates her to pieces. Because when she says, “Well, how do I start?” I say, “Well, wait till you get there.” Now, people who don’t have the gift of speaking don’t want to wait till they get there. But I’m not trying to throw a curve. What I mean is wait till you get there. 

Because find out what the environment’s like, hang around, talk to people, get the feel of it. Maybe the MC will say something you can play off of and you just take off. So yes, you wait till you get there, kind of find out where everybody is and then kind of connect and start speaking. Well, anyway, she hates my advice, which I understand because you see how it frustrates her. 

It frustrates her because she hasn’t had the gift of communication. I’m not trying to frustrate her. I’m not trying to be a smart aleck. It’s just, that’s how I do it. It’s so simple. See, when you’re in the area of your giftedness, it seems so easy to you you wonder why can’t everybody do this? 

Now, I can flip that because I’m making myself a look a lot better than I should. We’re intuitive in the area of our giftedness. That’s just a fact. And what we need to understand in the area of timing is that if we do have some natural leadership leanings, timing and intuition is going to be much easier for us in the area of leadership than if we don’t. 

But if we don’t, the reason I gave you this environment kind of feeling of these six things you want to understand about the environment to make a timing decision. And all these tests that go with them is to help you if you don’t have that intuitiveness to be able to kind of use this as a sheet that you go back and say, “Oh, I think it’s time for me to make this decision.” 

And a closing paragraph here. Sometimes even after careful preparation, you may feel yourself stalling a decision. A likely reason, your conscious mind is reaching a decision that your unconscious mind rejects. What if time is closing in on you and you’re caught between two choices that seem equally good? Warren Bennis, a management expert at the University of Southern California says, toss a coin. 

If while the coin is in the air, you find yourself hoping it comes down heads, your inner voice has spoken and you’ve made your choice. Moral, when making a decision don’t ignore your instincts. So in timing, the right environment is essential to make a good decision. And the right environment is six things: the needs around you, the opportunities before you, the influencers behind you, the mentors beside you, the victories under you and the courage within you. 

Mark Cole: Hey, welcome back. I hope you, as I did, just thoroughly enjoyed what John taught today. This part two Jason, it feels like he’s just getting better and better. I’m sitting here going, “Man. I wish we had a part three because I’m learning so much from what John is teaching today on how to lead during these very abnormal times.” So it’s good to have you with us. I’m excited to break this down as always with you. Welcome aboard, man. 

Jason Brooks: Well, thank you sir. And I agree with you. I feel like this could have been a four or five part series because this really is a pressing issue for a lot of people these days, is knowing when is the right time to make the right decisions. Even where I live right now, there’s still some concern about schools that are starting tomorrow. Should they go back in person? Should they go back virtual? And that could rapidly change. 

And there’s just a lot of pressure on leaders these days to be able to understand the criticality of timing as it relates to decisions in front of them. But John starts us off today talking about mentors, that one of the ways that we have the right environment for understanding the law of timing is to have the right mentors alongside of us. 

And you are somebody who is blessed to have some incredible mentors, and several of them actually are in their own unique situation because they’re having to lead their companies through this season. And so I’m kind of curious, how are you harnessing or how are you leaning into the wisdom of your mentors during this season and what are you hearing from them or what are you seeing from them that’s translating into the way you lead? 

Mark Cole: Well, so let me start with John because I’m incredibly gifted, privileged, honored, all the words that I can think of that John would mentor me in the close level of proximity that he does. And I’ll tell you what I have noticed from my mentors and truly what I am doing to mentor people these days is very different. 

I did a lesson with John Maxwell last week in studio, and I was telling him in this lesson we were doing some interactive teaching and I told him that his mentoring these days has truly morphed from asking questions to giving evaluated experience. It’s really morphed into challenging me to find the answer inside of me. 

Now, a great mentor will always challenge you to get the answer from inside of you, but they will use their expanded experience to paint the picture that will pull that out of you. Well unfortunately, no one has evaluated experience in leading in times like right now. It’s a deficit for us too. It’s nonexistent. It’s not even a deficit for people to lead from evaluated experience right now. 

Now, we can take other times of crisis or uncertainty or different things. I’m not saying this is the first crisis we’ve ever had. I’m saying that the impact that it is having on the collective globe is different than ever. And so mentoring is different. And what I’ve watched John do to me and many people that he’s mentoring is being more available than instructive, is letting… 

I’ve always brought the agenda to John in my mentoring sessions, but now he’s not even letting me bring the agenda, I’m bringing the issue. What is the issue? What is the uncertainty? I don’t even know how to put together an agenda right now for mentoring, at times. And so there is this willingness to step in and roll up the sleeves and get in it with me that John is exhibiting. I’m seeing that with others. 

Anybody that I’m asking, my mentors, that I’m asking questions of right now, it’s like the rest of the world, their multi-billion dollar businesses are kind of just set aside and I’m the only thing on their agenda now. There is a presence and a focus like I’ve never seen before. 

It goes back to these tests that John’s talking about, the experience tests, can my mentors teach me from their evaluated experience? The answer is yes, but differently than what they used to be able to teach me from evaluated experience. Because there’s less predictability now than any other time I’ve ever led. 

Jason Brooks: It’s interesting. There’s a difference between walking through your past experience with someone and walking through a current experience with someone. And I love the fact that John and your other mentors are opening themselves up to say, “Hey, let me walk with you through this and tell me what you’re seeing, what you’re hearing and I’ll give you the best feedback that I possibly can.” 

But in order for the relationship to work, they have to walk with you. And I think that’s a really… that’s a lovely picture because there are some people that just aren’t willing to do that for others. He moved on after talking about mentors and I want to camp out on this one for just a couple minutes. He talked about, are there victories under you? 

And this is a season where we’re not talking a lot about victories. We’re talking a lot about emergencies. We’re talking a lot about repairing things or trying to stop the bleeding. And so it’s fascinating to me that there are still victories that can be found. And I wanted to ask you, because John defined victories, he said, constant victory produces momentum, momentum produces confidence. 

And so I wanted to ask you, what are you doing right now to generate momentum? What are some of the things that you as a leader of a company, but also a leader of a household, as a father as well as a businessman, what are some of the things that you’re doing to generate momentum at this time so that the people around you can feel like there’s progress, there’s hope, we’re moving forward in some way? 

Mark Cole: I think a big part of the victories under you piece is go back to a particularly difficult leadership time in your life. I can recount one right now to where you want to talk about the COVID-19 and the different emotional financial crisis that we’ve been leading through 2020. I go back to the year, 2000, 20 years ago. 

And for me personally, there’s nothing that I’m going through now that compares to the crisis that I dealt then. I had nothing, I had no one, I had no mentors. I awakened to a true crisis in my life and I got through it. Jason, I got through it. I’m able to lead again. I’m able to impact again. 

And I think going back, and what John’s trying to do there is even those of us that are not experiencing recent victories, go back to a victory in your life and equate that to how you got through that with a confidence that you’re going to get through where you are right now. Now, there’s so many parts of our business that is generating momentum. 

I have the most incredible team, Jason. And I’m looking at you, you’re one of those teams. Jake is in the background of my Zoom here in the studio. And I’m seeing two people that are profoundly impacting and helping me impact now as much as ever. There is a lot to be grateful for. I think the way that you create momentum is by helping the vision of the team to capture the things that are going well, the things that are desirable from behaviors and from beliefs right now, and really synthesizing those things into the peripheral and into the focused vision of your team. 

I absolutely believe that momentum comes from an ability of the leader to lift the vision of the teammates who may not can see beyond the struggle and the density of challenge and lack of clarity. So find the things that you are clear on, find the things you are certain about and communicate those in a way that will engage people to get that big mo, as John’s talking about. 

Jason Brooks: I love that you connected it back to the vision because a lot of times it’s easy for people to get disconnected from the vision during a season like this. And bringing folks back to this is what we’re about, this is why we’re here and it will always be here is a good way to help people get unstuck. I didn’t want to… Go ahead. 

Mark Cole: Well, I was going to say something, do you know John talks about on the under the morale test, he says, if I do this, will it boost morale? Let me challenge people, leaders listening today. And I’m challenging myself with this. Too many times, we do something that encourages us, or boost our personal morale, and think that’s going to work for the team. 

This question that John is challenging us to ask as leaders is imperative. While X, Y, Z may boost my morale before, and maybe it boosts everybody’s morale before, or maybe it excites me now, you really need to go through the due diligence and the intentionality to make sure that it’s going to boost the morale of where your team is right now. The only way to know that is know where your team is right now. 

Jason Brooks: I love that because it ties into the next question that I wanted to ask. And we’ve mined this example a couple of different ways over the last few months of the podcast. But back in March, you had to make the really difficult decision to cancel our spring IMC coaching certification event because we were right at the tip of COVID, nobody knew what we were entering into. And that was a multimillion dollar decision that you made, but you made it. 

And we’ve talked about this, you made it through the lens of doing what was right for your people, not just the people who would be coming to the event, but the staff of the company that would be there to work it, but also the staff of the hotel, where the event would be held. And you made this really difficult decision through the perspective of thinking what was best for others. 

And it was a tremendous morale booster for the staff to know that our CEO was thinking of us through that lens. But weird, at the time that this podcast is released, we’re just coming off of our August IMC event, which is something that we’ve never done before. It is an all virtual International Maxwell Certification event. 

It’s one of the best attended events that we’ve done. Thousands and thousands of people signed up for this thing. We brought in speakers that were just huge names. And we didn’t know that we were going to be able to do that in August when you were making that decision in March. But because you made the decision for the people in March, they were bought in on what you wanted to do in August. 

And I kind of wanted to ask you, can you give us a little insight into how that victory, even though it may not have felt like a victory in March to say, “We’re not going to do this,” how did that smart decision then build the momentum for what we just experienced in August with the virtual IMC and all of the success that we saw from there? 

Mark Cole: Man, I love this question and I love how you framed it. Because we have dissected a couple of times, but you’re bringing out a different angle that I love. I think when you give people confidence, and we’re going to talk about courage in just a minute, but when you give people confidence that you are going to hold up your values no matter what, no matter the cost, no matter the struggle, no matter the difficulty, I think that gives people a confidence to innovate from a place of values. 

But if you look at what we’ve been able to accomplish, it was made possible because we effectively postponed the March event. The August event with all of its innovation, with all of its teamwork and camaraderie was because we effectively made a multimillion dollar decision four months prior. Our team rallied behind a decision that was founded on values. 

So how do you engage people in a past victory for future? Always build it and underpin it with the values that people can stand on no matter what the crisis is. Because when you do that, people will adapt to crisis as long as they have the stability of values. People will adapt to difficulty as long as there is something substantive that they can count on. 

Too many times, we talked about this a little bit in our halftime adjustment, too many times, people, leaders lead from a place of emotion rather than values and they wonder why they don’t get innovation. You can’t innovate from a place of instability, you innovate with something that you can count on. For instance, may you ask a question a little earlier about failure, maybe it was last- 

Jason Brooks: Last week. 

Mark Cole: Part one. And I’m going to tell you the reason I can fail so effectively is because I know John Maxwell is not going to write me off when I try something so big that I don’t succeed the first time. It’s same thing with victories. When you can make a difficult decision that by all KPIs felt like the most difficult decision we would make in this new one company, one team, one dream thing, when you make it with confidence and you tie it back to something that is foundational and strong, you give people the ability to innovate. 

And we are just finishing the most epic International Maxwell Certification, we call it IMC, that we have ever had with more attendees and more effectiveness, with greater talent than we’ve ever had. Why? Because the team was able to innovate off of a victory that was founded on something dependable, something stable, something that you could count on. 

Jason Brooks: I love that courage is the last thing that John talks about because you made a bold decision rooted in values that improved and inspired the morale of your people, which gave them the courage to innovate. And now it goes back to what John was saying, those victories are just compounding, it’s building on itself. We are able to generate the momentum that we need. 

So I wanted to ask you, John talked about in encourage there’s a difference between being courageous and being reckless. And I kind of want to ask you, how do you distinguish where that line is? How do you know the difference between bold, faith-filled courage and just hair on fire, let’s just see what happens recklessness? 

Mark Cole: Well, so we’re talking about courage and to answer this question, I’ve got a reference, a quote that Jake put in my notes today, it’s a Gandhi quote. And he says, the best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. The greatest source of courage is when I allow myself to minimize so that others can be maximized. 

And so you find this courage there that says, if I am doing this for a purpose beyond myself, in other words, for others around me, I find myself. And by finding myself in that case, every decision that we have made from March to cancel IMC and everyone since then, it has been for the attempt to serve others. And I’m watching that build confidence. 

I reference our leader, our executive vice president of John Maxwell team, our entrepreneur solutions group, Chris Robinson. I have never seen him… I’ve known him for 10 years, I’ve watched him. I’ve watched him develop. There is a courage and a strength and a certainty that’s come into his leadership in a few short months that I’ve never seen. And I’m excited about that because he’s losing himself in the service of others. 

Jason Brooks: I love this answer because it is a brilliant way to close this lesson because John started us off talking about, we needed to assess the needs around us. If we’re effectively assessing the needs of people and we’re allowing those needs to motivate us to be courageous, then we create… Ed Bastian talks about the virtuous circle that they have at Delta, where if you invest in your people, they’ll invest in your customers, which will make your customers invest back into your company and it just is a cycle. 

It’s the same thing here. If we as leaders are effectively assessing the needs of our people and being courageous to meet those needs, then they’ll draw courage from that and they’ll take steps to meet our needs. And it’s a wonderful cycle and a great way to close out this teaching from John. We know we’ve got the right environment to help us make critical timing decisions when we can effectively assess needs and respond to those needs courageously and all of those things in between. 

So, man, thank you for just your wisdom on this podcast. Thank you for the way you’ve led over the last several months. It’s been a privilege to be part of this with you and just ride shotgun and be able to observe. And as Mark said in the introduction, if you haven’t already, go to maxwellpodcast.comtiming, click on the bonus resource button, download the fill in the blank notes because you definitely are going to want to have all of the teaching points from John’s lesson today and from last week. 

If you haven’t listened to last week’s lesson, you can go back and find that lesson and listen to it at the same spot. As always, we invite you to subscribe. We love to see people clicking on that subscribe button because we know that you are as passionate about receiving the value that we want to give and sharing that value with others. 

We hope that you’re taking what you’re learning from this podcast and using it with your team or with the people that you work with to make a difference in their life. Mark, that’s all I’ve got for notes. I’m going to throw it back to you and let you close this out. 

Mark Cole: Again, go download the show notes at maxwellpodcast.comtiming. And I want you to do that because in each one of these six environments that John talks about having us build, there are these tests, three to six tests that I want you to take. I wish you would print it out and just rank yourself. And after you do that, send it to people around you that are working around you that are trying to lead from a place of timing in this crisis as well and let’s make this message impact them as well. Have a great week everyone. We look forward to being with you again next week. Until then, let’s lead.