Great Leaders Are Great Teachers (Part 2)

Mark Cole: 

My name is Mark Cole and I’m the CEO of Maxwell Leadership. Today I am super excited because Chris Goede and I will be co-hosting again as we dive into part two of Great Leaders Are Great Teachers. Now, let me say this right at the top, we had a great lesson last week that I will challenge you, at some point, go pick up part one and make it a part of your development. Today, John will continue his lesson on how great leaders and great teachers combine to be impacting and making a difference. Yes, great leaders are really great teachers. 

In this lesson, you’ll learn how to be a better teacher and a guide for the people. Now, as always, we have a bonus resource for you this week. This is a free fill-in-the-blank PDF that accompanies John’s lesson. If you’d like to download that, please visit maxwellpodcast.com/teacher, click the bonus resource button, and take notes as John teaches. 

Now if you’re viewing today or if you would like to view, we absolutely are enjoying our visual community. The podcast family that joins us on YouTube are really making a difference out there with great comments, great feedback. If you would like to be a part of that community, go to maxwellpodcast.com/youtube. You’ll be able to enjoy us there as well. 

Hey, here is John, part two, Great Leaders Are Great Teachers. 

John Maxwell: 

Number three: the third tip to be a great teacher is that students take risk when teachers create a safe environment. In other words, it’s important for you as a leader to create an environment where there’s a sense of security for the person that you’re wanting to develop. And in your notes, learning requires vulnerability. And when the atmosphere and the environment has a vulnerability about it, learning is absorbed very quickly. 

I wrote a book about four or five years ago called Failing Forward, and really it’s this very simple book. It’s a book about how to fail successfully. And I wrote the book because I wanted to help people do it because I made two observations about life. Number one is everybody fails, and number two is nobody likes it. Now you put those two things together, everybody does it, and nobody likes it, and somebody ought to write about it. Because if you’re going to do it every day of your life and you don’t like it, somebody ought to kind of tell you how to do it at least correctly so that it is a growth and development thing in your life. Doesn’t that make sense? 

And so I wrote the book Failing Forward. In fact, I did it on a cruise. Margaret and I went a cruise up in Norway and for about 17 days, looking at the fjords and just having a good time. And I went on the cruise, I said, “Margaret, I’m going to write a book while I’m on vacation.” And so in that relaxed, I wrote the book and I’d throw the stuff at her while I was writing and she’d read it and give me feedback. And she really helps me with a lot of feedback. And in fact, she said, “John, you’re good at this.” And I said, “Why do you think I can do this one so well?” She says, “Because you failed so many times.” She said, “For you, it’s your spiritual gift, I believe.” And I thought, well, and in fact, when I finished, IPR brought the manuscript off the ship and I was ready to take it to my publisher and get the thing out. 

And she said, “John, this is so good.” She said, “You ought to consider doing a series on this. Like book one, book two.” She said, “You’ve got a lot of things you didn’t share in here that you’ve done wrong, and I’ll help bring out some of the stuff that you know done wrong.” One of the things I teach in the failing forward is that when you fall down, while you’re down there, pick something up. In other words, hang around a little bit, clean the floor. You don’t get down there all the time. But what happens is because we hate failure and we fear it and we don’t understand it correctly, what we try to do is get away from it as fast as we can. So we’re up off that floor very fast, we’re buttoning our coat, acting like nothing ever happened to us and nobody ever saw us. 

When everybody in the room says, did you see Maxwell just fall flat on his face over there? I mean, they’ve already been there. They’ve seen that. Here’s what I want you to understand. You never learn from that which embarrasses you rationalize it, you avoid it, you run from it. I can give you 17 things you do, but I’ll tell you what you don’t do. You don’t learn from that which embarrasses you. What am I saying in the context of this lesson? What I’m saying is you’ve got to, as a leader, create a safe environment for people to learn so that they can absorb this stuff so they can fail. In fact, in your notes, and I forgot to tell you, but you probably already filled it out already, we’d never learned from that, which embarrasses us. That’s an absolute truth. Michele Forman, I’m in your notes now, who teaches social studies at Middlebury Union High School in Vermont? 

He said, “Students have to acknowledge what they don’t know, take risk, and rethink what they thought they knew.” That can be very uncomfortable, even scary a situation for anyone. Now, think of what you just said, because this is so true. They have to acknowledge to really learn, you have to acknowledge what they don’t know, take risk and even rethink what they thought they knew. Now, the only way that can happen, the only way that you can have a student say, I don’t know these things, or I’m rethinking some of these things. Some of these things I thought worked aren’t working Now is to have a safe environment to be able to do that. All right, three thoughts quickly that we’ve given three tips. It’s not about you, it’s about them. Study your students. Students take risk when teachers create a safe environment. Number four, great teachers exude passion as well as purpose. 

The difference between, I’m in your notes now between a good teacher and a great one is an expertise. It comes down to passion. Passion for the material, passion for teaching. “The desire is infectious,” says H. Muir, global marketing trainer manager at SC Johnson in Racine, Wisconsin. If the teacher has it, the students will most likely catch it. And I have found that to be true, passion is infectious, it is contagious. Ken Hemphill said, “Vision does not ignite growth.” I love this statement. It’s so true. Vision does not ignite growth. Passion does passion. Fuels vision and vision is the focus of passion. Leaders who are passionate about their work create vision. I believe that with all of my art. I have watched leaders cast vision without passion, and it’s like getting into a great car and there’s no fuel. The good news is you’re in the car. 

The bad news is you’re going nowhere. Remember this passion always makes a way. You show me a person with passion, they’ll get the job done, they’ll just get the job done, they’ll get the job, then they won’t do it. Maybe you did it. They may take three months longer than you, but you give me a person with passion that has a passion to get this thing done and they’ll get it done. In your notes. Vision without passion or I love this statement is a picture without possibilities. When we think of creating vision, we think of creating clear picture, how true that is. But when you have vision without passion, all you add is a picture without any possibility of ever getting there. So what’s the process for building a fire of passion? Number one, you’ve got to ask yourself the following questions. Number one, do I believe it? 

If you don’t believe it as a leader, don’t try to transport it. I mean, it’s impossible to transport something that you don’t internally buy into. Number two, has it changed me? Now I can promise you if you believe it and if it’s changed, you already have the seed bed for great passion. Number three, do I believe it will change others? In other words, it changed me and I believe it can be transferred to others and it’ll change them to make them better. And number four, have I seen it change others? Now, when you can say yes to those four things, I believe it. It’s changed me. I believe it’ll change others. And yes, I know it changes others because I’ve seen it change others. Now, when you have those four things working for you, you are going to be one fireball out there passing on leadership and vision because it, you’ve felt it, you’ve witnessed it, you’ve seen it. Do it in others. You know what it’ll do for others. This is where all that whole foundation of passion begins. It’s very simple. If you want to be a great teacher, great communicator, great leader, you exude passion. 

Maxwell Leadership Growth Plan: 

Hey, before we jump into today’s content, let’s talk about time. I want you to think of task that still your time. You know the things that keep you busy, but they’re just not necessarily the best use of your time, are the most productive for you. Maybe it’s your inbox. Maybe it’s the management of your inbox, the thought of your inbox, the management of your back. Maybe it’s managing your calendar or processing payroll. Now, what if I told you that delegating those tasks, saying no to those tasks, could help you reclaim an average of 15 hours every week so that you can say yes to the things you love, the things you’re gifted at, the things you need to be doing. Does this sound too good to be true? It’s not. All it takes is focusing on your strengths and delegating your weaknesses. That’s where our friends at Belay can help. 

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Mark Cole: 

Hey, welcome back Chris, to get you back, we had to stay in studio for part two. That’s right, just to get you back’s. So for all of you YouTube viewers, yes, that’s the save shirt. Chris stayed for an extra session today to do part two. 

Chris Goede: 

I think really what happened was he saw the great content that John had for us today, and he knows that you and I don’t stay on time. And so he said, “Well, instead of this being one lesson, we better break it up too.” So he just cut us, cut in half. What I love about where John’s taken us and even your comments as we opened up today in today’s lesson is use the word guide. And John’s used it before too. And as a leader, that’s so much of what we ought to be. Not only guiding them professionally, but also personally we believe in that, but also helping guide them to learn to be developed, to facilitate conversations and situations. And so this is again, like Mark said, if you did not listen to part one, I want to encourage you to do that because there’s some really good content in points one and two in part one today, in part three, three, John, John jumps right in and he talks about, and this is so true for all of us, I know even internally as he was teaching this and you and I were sitting here taking notes, I go, “Oh yeah, no, I want to be in a safe environment.” 

Especially coming through what we’ve experienced over the last couple of years. So many people want to be, they want to be heard, they want to make sure they’re seen, they want to be in a safe place for many reasons. But as a leader, we want to be able to create that around content, around what we’re facilitating, around what they’re learning, around what we’re learning. And I’ve seen you do this many times, leaders go first and one of the first things you do when we’re learning something new or you’re teaching us something new is like, Hey, let me tell you where I messed this up and this is what I learned from it. And you almost kind of just take our walls down. You go, “Man, okay, so we’re going to leave. We’re going to go after this,” inside the organization, personally or professionally. And it’s okay if we mess up because you went first and you lowered that walls for us. Talk a little bit about how you create that environment in our team as a leader of teaching, of communicating, facilitating things that are adding value to us, but giving us permission to experiment to try to fail. Talk a little bit about that from your leadership lens. 

Mark Cole: 

Every podcast, some of you may know this, you’ve picked up on it by now. We kind of put a standout statement before every podcast and it’s just kind of the overarching thesis of what we’re trying to drive. And today’s as great teachers don’t teach, they inspire. And I think the biggest thing for me is when I am assessing a difficult conversation or a particularly challenging time in my leadership, or perhaps one of the greatest accomplishments I’ve ever had professionally, one of my desires is with my passion, we’ll talk a little bit more about that later, but is to use inspiration to get others believing that they too can experience success. That they too can get through this difficult time that they too have the ability to move in a direction that is positive in its nature. And I think going back, Chris, to your, you asking me, oh, okay, so what are we talking about here? 

When teachers take risk, when teachers create a safe environment? So how do you create the safe environment? How do you create a place to inspire back to our thesis? And I am constantly assessing myself as a leader, more on inspiration than I am on content. Now, I haven’t forgotten those of you that have been following John for years as I have not forgotten the difference between a motivational teacher and a motivational speaker. That’s right. We know this. A motivational teacher takes something comp a simple and makes it complicated, right? Sorry for all your teachers out there. A motivational teacher speaker rather actually takes things that are complicated and makes it simple. That’s good. And so what you and I need to realize is leaders and all of our podcast listeners is we have a responsibility to create the environment for which we want to teach or for which we want to take people on a journey with us. 

I was reminded, I was talking about this before as we just kind of put some prep thoughts together. I was reminded of a complete leadership colossal mess up that I had recently. I mean just absolutely it dotted the eye on everything a leader could do to mess up. Now, I have to tell you, in podcast land that Jake, our producer, and Jared, our content vice president here in both of them are in the studio and they keep caution to me not to keep being vulnerable. They say, I’ve been too vulnerable lately. They don’t like vulnerability. They like polish and faking things out. And I’m just kidding. I’m giving them a hard time because they said we were talking about something else and they did that. But I’m getting ready to be vulnerable with you again. So Jake, shut your ears. I’m in this meeting. I’ve got brand new team members. 

In fact, the meeting we’re merging two companies. The meeting was literally half and half existing people that have worked with me for years and people that this was literally their first meeting ever with me. Okay, get the picture. I’ve got people that know me at the heart level. They have watched me stumble and fumble and mess up hundreds of times and come back and be authentic like I’m trying to be now. And then we have other people that the jury is out if this redheaded guy is going to even be worth listening to, much less following. In this meeting, I had an individual that is working, that I’m working with to develop their leadership acumen there. There’s a passion that they have to lead at this level and a realization that they’ve got a gap to close. So we are working on it and I’m doing this and I’m pulling no punches. 

Sometimes I go, “Hey, that was a really bad move,” and then I move on. Trusting the relational equity that we have. You have, yeah, this particular leader decided in the middle of a very important meeting to go off point with my agenda just completely off point. No harm, no foul. That happens hundreds of times. Chris, you probably in that same meeting did it, but I’m not working with you the same level for the same reason. Right? In this moment I realized that they had created a challenge for something that I had been working with them one on one and I decided to highlight it in front of everybody. The infraction they made to leadership awareness. Now was I right? Yes. The leadership awareness was not there. I was trying to take the meeting here. They went there and they did it publicly. And I could have handled it 53 different ways. 

The way I chose to handle it was call them out in front of everybody. Their people. Yeah, new people. This is a very prominent person that was a champion for me in this room that I completely embarrassed. Now let’s go back to what John says. We never learn from that which embarrasses us. Number one, I devalued another human being. That’s right. That’s right. Let’s just call a party file there against our very values. Number two, if my mental thought at that moment was to teach them how off that was, I can never teach somebody from a place of embarrassment. And as a leader, we’ve got to always make sure that there are some lessons that need to be learned one on one and very few lessons that need to be learned by one in front of many. That’s good because it creates an embarrassing situation. And no lesson is transferred in an embarrassing situation. 

Chris Goede: 

Yeah, I am smiling not because the situation was not serious, because it is. I’m smiling because man I’ve found myself there before. And the way that we can immediately disconnect with our people, John talks about connecting with our people to be able to teach them to facilitate kind is to embarrass. You want disconnect with someone on your team, then go ahead and some That’s exactly right. And I’ll tell you this, I have a tendency at times, and Joel Manby kind of hits this, one of our incredible thought leaders, talks about it a lot, never ever is there a reason to make a joke in a meeting, in a group setting at someone else’s expense, even if you’re not making a point. Because what does that do? That draws attention to them and embarrasses him. So man, that’s such a good point. When you were facilitating content, you were teaching, you were opening up the room for a certain situation and it happened, but what love about it that you didn’t share was immediately after the meeting. 

Mark Cole: 

I apologize. 

Chris Goede: 

Yeah, absolutely. And that’s okay, right, that you did. That is awesome to be able to go first, just like I talked about. So you made that mistake. One of the things that I think about is because we’ve been around facilitation of content for so long, is that there are tips, there are techniques, there are different personalities that are going to be in a room. You knew his personality and it didn’t surprise you. Matter of fact, you just reacted. I did. You weren’t surprised by it, but you reacted. And so one of the things that we’ve done in helping leaders with content, but more importantly is to facilitate it, is to make sure you’re aware of what are the competencies to facilitate a great meeting, great content. What are some of the tips to stay away from? What are some of the techniques to open up the room? 

All those things. We’ve just been blessed to be around for so many years of content, seeing John do it and our facilitators. And so we worked through that and we talked about this on part one. We did, we want you to go back and listen to it if you didn’t listen to it. We talked about Mark’s vision, John’s vision starting a facilitator program for those that are in communities and are leaders inside the organizations that want to add value. And if that’s you, maybe you don’t have time to go listen to session one, we won’t be offended. But I want to encourage you to do that. I want to encourage you to go to maxwellpodcast.com/facilitator, fill out the form there and we’ll love to share more information with you. But I only share that right there because one of the lessons that we’ve taught Perry, Holly and I on video, was how to make sure you create a safe environment so that everybody, your goal is to bring the brilliance out in the room and that’s what you were trying to do. And you may have stifled it for a little bit right there because of that comment. And we all fall into that and we want to be able to help you with that. If you’re listening to us, 

Mark Cole: 

For all of us that really want to better our environments and improve people along the way as well as grow our influence, there is an art to creating, creating safe environments to facilitating, to use your word. There is an art to that. I think back, and this is one of the things that we teach in this program, I’m so glad that you re mentioned that last this week, what we talked about last week. But there is an art that I’ve watched John do that people think that he’s on stage speaking to 10,000 people, 5,000 people, 250 people. He is really facilitating a safe environment to where more people at different levels of leadership can listen to a Maxwell lesson and apply it to their level than any other communicator out there. Why creates a safe environment? Yeah, it’s okay to feel the weight of the world with multimillion dollar companies on my shoulder. And it’s okay to be an entry level, tell a sales representative like I was at the beginning. Both can listen to a lesson and begin that leadership journey because John just really truly creates the safe environment. 

Chris Goede: 

I want to bring up a point that you just brought back to my memory. So you and I had the privilege of being at one of our favorite events every year in exchange just a couple months ago. And you and I were in a meeting prior to that and we had planned an activity that a lot of people had a lot of angst about and maybe even embarrassed to say, I don’t want to do that. I’m fearful of what could come of that. All these questions that they would’ve been embarrassed about. And so you and John helped coach me through how to create a safe environment as we opened up the day and the meeting. And so I’ll never forget this recap that I had with John. You were not there yet. You were coming in later that evening. And so I talked to John after I had had that meeting and used some of your coaching and John’s coaching on what to communicate to create this safe environment. 

And he said something to me, gave me a lot of great compliments. But he said… I asked him, I said, “What is one thing you would’ve done differently?” And he said, “That’s a good question.” He said, “What I would’ve done was I would’ve just said, ‘You know what? I feel that way, too.'” Hey, I’ve been concerned about admitting that maybe I am a little fearful of this activity. And just to be able to sit back in it with them that way they don’t feel embarrassed for admitting, because he said, “What do they do?” As soon as you go, “Hey, I was a little concerned about this,” they all go, “Oh yeah, me too,” and they’re not embarrassed to be able to do that. And he just has you. You’re so right. He has so many techniques and tips that he uses to create, not just when he is leading our team, because he facilitates conversation, best ideas, win, all that stuff. But when he is talking to a crowd, and I wasn’t necessarily 200 people in the room, I wasn’t asking to facilitate a conversation, but he was helping me understand how he facilitates that conversation to create a safe environment. 

Mark Cole: 

Well, and just to put a loop on that, it was an experience with the Navy seal. Yeah, yeah. Special ops of the military. And it was an exercise early morning on the beach in San Diego in what was the coldest day of 2022. 

Chris Goede: 

So bad. 

Mark Cole: 

There were every dynamic that we gave. And Chris, the way that you did create a safe environment, number 100% of the 150 people showed up to be in that environment. And I’d already had phone calls for weeks saying, I’m not going to show up with that. I’m not show up with that. You created an environment to where everybody showed up. Not only that, everyone had a takeaway and everybody considered that one of their top experiences of a three day event because we intentionally created a safe environment for that. That’s a brilliant illustration under this point that you can make the most audacious challenge. The challenge that people that have been coming to exchange for years was dreading this more than anything I’d ever heard in 

Chris Goede: 

Feedback. 

Mark Cole: 

And yet we created very, with great intentionality, an environment to where people felt safe enough to 

Chris Goede: 

Take a risk, participate 

Mark Cole: 

And 

Chris Goede: 

Loved it, take a risk, and then they ended up learning something from us. So it just came to mind when you were saying that I wanted to share it with our audience. All right, let’s move on to what could be our, our most passionate discussion. Yes. In regards with you and I are having this conversation. So John talks about in 0.4 that you have to exude passion as well as purpose. We talked about you got to do it in a way of being very authentic to how you’re wired. And yet at the same point in time, you got to manage that a little bit because some of us may come across with a little bit of too much passion. Talk about when you hear John teach this principle, you teach with passion, it’s in you, right? And I think it’s in you because you’re a product of the product you believe. John talks about it here in these last four points of point number four. Everything there aligns directly with where you’re at as a leader. Talk a little bit about how you manage that passion of yours when you’re teaching and facilitating content with people and our teams. 

Mark Cole: 

Well, number one, let me say this. You asked what did I think or how did I feel when John was teaching that I went, yes, touchdown. That’s right. In fact, I thought about three recent occasions that John has told me to modify my tempo and emotion from stage to be a little bit more effective. And I thought about capturing my notes for all of you on watching on YouTube. I print out the notes at the bonus resource section as well. And so I thought, I’ve circled it because I’ve got to go show John that I still can be passionate. Yeah, that’s right. So number one, the first thing I did was like, yes, it’s my best birthday present ever. But I’ll tell you this, I still stand by what I told you right before we started recording. After we listen to John as a highly passionate person, you do the values card exercise with clients all over. 

When I did that, one of my top five values is passion. Growth is another one. Passion is everything to me. If I can’t get excited about it, nobody wants to be around me. Trust me, I’m a boring person. But if I can get excited about what I’m doing, it overcomes me. Well, what that means is when I’m passionate about something that we need to do and we’re not measuring up, we’re coming up short, something happens, something’s a distraction. My passion is portrayed as intensity and it’s it. We had Liz Wiseman on here this year and Liz talks about the book, in the book Maximizer about a passion that can also be a maximizer. Strength can be a minimizer liability. And that’s certainly true for me under passion. I mean, I’ve had people that worked alongside me, nobody works for me but worked alongside me for 10 years, 15 years that I’ll get passionate about something. 

It comes across to them as intensity. And they’ll go, “Is something wrong with me? Are you mad at me? Is something wrong?” I’m going, “Have we not worked long enough together that I would tell you if I’m displeased. If I’m not, I’m frustrated. No, I got to get there.” Even those closest to you can misread passion if you’re not aware of your audience. That’s why John says great teachers exude passion as well as purpose. And there’s sometimes that I really am frustrated with where we are because my passion is so strong. If I don’t give purpose to the frustration, if I don’t slow down and give context to why my frustration is there, it will be received as displeasure, as demeaning, as unhappy as you name it. Terminal negative. Yeah. Yeah. Everything that you can imagine if I don’t slow down and couple my passion with purpose. 

So when I am frustrated, I always tell myself, mark, give context on why this is frustrating. It’s slower for some, I’ve seen some people go, “Oh my gosh, can you get to the point?” I already know there’s a hammer coming, but can you get to the point? And I always have to discipline myself, slow your passion down in moments of frustration or shortfall and give context before you emulate passion because it’ll be taken as intensity. I love my passion. I wouldn’t trade anything for it. I love it. I love growth. That’s another high value of mine. I wouldn’t trade those things. They are the things that make me unique. But being wise with those are a difference maker in the two points today. Point number one, create a SAP environment. Point number two, do it with purpose. Don’t just be passionate with purpose, without purpose because then you’re just a fanatic. And we all know what fans are, right? They’re fanatics with no sense of reality. And so I don’t want to have no sense of reality in the things that I am passionate about because then I become a fanatic. 

Chris Goede: 

I And I knew exactly almost every word that you were going to just, we’ve worked together for a long time. And I think there’s also the other side of that as we’re kind of wrapping up, I want to talk about the other side of it because people hear about your passion all the time. And one of the things that we’re learning in organizational development and the companies we’re working with is that one of the top, probably top four reasons people stay at organizations or join organizations is because there’s meaningful work. And with that is the purpose side of things. And so what I want to just challenge our listeners or our viewers that are joining us today is that maybe you feel like you’re not as passionate. That would be me, right? I communicate in a different way. I don’t have as much passion as Mark does, but the purpose, we are directly aligned in the purpose of what we do. 

So at times I’ve got to recognize that and I have to ramp up my passion so that it communicates everything that John talks about here in these four points at the bottom right. Do I believe it? 100%. Has it changed me? Yes. Do I believe it will change others? Absolutely. And have I seen it change others every single day in what we get to do? And if that’s the case, then I’ve got to, maybe I got to up my passion a little bit so that it aligns with how big the purpose is. And oh by the way, we want our team or those that we’re facilitating content or leading teaching, we want them to buy in and understand we have meaningful work, it’s got to come from us. And so there’s other side of that that I just wanted to share with you in regards to that because you are always very vulnerable and sharing kind of where you’re at. But also there’s another side to that and I want our listeners to be aware of that because you have to manage that. It’s got to be a balance. 

Mark Cole: 

You do. It’s why charismatic leaders, we’ve heard of the charisma of a leader. The charismatic leader draws people in and challenges them and inspires them and they get to moving. And you’ve got to have the purpose behind the charisma. But let me tell you this, you’ve got to have charisma behind the purpose too, which is what you’re saying. Yes. Yes. And so a great charismatic leader a lot of times fizzles out because they’re just up for the height, they’re just up for the moment, they’re just up for the excitement. And then the purpose does not sustain them beyond the inspiration. It doesn’t sustain them through a change, right? Through something difficult, right? Yet at the same time, I’m glad you brought this up, I’ve seen a lot of people with great purpose, not able to mobilize anybody because they can’t find within them the charisma, the passion, the ability to draw people in to their purpose. 

And I would challenge you, I would challenge all of our podcast listeners to not call passion personality trait. Don’t say I’m introverted, I don’t show my passion. No, that’s an excuse because you are passionate. Just maybe you’re passionate about your alone time. Maybe you’re passionate about just having some me time with your family or not even with your family. You get passionate find within you. And John’s given us great places to find the process of building fire and building passion. You said it, but let me say it again. Do I believe it? Is it core to who I am? Has it changed me? Truly? Has it changed you? And don’t just answer that with a quick check. How did it change you? Because when you find how it changed you, you’ll find the way to passionately communicate. That’s good. The impact of it. That’s good. 

So I love this question. I’m not taking away from John at all. Has it changed you? But go with just one step further. That’s good. And when you realize that how, oh, now I can stand in front of people and talk about how this has made a difference in my life. Do I believe it will change others? Was it just a personal thing or were you giving this opportunity or this change for the benefit of others? And then finally, have I seen it change others? And when I can see the multiplier effect of change that happened in my life first and then others, it truly is fuel to me. I’m ready to go challenge some of the people with it. 

Chris Goede: 

What I love about this and what you were just talking about is when you go through and really answer these four questions and to your point, go deep on each one of the questions out of that is going to come the authentic reason 

And your authentic passion and your authentic purpose, all the, because if you dig into these, it’s going to give you real life examples. I’m throw it back to you to let you close up. Well there’s one quote I want to share this two part lesson that Mark and I covered for you, Great Leaders Are Great Teachers. What a great lesson. It was from John and I saw this quote that I just want to share as we kind of wrap up and throw it back to you. It was by Jack Welch and he said, as a leader you have to have a teachable point of view, you have to have one. So we’re talking about passion. What a great quote to kind of wrap up with saying you’ve got to have a point of view, you have to have something you’re willing to come and teach. And when you do that, all four points that John gave us over these two lessons will absolutely just come out of you. They’ll live out authentically as you lead your team or communicate to your team. 

Mark Cole: 

We talked about this on both lessons and I’m going to bring it back up here because I’ll put it in the show notes. But we talked about this idea of facilitating of really, and I know it’s great, leaders are great teachers, but it could have been Great Leaders Are Great Facilitators. Sure. Because so much of what we do is visible it, or excuse me, so much of the change that we have in others is a visual implication or a vis visual opportunity for people to see that change. And so for all of us that are wanting to better our game, better our leadership game better, our teaching game better, our facilitating lane, get into a community, get into a disciplined approach. And as we kind of launch into 2023, my challenge to all of us is to learn to be a better teacher. Now you can call that a coach, you can call that a communicator, you can call that a facilitator, but be a better demonstrator of what That’s great works. 

That’s great. And that’s the challenge. In fact, if you would like to know more about our facilitation program, some of you, this is your first podcast you’ve ever listened to. We mention this last in part one, go to maxwellpodcast.com/facilitator, we’ll give you more information on how we can come alongside you and help you as you better yourself, increase your chances to influence in an organization and better your influence in the organization. Hey, I want to close today with a listener comment, it’s Paula. Paula is from Columbia. And so she says, “Mark, hi. I listen to you guys all the way from Columbia,” then she sends the beautiful flag. Thank you, Paula, for the emoji flag. She said, “I can’t thank God enough for showing me John Maxwell’s books.” And this particular podcast I’m currently reading Intentional Living and the 21 Laws. I’m at the beginning steps and really looking forward to traveling to a live conference in 2023. 

Paula, when you come to the live conference, come find me. I want to meet you in person. In fact, we’re going to all benefit from Paula today. I want to take and put in the show notes, the book Intentional Living and 21 Laws. And as you launch into 2023, let’s join Paula as we read Intentional Living and 21 Laws. And in fact, we’ll give you a 15% discount in honor of Paula. So go to maxwellpodcast.com, go to the link in our show notes. Hey, let’s use the promo code Colombia. Now for those of you from the south like me, that’s C-O-L-O-M-B-I-A. C-O-L-O-M-B-I-A is the code that you can get 15% off. And we’ll join you, Paula, and I’ll see you in 2023 at an event. Paula, thanks to all of you. Hey, go create some powerful positive change because everyone deserves to be led well.