What People Misunderstand About Success (Part 1)

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Chris Goede:
I’ve known this guy for a long time. I’ve never heard this story. So listen here, podcast family, you are about to get some really good stuff from Mark Cole.

Mark Cole:
You’ve never heard the story, and I’m laughing because I’ve never been You asked me a question I don’t think I’ve ever been asked quite like that. How did you make a transition to smarter? And what did you do that you thought was smarter that wasn’t very smart? Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Podcast. We’re committed today and every episode to add value to you, our listener, our viewer, with the expectation you’re going to go multiply value to others. Today, we’re going to start a 2-part series on what people misunderstand about success. And I’m super excited about it. Chris, I’ve got you in the studio with me. John’s getting ready to teach an incredible lesson. And by the way, get ready.

Mark Cole:
John’s fired up today.

John Maxwell:
He’s fired up.

Mark Cole:
Okay?

Mark Cole:
He’s got emotion. And I think that’s funny that he’s so fired up about success. We talk often about success and significance is 2 separate things. Success is what happens to you. Significance is what happens through you. You often talk about how Being impacted by John is part of the thing that leads to your success. And so it really is incredible the privilege we have to work with people of success all the time.

Mark Cole:
It is. Yeah. To be around that environment and to see how John gave you 19 steps right there. But there’s more than just that way to become successful. But what is a non-negotiable that I think he’s so passionate about? is that it’s a process. And he says all the time, he’s a boring guy. He just does 5 things every single day. And it’s a process that leads to what some would title success in today’s world.

Mark Cole:
And so Chris and I, after John teaches, we’re going to spend a little time breaking that apart of what it’s like being on John’s team, what it’s like working alongside each other in Maxwell Leadership to help people’s success. But we want to teach you not only how to be successful, we want to teach you not to misunderstand success. And so we’re going to get started. Hey, if you would like to download the bonus resource, you can go to MaxwellPodcast.com/Misunderstand, MaxwellPodcast.com/Misunderstand, Misunderstand. And then also check us out on YouTube. Pass it, pay it forward to someone, get somebody engaged in the podcast, take your team through it. Many of you do that. We’re here to help you, serve you.

Mark Cole:
So let’s listen in to John, and then we’ll come back and talk some applied leadership. Here’s John.

John Maxwell:
Every one of you, you have a journey to take. And some of you, if you’re beginning this journey, you have no idea all the things that are going to transpire. You’ve got a dream, but it is true. You see, the dream is free, but the journey isn’t. And I wanna make sure that today we understand the journey. Everybody, isn’t it interesting, everybody shares the dream, but few ever share the journey. We kinda overrate what the dream is going to do for us, and we kinda underestimate how we got there. Desire, do not miss this, desire is the seed.

John Maxwell:
of every great accomplishment. If you have a desire to make a difference, you have already planted in your garden a tree that’s gonna grow and blossom and make a difference in people’s life. Desire is the seed of every great accomplishment. Nothing great has ever been accomplished without somebody in their heart, sometimes somewhere, someplace on the top of the first blank page who have said to themselves, I wanna make my life count. I wanna make a difference. And if desire is the seed of every great accomplishment, hang on, hang on, consistency is the fruit of that seed. Those 2 words, desire and consistency, Are the key to your journey. It’s desire that keeps you going and it’s consistency that gets you good.

John Maxwell:
You’ve heard me talk about the fact that you’re never good the first time. And that’s so true. I love it when people are working hard and they’ve never done something before and say, well, I just really wanna get good at this. And if it’s your first time, just relax, just do it, would you please? ‘Cause you’re not gonna be any good.

John Maxwell:
It’s your first time, it’s okay. We all have our first time and that’s okay. That’s where you start. You’re never good the first time, but can I tell you something? You wanna get good sometime. It’s okay to stumble the first time, but you wanna get good sometime. Well see, desire is what causes you to get in the game, but it’s consistency leads you to being good sometime. If you’re not consistent, You’ll never be good because sometime will never happen because you didn’t stay in the game. The greatest way to make progress is to move forward and clarity comes with that movement.

John Maxwell:
I call that the magic of advanced attraction and the magic of advanced attraction is very simple. When I know who I am, when I know what I want, I begin to attract people and resources that will add value to who I am. and to what I want. That’s called advanced attraction. That means that my mind will begin to think things that will help me get what I want, and that my eyes will see things that will help me get what I want, and my heart will feel things that will help me get what I want, and my attitude will make me believe things that will help me get what I want. My mouth will say things that will help me get what I want, and my life will begin to attract people and things that will help me get what I want. It’s all because it begins with the desire that takes action, consistent action. The journey is all about desire and consistency.

John Maxwell:
In 1977, I was a young author and I was in a publishing meeting and we were talking about the title of a book. As you know, the publisher really owns the material so they really can choose the title, not the author. And so sometimes the author has one idea, the publisher has another idea, and because I was a young publisher and I hadn’t sold 34 million books, I had sold 3 or 4. The publisher always kinda won on the title. And so I was getting ready for another book and we were talking about the title in that meeting and the publisher wanted to call the book The Journey to Success and I said we can’t call it The Journey to Success and they said we’ve already done our surveys and polling and— That’s not a good title. We put our finger in the air to see which way the wind is blowing and all the things that non-leaders never do because they never thought about thinking that you have to probably have everybody in agreement before you do something. And they said, everybody says it should be called The Journey to Success. Well, I said, it can’t be.

John Maxwell:
Well, they said, why not? I said, ’cause there’s no such thing. And they said, why not? What do you mean there’s no such thing? I said, there’s no such thing as a journey to success. You don’t take a journey and you just keep walking, walking, walking and one day, success.

John Maxwell:
You got it.

John Maxwell:
I said there is a success journey. There is not a journey to success. You are successful when you take the first step. We confuse recognition of success with success. It’s not the same. Graduation’s a perfect example. You get, you know, the day you graduate, everybody’s here, family, friends, here we go, taking pictures, giving out gifts, having parties, celebrating, across the stage, get your diploma, everybody said, oh, congratulations, oh my gosh, you graduated from college, you’ve become a success. No, no, no, no.

John Maxwell:
No, you just got recognized for success. That’s right. There’s a difference. What you’re celebrating is recognition, not success. You see, the day you went and enrolled in college and went to your first class, you were already a success. It’s just waiting to be showing up. See, in the beginning, no one notices, but in the end, everyone notices. In the beginning, you think this isn’t important.

John Maxwell:
At the end, you said, wow, that was very important. In the beginning, no one congratulates you. In the end, everybody congratulates you. Now, what makes that happen? The desire to stay in the game. and the consistency to take the steps. And so I wanna talk to you about the steps because my journey is gonna be like your journey. It won’t be the same events that happen and experiences that happen, but can I tell you something? If you’re going somewhere that is significant, if you’re wanting to make a difference in people’s lives, if you’re wanting to change your world, there are steps that you take and I’m gonna give you mine and I’m gonna go kinda quickly through ’em because it’s, they’re mine.

John Maxwell:
And I’m only giving them to you not to show off. I’m just giving them to you because you gotta know what the journey’s like. So when you take the journey, you say, John, explain this to me. This is what happens. You see, I started off in 1969 and my first step in my journey was very simple. All I wanted to do was add value to people. It was just that simple. I became a pastor.

John Maxwell:
I graduated from college. Went to a little church in southern Indiana. All I wanted to do was add value to people. I wasn’t smart, I wasn’t sophisticated, I wasn’t brilliant, I had no strategy, I had no long-range plan. If you said, John, why are you doing this? I’d just look at you and say, well, I just wanna add value to people. The second step was I wanted to add value to more people. It was so good adding value to a few people, I thought, well, if few people is fun, I wonder how many people’s gonna feel.

John Maxwell:
And so I wanted to expand and you understand I was a pastor so they called me a shepherd and it was within about a year and a half that I realized I’m not a real good shepherd because a shepherd just kinda hangs with the same sheep all the time. And it’s, you know, I like the sheep but I’d like to go find some more. Now watch how this journey goes. I went from a shepherd to a rancher. Oh, I was into sheep, I was just into more sheep. I was into adding value, I just wanted to kinda multiply value. And then I went to another step. After adding value to people and then wanting to add more value to people, I said, well, wait a minute, I need to equip people to add value to people.

John Maxwell:
I mean, if I really wanna compound this baby, I’ve gotta equip people to do this. You never can compound until you equip. And on July 4th, 1976, the 200th birthday of America, I’m a kid preaching to 5,000 people. That was big back then. But on July 4th, I felt definitely called to train leaders. And as soon as I felt called to train leaders, I went to the next step, and that I have to resource them. If you’re gonna train them, you gotta give them something. You gotta put something in their hand, and that’s when I began to understand The content is keen.

John Maxwell:
And I began to develop resources to help pastors. And out of resourcing leaders, the next point was writing books because my mentor Les Parrott said, if you really want to expand your influence beside yourself, you gotta write books. I never wanted to write books. I never even wanted to be an author. It wasn’t even in the interest at all for me to ever write any book. And when he said I could expand my influence through writing books, I looked at him and I said, I’m gonna be an author. And as soon as I started writing books, I had to have a way to take all those resources and so I had to start companies. I didn’t try to start companies.

John Maxwell:
I had to have something to resource my vision. So in 1985, we started companies. I’m not a businessman. Never have been a businessman. I just try to go add value to people and the business kinda has always followed. It’s kind of, you know, it’s just, I don’t know. I just had to go get companies to help undergird it. And then I started a leadership tape club because I was in Jackson, Mississippi and 31 pastors after I taught them that day said, well, we’d like to hear you teach some more stuff.

John Maxwell:
I said, well, I gotta go back to my church. They said, is there any way we can keep getting trained? I said, well, I’ll record my leadership lessons with my staff and I’ll send ’em out. That started the Leadership Club cassette tapes. I’m giving you my journey because there are certain people who just think that they gotta be perfect on every step to get a successful journey and I just say you gotta keep taking the steps. You see, you get perfect as you take the steps. You don’t get perfect to take the steps. There’s a world of difference. That little 31 people that asked me to start the club, in 4 years, 100,000 people were getting my cassette tapes on leadership, and I became a leadership mentor by 1990.

John Maxwell:
And 1993, my publisher said, that there were more people in the secular business world buying my books than people in the world that I lived, the Christian faith world. And it was at that moment that I crossed over and said I’m gonna go into that world because I think I wanna add value there. And 2 years later I went internationally with Equip. Oh, I wish I could tell you the stories there. About a year in I said let’s go train a million leaders. And out of training a million leaders, We began to say we’ve gotta have legs to our legacy, so we began to develop the John Maxwell Team. And then we went from training leaders, after we trained 5 million leaders in every country, went to saying let’s take ’em and now that they know how to lead, let’s talk to ’em about how to be transformational and change hearts. And so we started transformation and making that our emphasis and it just all began to blossom.

John Maxwell:
You see, I’m sharing my journey to encourage you. There are 19 steps I just shared with you. 19 specific steps I took in 41 years. I didn’t have my act together every step, but I took action every step. Please understand this. This thing of success is way overrated because we see the recognition of it and we don’t understand just the simple steps that you have to take and I’m just saying to you, consistency compounds, consistency compounds, consistency compounds, consistency compounds, consistency compounds, consistency compounds, consistency compounds. No one ever quit their way to the top.

Mark Cole:
Welcome back, everybody. You know, John is good friends with Brian Tracy, been impacted by Brian Tracy. Brian Tracy says the act of taking the first step is what separates the winners from the losers. John just talked a lot about that. First step’s not always good, but it is action. And so welcome back. Let’s take some action here, Chris. Let’s talk a little bit about what we see as it relates to success and people misunderstanding it.

Mark Cole:
So let’s back up. Let’s go back. I’d like to say just 10 years, but for you and I, it’s probably 25, 30 years. And we probably had a misperception of what this was. Can you remember back and can you think about, man, as I was growing up, I defined success this way? What was that for you? Yeah.

Mark Cole:
So it’s funny because I remember I grew up in a home to where we had people of success. Again, I look back at success and I go, boy, you can be successful in your world and then get outside of your world and realize you were in a very small pond. And so I can remember times of feeling, man, I was successful. I was the person that people would pick first on the ball team. And then I got out and got out of my little world of backyard ball. And I realized, Chris, there’s a lot of people like you and not all men are created equal. I was big cheese playing football in my backyard.

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Mark Cole:
But I got into other worlds and I realized, yeah, I’m going to be picked last on this team right here. So I used to think as a kid, man, success was being picked first. I felt like that success was shooting the winning shot. I thought, then I got a little bit older and I went, oh, success is when you’re such a good communicator that everybody wants you to speak at their event. And I began to see people up front sought after as success. And then I became a 16, 17-year-old and I realized that people that drove a 280ZX, remember the Nissan 280ZX?

Mark Cole:
People that drove a Toyota Supra or a Nissan 280X. I know I am dating myself and you’re laughing right now.

Mark Cole:
By the way, those guys outside of your backyard football, they don’t fit in those when they’re 16 and 17.

Mark Cole:
That’s exactly right.

Mark Cole:
So I didn’t have one, but—

Mark Cole:
Yeah, you did not. You were playing in a different league and driving in different bigger cars like a 15-passenger van. But I did. I thought that it was owning this particular car or having this particular house. It’s very materialistic. Great word. Success was tied to materialistic thinking. And then I got into a reset of my life and I began to say, oh, success is showing up every day when you don’t want to.

Mark Cole:
Boy, success became much less materialistic after I lost all of my materials, all of my possessions.

Mark Cole:
And success became more about effort, energy, consistency, like John talked about today. But I started out with a materialistic view of success. And then the older I got, the more success was about staying in the game, consistency, things that were a lot more tangible.

Chris Goede:
And everything you just explained, we’re talking about a mindset and we’re talking about how you approach that. And I was thinking while you were sharing that story, I was like, we all— I grew up in a small community as well. And I feel like If I had not moved, parents move, exposed to different things, I might still have that small—

Mark Cole:
100%.

Chris Goede:
Town mindset. There’s nothing wrong with that. But what I wouldn’t probably have never realized was that if you don’t commit to that consistency and that process of growing every single day, that success is going to look a lot different for you than if you committed to that. And one of the things that as an individual, as a leader, John talks about that, it breaks my heart sometimes, is that you’re going to transition through groups of people. As Mark talked about, there’s different levels of this, right? But as you grow, you’re going to continue to move yourself at a different level of, quote unquote, what we’re calling today success. And the others aren’t going to choose that.

Chris Goede:
And they’re going to keep that misperception of that. So I want to talk about, because you have been on a massive growth movement for years, right?

John Maxwell:
Yeah.

Mark Cole:
And once you got away from that 16, 17 and then got exposed to some things, you started saying, okay, it’s about a daily growth movement. When I think about you and success, I think about grit. I think about drive. more than talent, not because you’re not talented, but wouldn’t you agree that you’ve seen some leaders, some people that are extremely talented that maybe don’t have that grit or that drive? And then it just goes back to that consistency model where you go, hey, man, so-and-so became successful in what they’re doing because of that. May have a little bit of talent, but because of the drive and the consistency more than just talent alone.

Mark Cole:
You know, it’s funny. We were talking earlier and you had my mind thinking about, okay, what did I do to become successful in this environment?

Mark Cole:
And I’m riveted by that question. I will not be able to answer it in this part 1, may not be able to answer it completely in part 2. Give me even a week to think about this. But I’ll tell you this, I’ll tell you what I did do. And I think this was a contributor to success, but I don’t think it was the only contributor to success. I worked harder.

Mark Cole:
And that’s a comparison thing. I was single. I was going through a crazy difficult time. There was not a lot to go home to. It was pretty lonely at home, man. I worked 12, 14, 16 hours in the office. And then as we’ve talked about multiple times, I was an hour and a half, 2-hour drive depending on traffic. And I would work all the way home, work all the way to the office.

Mark Cole:
I was working so much. I worked harder. And I was not the most experienced, the most intelligent. I was not the most gifted in a lot of areas, man. I was the hardest worker. I worked longer. And in other words, I didn’t expect a promotion in 6 months because of all my success. I worked longer for success.

Mark Cole:
I worked longer than most because I rejected getting promotion. I didn’t want promotion. So I worked longer in the grassroots, in the grit times than when I got the position and I helped other people work. I stayed in the grind. I stayed in the grit.

Mark Cole:
Longer than most. The third thing that I said is I worked later. I worked later in life. So in other words, I was 30.

Chris Goede:
Oh, that’s good.

Mark Cole:
I was 30 and I was like, I’m an entry-level telesales representative? You got that right. Because my job and my journey made me work later at roles than most people would. But I’ll tell you, it wasn’t until I started working smarter. It wasn’t the late, it wasn’t the hard, it wasn’t the long, it wasn’t the later. It was the smarter. It was when I began to say, how can I exponentially get a return on a minute of time rather than I’ll just add another minute, I’ll just work a little bit longer. It was when I said, how do I maximize the moment? How do I maximize my effort through people that I began to see exponential results? It was the trigger of smarter that made a difference for me.

Chris Goede:
Yeah. And John talks about that where he says you can never compound until you equip to do that. Can you take us into the lens? I think that’s a brilliant point that I just don’t want to fly by really quick of you made that realization that I need to work smarter. Okay, maybe the first couple times you did that, like John said, it wasn’t very good and you made some mistakes. You’ve developed that over time and now leading 7 organizations and all that we’re doing for John’s legacy, that has to be part of what you’re doing. Now, remember, we’re talking about people misunderstanding success. And so they think, man, I’m self-made, or, hey, I’m going to go and I’m going to work 3 months and then I’m going to be president of that organization. And there is some of that, but there’s also a negative side to that where people think they can just never achieve it, which is not true.

Mark Cole:
Right.

Chris Goede:
You had both sides of it, but take us back to a time, an example of something you’re thinking about, and you have a grin on your face, so I know you’re thinking about a couple of them and Share that so that it’s practical for those that are listening that’s based off of your leadership.

Mark Cole:
I’ll never forget. So to work smarter, and I did all the other harder, longer, better.

Chris Goede:
Yeah. Laid the foundation. Yep.

Mark Cole:
And now I’m working smarter. I’m getting people to work with me, work for me. And so I can remember a time that I got people to start selling tickets for events for me. And I couldn’t approve a payroll. I couldn’t give them bonus. I didn’t make enough money to share my income. promise them things for selling stuff for me. Okay? So I’m going to Smarter.

Chris Goede:
Okay. I’ve known this guy for a long time. I’ve never heard this story. So listen here, podcast family, you are about to get some really good stuff from Mark Cole. You’ve heard another story.

Mark Cole:
And I’m laughing because I’ve never been— you asked me a question I don’t think I’ve ever been asked quite like that. How did you make a transition to Smarter? And what did you do that you thought was smarter that wasn’t very smart? And so I’m new. I’m 3 years in, 2 years in. John still does not know my name. Except people whisper it when he’s coming by Cubeland. Right? And so I’m selling all this stuff. And so finally I go, oh, if I get people to sell for me, I can make one phone call that turns into 5 buying units.

Mark Cole:
Yeah.

Mark Cole:
So I started making these promises to people that says, hey, if you’ll get 25 people to come, I’ll get you in the room with John. Because I thought in the room with John was in the room with— I thought that was fair game. I mean, it’s his time. It’s my event. I can Put things around the event. And so I put about 5 people on John’s calendar, never told my boss, David. I never told Linda, John’s boss, which is his assistant.

Mark Cole:
Hold on, hold on. And he never told me, which by the way, my team was running the operation side and this sales joker over here, we show up the day of and now this is all making sense. He’s like, by the way, John needs 5 one-on-ones throughout the day.

Mark Cole:
Yeah, besides it didn’t work that way. So I had this guy and man, he was a moving and a shaking machine for me. And we had a 5-event plan of him going to put people in for access to John. And something did come up. I didn’t make the trip. I gave it to whoever was going to make the trip to get John in a room with these people because it was not just a reward for what he’d done. We had opportunity ahead of us. And I’ll never forget that guy calling me back.

Mark Cole:
And he’s saying, let me tell you this right here. When I got in front of John and Linda happened to be at this trip and I got in front of them, you evidently hadn’t let anybody know and your name became mud and you might be losing your job. And don’t ever call me again because I’m not doing this for you again. And the 5-event deal is off because that was the most awkward event of my life. And I had all these people looking at me and now they go, who are you? And I’m not selling another thing for you. His name was Ronnie. I saw Ronnie about 4 years ago, which was the first time I saw Ronnie. And Ronnie went, dude, I’ve never been to another John Maxwell event.

Mark Cole:
You obviously didn’t lose your job and you obviously still can do it. Can you get me some time with John? I said, I think I can arrange it today.

Chris Goede:
I think so. I think so. So I love that, right? You were thinking about the multiplication of it. In that story though, I want to stay here for just a second. What did you misunderstand about the success of selling tickets by doing that, that maybe you just didn’t know? You didn’t know what you didn’t know. You took for granted you’re doing— well, you might have known what you did, but what was the misunderstanding? You said, hey, I’m going to partner with somebody, I’m going to equip and develop, and I’m going to get multiple tickets. But that really didn’t end up being success.

Mark Cole:
Let me tell you this. All of you that’s been to events later, whether it’s John Maxwell, Tony Robbins, or Mel Robbins, whoever you’ve been to trips with, they have the VIP package, right? You pay for access.

Mark Cole:
You qualify for access. You do access. In my days of teleselling events, there was no VIP packages. Everybody paid the same. Everybody sat wherever you got in because you got in early. There was no reserved seating. 4 months later, we launched our first VIP experience for people that put multiple people in the seats. And VIP experiences for people that qualified in became a thing for our environment.

Mark Cole:
I’m not going to say our environment, Maxwell Leadership, our name was Enjoy back then. I’m not going to say that Enjoy started the VIP experience, but they didn’t exist before. I take credit for all you people that have learned to sell events for Maxwell or for VIP experiences or for those things. I take credit for almost losing my job for promising John’s time. But not letting people know. But over the next 4 months, we developed a strategy based on what I had done with Ronnie. And now your team can really hate me because all the VIP experiences that ultimately became the case was because me and Ronnie tried to do it before our time.

Chris Goede:
So this goes into where you took the first step. John talks about this a lot and it’s impacted me in how I go about doing things and decisions, and it’s who starts first.

Chris Goede:
He says it all the time. And I’ve heard other CEOs and other leaders say, oh yeah, I want to start as soon as possible because then I learned 3 things before me would want to be perfect and go through that process. And so in that situation, you didn’t really know you were going first, but you went first, and then it allowed the team to create something that is now something that a lot of conferences use. John also talks about how movement creates momentum. Talk a little bit about the importance of this to be successful with the right mindset. What type of movement should be happening? What do you think about when John talks about take action, that creates momentum? We know that momentum’s leaders, individuals, Best friend. What do you do? What do you think about when you think about success and taking those first steps in action?

Mark Cole:
So John did not say this in today’s lesson, but John says often lately, he was asked a question. I was in the room when he asked the question. I’d never heard him answer it like this, but somebody said, hey, what’s the best action I can take in whatever the question, whatever the situation was that they get? And John paused a minute and he went, Any action. And they went, no, I’m talking about what do you think the action should be for this case? So they restated the question and John gave the same answer.

Mark Cole:
Like he didn’t hear him.

Mark Cole:
Like he didn’t hear him. And John gave the same answer, any action. And the guy literally for the 3rd time tried it again. John said, whoa, wait, you’re missing something. I don’t know enough of your situation and I don’t have enough time for you to tell me your situation. I can just tell you for any leader that is paralyzed with what is the next step, the perfect step, It’s a step. And don’t get so caught up in the step and what the step is and how should I take the step and how fast should I take step 2 and all that. Just take a step.

Mark Cole:
You will be smarter. You’ll be further along when you take a step. And so John said this in the lesson today. He said, keep taking steps. In other words, make an action and go. Too often we get exposed with information. We get We get invited into opportunity and we paralyze ourselves and we miss the moment that we’ve been given.

Mark Cole:
And the moment that we’ve been given requires us to take an action, not the perfect action, not the right action, not the action that we can maximize the most, just an action. And so I think as John was teaching this today in his 17, 18 steps, all the stuff he’s doing, and he’ll do this again in part 2 next week. really were driving you to understand that it was not your intelligence that led to your success. We’re talking about misunderstanding success. It wasn’t your intelligence. It was your commitment to action, and it was your consistency in taking action. Ask any successful person. We started the whole podcast off with, what do I— and what did I originally think was success?

Mark Cole:
Ask any successful person, at whatever you think success is right now, and they’ll tell you it was their actions. They’ll say it differently, but it was their actions, not their intelligence, not all that. It was their action that actually led to success.

Chris Goede:
Okay, so it is absolutely about that action. And I want to throw this last question to you, and then you can wrap us up on this. Currently, right now, where you sit, in your career, some would say, oh, well, that’s been a success. That’s been an incredible journey. And I know one of the things super passionate about you is that the journey to the success involves more than just Mark Cole. Okay?

Chris Goede:
So I get that. But what I want you to do is, if you wouldn’t mind sharing with us right now, there’s more. You know that there’s another level of success for us to be able to impact people around the world. What are you doing daily as a leader right now that’s taking action today that we know that will show up in a year, that’ll show up in 2 years or 3 years for your leadership and also for the organization? What are some of those daily action things? Because I think one of the things that people struggle with is that they go, well, I’ll just wait till. And what we’re talking about here is one of our core values, which is all about growth. And John talks about, man, it’s not about goals. It’s about, man, how much am I going to grow? And you’re doing that, but share some of that right now that is maybe not tied to direct day-to-day for what we’re doing now, but you’re taking action because you know it’s coming down the road.

Mark Cole:
I’m tackling a really critical thing for me and my leadership right now. Just a real critical thing. I may not divulge all of it, not just because it’s personal, but I’m working through it with John. I’m working through it with the leadership team. And it’s so in its incubation that it may not process well unprocessed for the podcast. But let me give you the concept. The concept is I want to be a better leader than I’ve ever been. And what that means to me right now is a better owner.

Mark Cole:
I want to be a better owner than I’ve ever been. And so I’m going back and listening to this morning, this morning driving into the studio this morning, I’m listening to Steve Jobs in 19— oh gosh, Mark, was it ’87 or ’97 when he came back into Apple after he had been forced out and he came back as CEO? It’s a brilliant clip. In fact, I’ll send it to you. Sorry, podcast family. We’ll have it. I listened to it all the way to the office this morning. He came in. And he decided that Apple was going to go into retail.

Mark Cole:
And when he decided to do that, everybody was bailing out of retail. Online was coming, online was coming. He says, no, we’re doing it. The board voted against him. His management team told him he was crazy. The media mocked him. And he said, we’re going to do it. We’re going into this right here.

Mark Cole:
And now Apple is, per square footage, Apple to this day, per square footage generates more income per square footage than any other retail outlet in the world.

Mark Cole:
And he was voted against it. And he still said, y’all can’t see what I see and I’m going to do it. And there comes a time in an owner’s life they have to step up. Well, I’m telling my coach that today. I have a meeting with my business coach and I’m telling my business coach that. And he said, Mark, until you own something, you’ll never know how to be alone in a decision like Steve Jobs. And he said, here is your problem right now, today, 6 years after becoming the owner of this, you’ve never taken ownership. You’ve never been able to look at the voices in your life and say, I know you all don’t agree with me, but this is the way we’re going.

Mark Cole:
And until you do that, you don’t own something. You might be the person on the bill. You might be the person having to pay the rent. You may be all that. But until you defy everybody around you for something that you believe in, And they don’t believe it and you still do it, that’s when ownership transfers. And I went, oh my gosh. And so what he really told me today was this. This was his killer line, Chris.

Mark Cole:
And you’re hearing this for the first time in the podcast. You’re hearing it for the first time because this is so fresh. I don’t even know how to apply this.

Chris Goede:
2 first-time stories.

Mark Cole:
That’s exactly right. Here’s what he said. He said, Mark, it’s time for you to quit learning. And start leading. He says, you have humility and you have a wonderful sense of when the teacher is ready, the student appears. But right now you’re being taken advantage of as a student and you need to be respected as a leader. And it is time for you to act like an owner. And you can’t act like an owner when you are a learner.

Mark Cole:
You can only act like an owner when you’re a leader. Mic drop. I don’t even know how to apply that, but there’s the answer to your question that happened just today.

Chris Goede:
So, man, there’s so many thoughts, and I can’t wait to unpack that with you further. But the one thing is that I thought about is there is so— we have access to so much content. There’s so many things that are flying at us that we want to learn and we want to do. And are we really taking time to put it all down and apply what we’re learning? What he’s saying to you is, You’re at a different level, my friend, and you have been learning even to prepare yourself for this. And so what’s interesting is where my mind goes with this for you is you never stop learning. But what he’s saying is take action on that leadership.

Chris Goede:
And by the way, this just came to me. So when, as an individual, as a leader, here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to have to take action on the things that you’ve been learning. to be a success. But while you’re taking action, you need to be learning for what you’re going to need to take action on down the road. And so it just never stops. It’s that growth cycle. And so our challenge, I know everybody is, there is a lot of content out there.

Chris Goede:
We have a lot of content for you, but are you, do you have the desire? Are you being consistent? Are you taking action with it? So I appreciate you sharing 2 first-time stories. I love it, man. I love it. And now I’m going to dial up all my old operations friends and I’m going to tell them to start throwing I’m throwing rotten tomatoes at you.

Mark Cole:
That’s what success looks like. Hey, I have a free resource I want to give you today. We’ll put it in the show notes, but we did a podcast called Better Days Are Ahead of You. And I think that will really apply to today’s lesson and be another next step for you until we come back next week for part 2 of what people misunderstand about success. John’s got some incredible stuff for you.

Mark Cole:
Incredible content he’ll be sharing next week. The other product that I want to offer to you, we won’t offer it to you for free, but we will give you a significant 75% off of Every Day with Purpose. This is a brilliant tool that will help you make successful decisions every day for 30 days. And you’ll love it. It’s in your show notes. Take advantage of that. Go do something great because every day counts. Everyone deserves to be led well.