Self-Sabotage: Getting Out of Your Own Way (Part 2)

Mark Cole: Hey, welcome back to the John Maxwell Leadership podcast, Mark Cole here. And I’m excited to bring to you part two of Getting Out of Your Own Way. Now, those of you that are podcast listeners and have been for some time, our goal is every week, week in and week out, to add value to you. And last week, last episode was no exception. John Maxwell talked to us about four traits, four themes that could really cause you behaviors that could allow you to self-sabotage if you did not create a remedy for these things that are prevalent in all of our leadership journey. 

This week, no different to that. He’s going to bring you six more sabotage behaviors. But, here’s the great news. He’s going to bring you a remedy with each of these behaviors. Now I’ve got to tell you this. In John’s teaching, he did not address the remedy for sabotage number nine, the undisciplined living sabotage. But here’s the great news. In our notes, we will give you the remedy for John’s behavior in number nine. And you can find those at maxwellpodcast.com/sabotage.  

Hey, thank you for joining us. John Maxwell is ready to go. Let’s click into the link now. Let’s hear John Maxwell talk on self-sabotage, Get Out of Your Own Way. 

John Maxwell: Number five. The fifth way that we hurt our success is by surrounding yourself with negative people. When you surround yourself with negative people, well, it’s just obvious, that you’re going to hurt yourself. And the reason why is people are either your greatest asset or your greatest liability. Charles Tremendous Jones said two things. Determine what you’ll be in the next five years. And that is what you read and who you associate with. We all know that. 

Now, when you surround yourself with negative people, or doesn’t only have to be negative people, when you surround yourself with small thinking people. In fact, they may be positive. They just may never had a good new thought for the last 10 years of their life. When you surround yourself with those kind of people, you absolutely have no chance to achieve what you could achieve, only because of the people that you’ve got around you. Before you ever huddle to get the strategy going, there are some questions you better about the people that you have surrounding you. Here are the questions.  

Number one, do they believe in me? There’s no yet. No sense even calling the play if you answer a no to that question, do they believe in me? If they didn’t believe in you, they’re not going to block for you, tackle for you, they’re not going to do anything for you. You got to … Do they believe in me? And besides that, you might want to put the word respect because that what? That’s believing that a person truly is just respecting that person. That’s the key word. Okay? Do they believe in me? Okay. 

The second question is, do they have my interest at heart? In other words, the people that I have around me, do they have the same interest at heart that I do? Do we have a like heart, like mind? And beside that, you can put the word loyalty. If they have my interest at heart. I can guarantee you, if somebody has your interest at heart, they’re going to be pulling in the trenches for you or vice-versa. Isn’t that true? Okay. 

Number three. The third question is, can they help me? In other words, I know a lot of wonderful people who believe in me and they have my interest at heart, but they really, they just can’t help me. I mean, when I say they can’t help me, they don’t have abilities that I need to make it happen. There are fans in the stands who have the quarterbacks interest at heart, but the quarterback’s in desperate trouble if they have to go put on a uniform and come out and do the blocking for him, right? So it’s more than just loving somebody and caring for somebody. And beside that question, can they help me, put the word ability. I mean, ability has to come in. Do they have the ability to pull it off? 

Question number four, before going to the huddle, if they help me, will it change them? I’ll talk to you about that one. If they do help me. In other words, if they have the ability, they have my interest at heart, they believe in me. If they do help me, will it change them? And put beside that the word attitude. 

Now, here’s what I mean. When a team begins to experience some success, it’s very common in athletics, it’s also very common in corporations for enough people to emerge as stars because of the success of the team till after a while they don’t help the quarterback anymore. They either want to be traded somewhere else or they want to hire salary, or it begins to be a different agenda. Now, I’m not even opposed to that, but I’m saying in running a good team, you got to always look at that and you begin to, I have to ask myself the question, as they help me succeed, what will it do for them and will that … And sometime down the road, instead of becoming an asset because of their abilities and qualities, will it become a liability? 

I’ll tell you something else I found. Almost every friend that I started off with in the beginning today is not a close friend for one very simple reason. I learned very early in my life that people can’t handle, even your friends have a hard time handling your success. Now I’m not trying to be nasty. I’m not even hurt anymore. I used to be lonely and hurt, but now I’m sometimes a little lonely but not hurt. And I found out a long time ago that even the team that you build, if somebody begins to be elevated, there can be jealousy, envy, strife, bitterness. “Why is he getting to do this and I don’t get to do that?” I watch team members sometimes want to look at her and say, “Well, now why does she do this and I don’t get to do this?” 

When you develop a team, you got to always be asking yourself, if we really get good, what will it do to the team members? Remedy for negative people? Well, the choice is the key. When possible, choose not to be with them. That’s been my kind of life. I just, when I find somebody I don’t think is going to be healthy, I just basically love him, but don’t live with him, don’t stay with him. When impossible, and sometimes it is impossible because of family, et cetera, choose to rise above them. Always rise above the small thinker. 

Number six, we sabotage ourself many times by expecting failure. A lot of times people, they don’t have a chance because they just expect to fail in the first place. Epitaph on a pessimist’s tombstone. I expected this. Isn’t that true? Don’t you know people that they just basically expect failure. I mean, I know some people, blessed their heart, they couldn’t have a good time if God was along to help them. They just, they don’t expect it and feel they don’t deserve it. And guess what? They don’t get it, and wonder why everybody else does in life. They’re expecting failure. 

You see, there are two keys in successful relationships, whether it’s a marriage or whether it’s a staff situation like what we have. There are two keys to successful relationships. One is all successful relationships build on strengths, not on weaknesses. You show me anything, anybody, any group of people coming together for any endeavor that’s successful, they build on strengths. And secondly, they expect the best. Those two things, you just find that in every good organization, every good team. They build on strength and they expect the best. 

Now, I want to tell you something. You show me any bad team, organization, relationship, family, matter, whole issue, you show me anything that’s falling apart, and I want to guarantee you something. Those two ingredients will be exactly the opposite. And that’s a fact. Instead of building on strengths, they’ll expose weaknesses. In other words, they’ll start to go after each other’s weaknesses. And the second thing they’ll do, they’ll not only expose and go after each other’s weaknesses, but instead of expecting the best, they’ll begin to expect the worst to happen. It’s the only difference in marriage between a good marriage and a bad marriage, the only difference. Before marriage, they expect the best and they build on the strengths of their partner. After marriage, they find out what the partner’s like, and instead they begin to dwell on the weaknesses and they begin to expect the worst. Same couple, total different look, total different outcome also. 

Remedy for expecting failures. This is, I want to take a moment to talk to you about this. Predetermine the picture. In other words, if you’re the kind of person that expects failure, predetermine the picture. Try to get in your mind a picture of what’s going to happen, and then try to eliminate all the negative options and possibilities, and try to plan for the positives and then get excited about it and go forward. What I’m saying is when you have a tendency to expect failure, one of the best ways to keep yourself from experiencing is to do those kind of things, to eliminate as many possible negatives as you can, so that when you get there, it’s as good as it possibly can be. Okay.  

Number seven. Number seven, being unable to learn from others hurts our chances for success. The inability to learn from other people. This is a little bit different than understanding people. Learning from people is an admission that we don’t know everything. In fact, Henry Ford said, “If there’s one secret to success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from his angle, as well as your own.” 

Now, the type of person that is unable to learn from others has what I call an I problem. They either think that they’re infallible. In other words, they’re just, some people think, “Well, I’m right. I know I’m right. And so therefore, who needs to listen to anybody else anyway?” Or they’re inflexible, basically, they’re stubborn. They’re just going to say, “Well, I may be wrong. This is why I’m going to do it. Okay.” And almost always, they’re insecure. Almost always. Insecure people do not do well learning from others. But when we are unable to learn from them, it will hurt our chances of success. 

Okay, remedy for being unable to learn for others? Well, again, insecure people won’t do this, but here’s a good remedy for you. Hang around smarter people than yourself. In other words, when I say smarter, people who’ve already been on the track longer than you have. Soon you’ll either start learning from them or you’ll be left behind by them. And that’s really true. 

The best way to start learning from others is get around a crowd that is above you. And then all of a sudden you’ll be in a sea that there’s a whole world that you don’t know. And you’ll either learn from it and grow from it, or else you’ll not learn from it and be left behind. 

Number eight, refusing to take a risk. Many people, many people sabotage themselves because they just won’t take a risk. It’s that safety at all cost mindset that keeps them from really reaching out. The remedy for refusing to take a risk? Just get bigger goals and hang around bigger people.  

Number nine, undisciplined living. When we live an undisciplined life, we’ll constantly sabotage ourselves. Vince Lombardi said, “I’ve never known a man worth his salt, who in the long run, deep down in his heart didn’t appreciate the grind and the discipline. I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour, this greatest fulfillment to all he holds dear, is the moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhaust on the field of battle victorious.” Good words Vince, good words. 

There are some areas that when we are undisciplined, it becomes very costly to us. Things such as your time. Everyone has the same amount, but not everyone utilizes it the same way. When we’re undisciplined in time, very costly. Secondly, your energy. When you do not use strengths for your strengths, terrible waste of it. Three, your goals. You can’t do everything. So we have to figure out what we’re going to do. And number four, your moods. Either master your moods or they will master you. Lawful lot of people who could have done a lawful lot of wonderful things. Didn’t do it because their moods didn’t allow them. They allowed their moods to be the controlling influence of their life. Undisciplined living. 

The whole bottom line is most people do not achieve what they really can achieve because they either have laziness in their life, or they’ve got personal problems that they’ve never overcome, or they’ve got moods that they’re trying to kind of get together so that they can feel right in doing some of these things. They’ve never learned that you act, and then you feel. And they always feel and act. Undisciplined lifestyle keeps us and many times sabotages our success. 

Number 10. Number 10, being stopped by failure. Many times we just don’t achieve what we could achieve because we allow ourselves to be stopped by failure. Let’s talk about it for a moment. Failures and mistakes are a part of our lives. We all do it. The attitude we have toward them, however, separates the successful people from the unsuccessful people. Now, let me talk to you about that. 

I sat down when I was working on this lesson and I asked myself a question because I see this happen all time. I see constantly people stopped by failures. And so I asked myself, “John, why is it that some people are stymied and stopped by failures and some people just go on?” And I figured it out. And it feels so good when the light breaks through. And the other day when I was working on this lesson, the light all of a sudden broke through. And I’m going to tell you the difference. And I want you to be sure to get this because I want to talk to you about it. 

People who are stopped by failures, see their failures in a personal perspective. Another word, they take failure personally. Now watch this. People who are not stopped by failures, they see it from a process perspective. And here’s the whole world of difference. 

A person who is stopped by failure looks at it as an attack on their personal worth and competence. Oh, and that’s why it’s so painful for them to admit it. And it’s why it’s so painful for them to get back into that arena again. In other words, they say, “Oh, I have failed. I’m of failure.” In other words, they personally take failure and attribute to what they can’t do, what they haven’t been done, what their background is or something. And they look at this failure and they can’t go back to getting back at that door to knock it down because it’s painful, because they personally attribute failure to themselves. 

The person who’s not stopped by failure, they’ll be the first to say, “Well, I blew that one. That didn’t work.” But they don’t take it personally. Now it doesn’t mean they don’t take responsibility. It doesn’t mean that they go blame somebody else for it. But I am saying, they look at their failure and say, “Yes. And I was maybe the leader of it. So therefore I’m responsible for it. And I’ll take the blame. Now that I’ve taken the blame, now that I’ve growled on the dust. Now that I’ve said, oh, I’m such a poor person in life, please shoot me at dawn. Now that I’ve done all that, now I’m ready to get on and get on with life.” 

In other words, they look at failure, not in a personal perspective of all, but they look at failure and they say, “Sure, I’ve done some. But I also know that almost every success in life has some failure in it. And I’ve got to go right back to that door.” And they look at it as a challenge. People who are stopped by failure. Now you think about that, and this will help you in working with them. When people are stopped by failure, they normally have a very low self-image. If we would just understand this, we’ve quit taking ourselves so seriously. And we would certainly quit being paranoid over failure. We would just realize that that is a part of life. And it’s just the perspective of failure. 

Now, remedy for being stopped by failure, lighten up. Don’t take everything so personal. Focus on the possibilities, not the liabilities. Never stay down. Get back up. People admire courage more than they admire brilliance. Remember that. They admire courage. The greatest books that have ever been written are courage books, not brilliant books. We don’t write books about people who are smart. We write books about people who overcome adversity. Courage, that’s what’s respected. 

Mark Cole: Hey, welcome back in the studio with me. And I say in the studio, Chris, we’re Zooming together- 

Chris Goede: We are- 

Mark Cole: … today. You’re in one location. I’m in another. But back with me this week is Chris Goede. And Chris, thanks for joining us. It has been fun to continue to work alongside John Maxwell for two decades, going into our third decade, which just means we’re old. 

Chris Goede: That’s right. 

Mark Cole: And to have somebody that even though we have been impacted at times and tempted at times to self-sabotage, we live in an environment that not only just share with you the dangers of self-sabotaging, but I love what John does each and every discipline or behavior or temptation of self-sabotaging, he gives these remedies. And so, hey, let’s spend a little bit of time today. Let’s talk through some of these. I don’t know that we’ll get to all of them, but I look forward to sharing with you today, Chris. 

Chris Goede: Well, thanks for having me back. It’s a privilege to be here. It’s a privilege to lead with you for so many years. And to your point, we won’t get to all of them. Matter of fact, we only had four in our last episode. By the way, if you didn’t hear the first four of this episode, would encourage you to go back and listen to that. And even in those four, Jake, our producer was getting us to try to land a plane. And you and I just get talking about leading, leading ourselves, leading in people. We’re passionate about it. We want to share everything that we have. 

So we won’t get to all six, but we are going to get to a couple of them today and kind of unpack these for you, and share some of our insights. The first one is, right out of the shoot, John talks about surrounding yourself with negative people. And Mark, I want to talk a little bit about this. 

In the last episode you talked about, you’ve had nine promotions throughout your and your 10th role inside the John Maxwell enterprise. And one of the things that John has taught me, I know you as well, that I have communicated to my team, communicated to my family is you are the median of those that you hang around with. The top five people, both whether it’s from a leadership standpoint, financially, spiritual, whatever it is, in your sphere of influence, you become the average of those top five people.  

And I thought it was very interesting. He talks about that this is a sabotage. If you allow yourself to hang around negative people, that is going to be a problem for you and your leadership. And he talked about how friends have changed throughout his career. And I’ve seen it. You’ve seen it.  

The other thing that I thought was interesting, even just outside of negative people. And here’s what I’d love for you just to talk about in your journey in the enterprise was he talked about even small thinking people. And I know that even where you’re at right now, you’re sitting in a leadership seat that you have never sat in before. And one of the things you’ve told us as a leadership team is, you said, “I’ve got to get myself around people that are thinking bigger than I am right now. Because if not, I’m not only sabotaging myself, but the organization.”  

Talk a little bit about this point number five and how he talks about and the importance in your leadership about making sure that you do not surround yourself with negative or small thinking people. 

Mark Cole: Well, Chris, the point that … the reason this point surrounding yourself with negative people that John made about self-sabotage that was so intriguing to me is because there’s so many books out there, isn’t there, specifically there’s books about don’t surround yourself with yes people, don’t have a yes man mentality, get people around you that know how to say no. And I love all of that material. I really do. In fact, I’m a big proponent of that. I love contrarians around me. People that make me prove my point or cause me to think differently. 

But I was really struck with this because there’s so much out there on the yes man mentality, they surround yourself with yay-sayers, people that are always yes. But I got to tell you something. I’ve met too many leaders that surround themselves with people and empower people that are negative. And they do it under the guise of humility. In other words, leaders, let me tell you this. Have you ever said, “I’ve got some people around me that keep me grounded,” or maybe you have significant people in your life. I’m not calling out your significant other, but I am calling out significant people you have empowered in your life that says they exist to keep you grounded. They exist to keep you humble. 

And I get all of that. In fact, there’s a lot of books that will celebrate that. But some of you are allowing yourself to be self-sabotaged because you’re keeping people around you “to keep you humble, to keep you grounded,” and you’re not surrounding yourself around people that will speak into your ability and into your potential. And it’s a self-sabotaging mechanism that some of us have put under the guise of humility. And it’s really a self-sabotaging tendency that we have that we don’t want to believe too much about ourself. 

And again, Chris, you’ve heard me hundreds of times, talk about you got to have naysayers around you. You got to have contrarians around you. You got to have people that’ll keep you, keep you out of the clouds because John and I are very opportunistic. But today when I was listening to this, I went, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait.” That is also a self-sabotaging mechanism for leaders that don’t surround themselves with people that speak into the opportunity and to the potential. And they don’t give you lift. They actually challenge you and bring you down rather than lift you up. 

And John says this, and I’m going to say it right here, Chris. And then we can move on. But here’s the question. People are either taking you up or bringing you down.  

Chris Goede: Yeah.  

Mark Cole: You need to surround yourself with people that are taking you up. 

Chris Goede: Hey, so I love that. Can I just get you for just a moment? I think it’d be incredible for our listeners to hear with your leadership journey. You have made a conscious effort over the last 18 months, 24 months to surround, you always do this, but you continue to grow in your leadership. Talk a little bit about the challenge of surrounding yourself with people, the challenges you’ve accepted personally, and how it’s helped you not sabotage your leadership role by surrounding yourself with people that think big than you. Just take 60 seconds and talk about the benefit of that to get you out of that sabotage. 

Mark Cole: Yeah. I’ll talk about the benefit because I’m glad you said the benefit, because there’s some challenges for that too, but the benefits, the benefits is this. One, when you surround yourself with people that have led and that think bigger than you, the absolute obvious result that I still must say, even though it’s obvious, is you think bigger if you’re around bigger thinking people. 

Chris Goede: Yeah.  

Mark Cole: Your level of potential will be raised just by the fact that you’re seeing something greater.  

The second thing that I have found in surrounding myself with people that think bigger is they challenge my small minded thinking. So it doesn’t just encourage me to think bigger. They actually convict me or challenge me for thinking too small. In fact, one of the things that John and I have said recently is by surrounding ourself with people that think bigger, they see more potential in our world than we do. In other words, they come at it from a different vantage point.  

Here’s the final benefit that I’ll tell you, because you gave me 60 seconds. They introduced me to even bigger thinking people.  

Chris Goede: Yes.  

Mark Cole: So while I started out thinking like a two, I surround myself with people that think like a five. People that think like a five, they surround themselves with people that think like a seven. And so by process of association, I’ve gone from a two to a seven in my thinking because they introduced me to people that challenge them. And before I know it, I have not twofold, not threefold, but I have 10x-ed my thinking by consciously surrounding myself with bigger thinkers. 

Chris Goede: Yeah. John has always challenged us and said, “Listen, if you’re the smartest person in the room, you are in the wrong room.” Now, there’s a couple problems with that. Not only are you in the wrong room, but if you think you’re the smartest person in the room, that’s another problem. But Mark and I will address that on another podcast. 

But what I loved about what you were just talking about, and I appreciate you unpacking that is it really kind of leads us to another point that John had in his lesson today, where point number seven, he talks about being unable to learn from others. Goes to my comment just a minute ago. If you feel like you’re the smartest person in the room, we have a bigger problem. 

But you get into these situations and you’re put into these rooms and you have people around you. And we’ve talked about this before, man. We need to be teachable. We need to be curious. We have to be asking questions, not making statements in order to learn from others. And when we do that and we have the opportunity to be surrounded with bigger thinking people, maybe people that think even positively better than we do, we have to learn from them. 

Talk a little bit about this point where he says, man, listen, this will be a sabotage if you don’t have the ability as a leader to learn from others. 

Mark Cole: Well, I have watched leaders, Chris, and you have too. I’ve watched leaders that stop before they ever start. In other words, so much of us, we look at this, a lesson like this, that John’s teaching, and it’s a phenomenal lesson go, “Wow. That’s something that could hold me back from leading better. That’s something that could hold me back from really reaching that next level.” No, no, no. Some of you never started leading effectively because you never started leading effectively. And let me tell you the number one attribute of leading effectively, learning from others. 

It’s not having all the answers. Most people I’ve met, Chris, I get very excited with this right here. In my home office, I’m like, I’m ready to stand up. Most of us, we think we got the position because of what we know, not what we can learn. We associate leadership advancement for what we have done, not what we can do, not what we have the potential of accomplishing. We take advancement as a reward, not an opportunity. Hear me. Hear me. Hear me. Being unable to learn from others is the greatest barrier to growth I have seen in any leaders. 

I get asked the question all the time, Chris, what’s the most endearing, what’s the most desirable trait in a leader’s life? It’s coachability. It’s teachability. It’s the ability to learn. That’s why I say some people stop before they ever start. They never get going because they don’t walk into an environment saying, “What can I learn from this leadership opportunity?” They walk in saying, “Let me show you why I have the leadership opportunity.”  

And I will tell you this. That’s why Chris, you know this, you’re helping me right now add somebody to our team potentially. I mean, we’re going through a process right now of adding an executive to our team. And here’s what I’ll tell you. We haven’t made the decision yet. Don’t know if it’s going to work, but here’s what I can tell you. The rules for that executive will be the same rules that happen for you and I, Chris. And that rule is this: No major changes for 90 days. 

You know why I do that? Because I believe every leader should have a posture of learning in the first 90 days of a new opportunity. You should be walking around saying, “Hey, tell me, tell me what I need to know to be successful. Tell me what you would do if you were in my position. Tell me how you would lead if this was your opportunity. Tell me what’s worked so well in the past. Tell me what wasn’t working so well that we together can work on.” Because good fences make great neighbors. We’ve heard that. 

Chris Goede: That’s right.  

Mark Cole: Well, ripped up fences before we know why they were fences in the first place, destroy a leader’s potential to do something long-term effective. I’ve seen a lot of leaders rip up fences and rip up barriers immediately and have instant success. But I’ve also watched those same leaders, six months, nine months, two years later, peter out because they didn’t build on a stability of understanding and learning before they show something and teach somebody else something. I’m super passionate about this one, as you can tell. And this barrier, this thing will self-sabotage you before you ever get started if you don’t walk in with a posture of wanting to learn. 

Chris Goede: Yeah, it makes me think of the illustration that I’ve heard. There’s two types of leaders in people’s lives. One that when they walk in the room, they leave and they know they were the smartest person in the room. Or they leave and they’ve made you feel like you have added intelligence and competence to that conversation. It’s a posture, right? And to your point, with authenticity of the fact that we have a desire to learn, I think that’s key. Appreciate you sharing that with us. 

Now, let me move to point number nine. And this is, man, I want to talk about this just for a minute. John talks about undisciplined living. John is probably one of the most disciplined individuals, whether it’s his rule of five or his routine or whatever. And you’ve again, had a front seat at that. Similar to what we talked about on our last episode of lack of focus, but a little bit different. Talk a little bit about this. And if you don’t mind, I’d love for you to even just hit on the consistency of it and what John talks about in having this disciplined approach and being consistent over time, what that does for a leader. 

Mark Cole: Well, and I’m glad you brought this up, Chris, and you just hit on the very thing that I wanted to hit on. So I will be brief right here, but I have traveled with John. I’ve been second seat to John for longer than anybody else in his life. I’ve been able to share with him, travel more with him. Margaret, his wife calls me the other woman sometimes because I travel so much with him. I am on the road with him and I can tell you this right here. There are hundreds of things I admire about John, but one of the things I admire as much as anything is his disciplined, his intentional approach to everything. 

When we sit down for dinner, he’s already thought about the dinner and brings questions. When we get up in the morning and I meet him, he’s already been thinking about meeting with me and has a list of things on his phone that he and I need to discuss. When he walks to the stage, he’s not thinking about what he is going to share. He’s already prepared that. He’s thinking about how the people will receive it. It was in John Maxwell I learned my most valuable. I don’t have an MBA. I didn’t go to business school. I learned in John Maxwell’s enterprise. You guys all know my story. 

The greatest business lesson I’ve learned in John Maxwell’s world is the next step. Not how do we sell people today, but how do we engage them tomorrow. I’m never thinking about how do we sell in this moment. I’m thinking about what do we do as a next step after this moment. We call it the back of the room principle. What do we want people to do when they leave the back of the room? What is the next step? It’s discipline. It’s intentionality. And if I’ve learned anything from John, I’ve learned, and he talks about these areas of costly undisciplined living, your time, your energy, your goals, your moods. But in talking to him after the lesson, because we didn’t have … he didn’t give the remedy and the teaching. He said, “Mark, you got to set standards that require accountability. There’s remedy, number one. And two, you got to work by the standards, not your moods.” 

In other words, what John is saying is disciplined leadership and emotional leadership cannot coexist under the context of discipline. You cannot allow your emotions to drive your discipline because you will never feel like it. Chris, you and Sarah have raised two great athletes. You were a great athlete. Sarah was a great athlete. All great athletes know this right here. Your moods cannot drive the discipline on the practice field. You’ve got to get up and do those two, three, four at days for because it’s the right thing to do, not because you feel like it. And leaders have got to understand how undisciplined living will sabotage their effectiveness. 

Chris Goede: Yeah. I think John even mentions you can’t feel your way into acting. You have to act your way into feeling. It’s interesting. When you talk about this, about being consistent and talk about, even John talks about with the moods, it reminds me, we have a privilege of working with organizations around the world. And there’s this one very, very large organization. It’s an unfortunate story. The most influential individual inside that C-suite of the organization is the executive assistant to one of the C-suite individuals. 

Now I say it’s unfortunate only because not because she’s the most influential. I say it’s unfortunate because there’s no consistency in the mood of that leader. And here’s the story. Literally, this individual has a different color coffee mug that she’ll place on her desk, depending on whether or not it is appropriate for the mood of that executive for their team to go in and meet with him or not.  

Can you imagine having a leader that is not disciplined enough, talk about sabotage and influence literally. So she is the gatekeeper, but she has a different coffee mug and people walk by and go, “Not today,” because there’s no consistency, there’s no discipline in how you’re talking about from the emotion standpoint. So- 

Mark Cole: Hey Chris, Chris, I know you’re going to ask me a question. We’re going to close out.  

Chris Goede: Yes. 

Mark Cole: But I’m glad you just said what you said. I don’t get Chris on here as often as I would like. I love doing these podcasts with you, Chris. The reason I don’t … one of the reasons I don’t is Chris has the role of leading all of our corporate solutions. He and his team works with companies. And really when I say companies, don’t think big companies, although they do. Don’t even think small companies. Think leaders that have the responsibility of being effective with some or many other people under their responsibility. 

And Chris, you and your team day in and day out work with companies perhaps that have moods like you just described, and some of the most recognized brands in the world. And if you would like Chris and our team to help you as a leader, be more effective with your team, Chris, what do they do? They go to johnmaxwellcompany.com? Tell us how to get to- 

Chris Goede: Yes. Yeah. Just go to johnmaxwellcompany.com and there we have all the information in regards to organizational development, really enhancing your leadership culture and developing leaders. And you can find out more there. On a forum, you can leave us a question. 

Mark Cole: Johnmaxwellcompany.com. You can go to a forum. I just talked earlier about undisciplined, about always knowing the next step, what’s next. The reason John is where he is today, the reason you want to listen to John on this podcast is because he’s always anticipating what do I do with what I learned today?  

Many of you, I just gave you your answer of what do you do next. You need to go fill out a form at johnmaxwellcompany.com and let Chris go to one of his team connect with you on how we can help you be more effective within your team. 

Chris Goede: Yeah. We’d absolutely love to do that.  

Well, as we wrap up Mark, this last point, I want to just throw it to you and then let you close. John has talked a ton, written a ton of books about failure. A matter of fact, Margaret, his wife says that he could probably write five to 10 more, and he’s chosen not to. But he talks about it all the time. That’s what I really love about John when he communicates. It’s so real. And he talks about this process of making sure that it’s not a self-image problem. But he goes on to close talking about courage. 

And I think as leaders, man, to make sure we’re not self-sabotaging, we’ve got to be courageous. When you model courage that it’s okay to do the difficult thing, to do the unpopular thing, to do the untried thing. You challenge us all the time. What are we doing a little bit differently we’ve never done before? What do you have courage to do that? 

I think as leaders, it represents and reveals your value as an individual and communicates your priorities. And so don’t be stopped by failure. And I think John just kind of closes with that. I’d love for you just to comment on that, John’s thoughts around that and then just wrap us up today. 

Mark Cole: Yeah. And you know, I appreciate you asking that. My word this year is actually two words, and it’s strong and courageous. And you use the word courage. And right before we pressed Play to this, we listened to John. And then you and I talked for just a moment. You said, “Mark, I want you to talk a little bit about the courage to keep going that you have used in the last 24 months. COVID, new ownership, new relationship dynamics to John and I and our team. And what has been that courage thing that while many of us have experienced some sort of failure, even if it was unanticipated and many times unaccounted for because of COVID or because of different things.” 

And Chris, I go back to a point that John made in the last episode. This is part two. We’re closing it out today. But in the third self-sabotaging trait that he talked about, he talked about the lack of focus. You know where my source of courage is? You know where my sense of success and my lack of relation to failure comes from? It comes from the focus on my purpose. And leaders, if I could tell you, go to something foundational in your focus, that a bottom line success that sometimes the economic conditions of your culture, your country, your company, does not give you the ability to really control all the dynamics. There’s something greater that we need to be founded on. And it’s the focus of our leadership is what I’m talking about. 

And so I’ve got to tell you, the ups and downs of the last couple of years of leading has been founded on the focus that no matter what the external circumstances are to the culture around me, to the situation, the global pandemic that we’re in, there’s something greater than every bit of that. And that is the focus of my leadership existence. We exist to add value to people who will then go and multiply value to people. 

You know what John says is his greatest excitement about the current realities of our world? He says, he’s leadership sad. And then in the next statement he says, “But I am leadership excited,” because when the stakes are highest, when the chips are down, when the difficulty arises, real leaders step up and lead with courage. They lead better.  

The greatest of adversity displays, reveals the greatest of leaders. History has told us that. History will bear itself out in showing the next generation of great leaders is going to come out of those that have led the last two years with extraordinary courage, with extraordinary resilience, with a commitment to not self-sabotage in the greatest and the most difficult of times. 

And so that’s what today has been about Chris. That’s what last week was about. This is going down very quickly as one of my favorite series that we’ve done on the podcast, because I believe we as leaders have an opportunity to get out of our own way. Not let COVID be all about me, but let it be about our ability to lead, to be salt, to be light, to be bright, and to be brilliant, to be better in the difficult times that we’re living in.  

So, thank you. Thanks for joining us today. Please leave us a comment on your podcast player. Please come back next week. Don’t come alone. Send the link to someone else. Hey, if you’ve not subscribed and you’ve been listening for a little bit of time and you have not signed up and said, “Put me on the list and remind me as soon as the podcast comes out,” please subscribe today. Please pass along. Let us know how we can get better. And until we talk next week, don’t sabotage. Go listen in. And by the way, listen, learn, lead. Let’s transform the world together.