A Leader’s Greatest Enemy

Mark Cole:
Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership podcast. This is the podcast that adds value to leaders who multiply value to others. My name is Mark Cole, and today John Maxwell is going to teach you a lesson on the leader’s greatest enemy, which, by the way, is pride. After John is done with the lesson, Traci Morrow and I will dig even deeper into John’s lesson and really offer some ways that you can apply. Really, we all can apply these principles to our own life and our own leadership. If you’d like to watch this episode on YouTube or download the free bonus resource for this episode, just visit maxwellpodcast.com/pride. Now grab your pen and paper, get ready to learn and be challenged to stay away from the greatest enemy of a leader. Here is John Maxwell.

John Maxwell:
Pride a leader’s greatest problem sometimes when people think, well, if I don’t have any pride, then I’m going to be a doormat. People are going to walk over. I mean, we’re not talking about that at all. We’re talking about an ability to assess yourself in such a way that you pass on credit to others, check your ego at the door, value the people around you and at the same sense, have a great passion to grow and build your business. And in your notes, there are two kinds of pride. There’s a good pride, which is reflected in dignity, respect and honor. And then there’s what I would call a bad pride, which it turns into conceit and arrogance and independence. And when you look at the word pride, notice the middle letter is I.

John Maxwell:
And when you’re full of pride on the inside, it makes you stiff, stubborn and create strife with others. You see, envy is the deadly sin of inferiority. You show me a person that feels inferior, and I’ll show you a person that’s life is full of envy. Pride is the deadly sin of superiority. A person who thinks that what they are doing or who they are somehow makes them better than others. In fact, I define pride in your notes basically by saying it’s an inordinate self esteem, conceit, arrogance and disdain. So let’s talk about the problems of pride. There are several of them, and some of them I think you’re going to pick up very quickly.

John Maxwell:
Some of them perhaps will give you a little bit of new insight. But let’s talk about what happens when a leader has too much pride. Number one, pride stops us from building a team. I have never known a highly prideful person that ever wanted to build a team around them. In fact, in my winning with people book, one of the people principles is in your notes, the big picture principle and a big picture principle says the entire population of the world, with one minor exception, is composed of others. You see, in the laws of teamwork, one of the laws is the law of significance. And you know what the law of significance says? The law of significance says one is too small a number to achieve greatness. The second problem with pride in a leader’s life is that pride renders us unteachable.

John Maxwell:
I’ve never known a proud person that was a great student. I’ve never known a proud student that was a learner. I’ve never known a proud person that asks a lot of questions. I’ve never known a proud person who would walk and say, could you help me? Could you teach me? I don’t understand. Could you explain this to me? In your notes, your pride tells you that you know it all. Unless you don’t commit to personal growth, there’s always something better to do with your time and money. And since your ego convinces you that you’ve arrived and have all the answers, who needs business books or seminars? Can I tell you something? You’re in great trouble when you think that you’re at the head of a class again. I love the expression of John Wudden.

John Maxwell:
It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts. In other words, pride so many times keeps us from growing and learning and causes us to be unteachable. Number three. The third problem with pride is that it closes our mind to feedback. Stephen Covey says, it takes humility to seek feedback. It takes wisdom to understand it, analyze it, and appropriately act on it. Stay in your notes. Honest feedback on your performance is difficult to come by when you are the leader.

John Maxwell:
People with pride won’t ask for feedback. In fact, here’s what I tell my team. I tell my team all the time. Often I’m going to make mistakes. Catch me on the front end. And if you think I’m going to do something that isn’t wise, tell me on the front end. Say, John, are you sure you want to do that? I said, the last thing I need is for somebody to let me go do something stupid. And then when I come back, they say, well, you know, I thought that was a dumb idea.

John Maxwell:
I don’t need somebody into history. I need somebody into current events. Help me now. Tell me on the front end. Don’t tell me on the back end. Okay. Number four. In the area of the problems of pride, number four, pride prevents us from admitting mistakes.

John Maxwell:
Have you ever known a prideful person? They just don’t say, I blew it. I was wrong. And in your notes, I talk about the fact that when people fail, they generally respond in one or more of the following ways. In other words, when somebody fails, somebody makes a mistake, here’s how they usually respond. Some blow up. We’ve known that. Some people that make mistakes, they just get mad and blow up. And then some cover up.

John Maxwell:
They just, you know, they just said, let’s act like it didn’t happen. And then there are those who speed up. They think the quickest way to get away from a problem is to speed away from it. If you can leave the scene of the accident. And then there are those who back up when they have a failure or problem. They just back up. Oh, my goodness. And then there are those.

John Maxwell:
This is tragic. There are those who give up. Seldom does somebody confess up. Seldom does a person say, look, I’m the problem. I’m the individual that really created the problem. When you and I fail or when we blow it or we make a mistake, we either learn from that failure or we leave that failure. In other words, we either hang around the failure long enough to say, okay, I did something wrong. It didn’t work out.

John Maxwell:
What did I do wrong? I got to figure this thing out. I got to fix it. We either learn from that failure, or we panic and say, oh, my goodness. I got to get out of here. This was not good thing, and we leave it. Here’s what I’ve discovered. If we leave our failure, we don’t learn from our failure. And if we learn from our failure, we seldom have to leave our failure.

John Maxwell:
And people with pride, they’ll cover up, they’ll speed up, they’ll back up, they’ll do everything but confess up. And because they won’t stay there long enough to learn what they have done wrong and admit it, Solomon, can they fix it? Number five, pride keeps us from making changes. I have never known a proud person that was easy and flexible and ready to change. In your notes, pride will cause you to pledge allegiance to the status quo rather than be open to change, especially if the change alters something that you put into place. Since you have more emotional equity in the way things are, you’ll justify living with them rather than changing them. In fact, I love the statement I have in your notes. Blessed are the flexible, for they rarely get bent out of shape. Prideful people are not flexible.

John Maxwell:
Number six, pride encourages poor character choices. You show me a person with pride, and often I will show you somebody that, in the area of character, makes bad choices because of arrogance, ignorance, or a little of both, leaders start taking shortcuts that compromise their values in their conceit, they think that they’re above the rules or too smart to get caught. Number seven, pride hinders us from reaching our potential. Many times, pride is the great lid upon a person’s leadership potential. Hank Aaron, the greatest home run hitter ever in american and National League baseball in the States, said in his book, I had a hammer. His nickname is Hammer Hank Aaron because all the home runs he hammered out, he said, dad always said you could fall off the same ladder that you climbed up on. In other words, the very thing that brings you success could also bring you failure. Number eight.

John Maxwell:
About pride. Number eight, pride destroys relationships. The opposite of loving others is not hating them, but rather being self centered. Again, another people principle is the celebration principle. Senior notes and says the true test of relationships is not how loyal we are when friends fail, but how thrilled we are when they succeed. Average people don’t want others to go beyond average. Average people wants to keep everyone average and prideful people always want to be first. Number nine.

John Maxwell:
The 9th problem with pride is pride distorts your perspective of reality. Charles Towns said, it’s like the beaver who told the rabbit as they stared up an immense wall at Hoover Dam. No, I didn’t actually build it myself, but it was based on an idea of mine. How do we correct the pride problem? Number one, recognize your pride today. Number two, admit your pride today. Not only recognize it, but admit it. Number three, express your gratitude today. Number four, practice servanthood today, because a great man is always willing to be little.

John Maxwell:
And finally, number five, laugh at yourself today. If you really want to get rid of the pride, is you just laugh at yourself. Well, I think the lesson is a very simple lesson. It’s one on pride. And I would just have to say to you that when I do lessons like this, I don’t do them as if I’m trying to teach you. I do them as if I’m trying to apply it to myself, because I would be the first to admit way too much in my life. Pride is an issue, and I think us being aware of it, recognizing it, and admitting it is very important, because if we do those three things, we’re willing to make the changes that we should make. And when you really kind of bring it down to its essence.

John Maxwell:
In closing this lesson today, it’s very simple. When we live and when we die, when our life is over, we will only be known for the value we added to others, not the value we added for ourselves and life is that way that when I care and give and share and live and love and pass on to others, when I am a river instead of a reservoir, the return is enormous. But the moment that I try to hold on to what is mine and claim it and keep it for myself, or as I said one time, the difference between success and significance is success is when I just live for myself and build up my own empire. But significance is when I realize that what I have built is not for me, but it’s for others. And then out of the overflow, I pass it on to others and add value to them. That is where I think significance and joy really comes. And this is a lesson to help all of us again become the significant person we want to become and add value to the people around us.

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Mark Cole:
Hey, welcome back, Traci. I always look forward to podcasts with you, but today, just listening this with John and knowing success that you’ve had in your life and building businesses and being sought after as a speaker on stages a lot, I’m so glad to be talking about this enemy of a leader pride with you. I think, in my opinion, I think you got some things worked out on this. I really do don’t pridefully agree or you will disrupt everything that I’m saying. Don’t do that. But I really do think that. I think John has, and so many times leaders have the opportunity with great success to forget the dangers of embracing pride. So I really am looking forward to it.

Mark Cole:
I was reminded of a CS Lewis quote that says, a proud man is always looking down on things and people. And of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you. And I think that’s a great reminder that looking down from a place of pride does not let you look up to a place of humility. So excited to be here with you today.

Traci Morrow:
I am excited to be here, too. Thank you so much for those kind words. I believe the same about you and have all the respect for you and your humility as a leader. I love that. And it makes it easy to follow a leader who is humble. But we’re going to dive into kind of the opposite of that and hopefully check ourselves, check our organization and maybe put some safety bumpers in place so that we can all be checking ourselves together. So let’s go to the notes right away. One of the first things I was curious about as I was looking at these, and I’m certain that some others are as well because I hope as we’re listening to John talk about this, first of all, we are always looking at ourselves.

Traci Morrow:
It is so easy to immediately think about our team, about the people around us and think, oh, you know what? Who should be listening to this? You know, who should be hearing this message today? I’m going to forward this to them. But really we need to be honest and think, okay, how am I doing in this area? And I was just curious, Mark, do you think that pride as a CEO, in the hiring places, in the different levels that you’ve had in Maxwell leadership over the years, do you think that pride is a hiring block for you? Is that something that you see that you think, oh, that’s something that I can work with, or is that something that you right away go, oh, that’s going to be a detriment to the team. And that right away is something that I say, no, I just can’t work with that?

Mark Cole:
Yeah. You know, it’s interesting. If you’d asked me that two, two months ago, two years ago maybe a better thing. It’s a complete turnoff to me because it still is. It’s a complete turnoff to me personally. It’s a professional turn off for me to see that in leaders there is a swag, a ego that comes with great producers, that I have worked in seasons of great productivity. I’ve worked in seasons with low productivity. And I’ll tell you what I would consider.

Mark Cole:
I do not like a prideful person, work hard at staying away from that. But what I look for more than whether there’s a lot of pride or not is coachability. Because if I can get someone, even with pride, that will stay coachable. And John talks a little bit about people filled with pride have very little openness to change or openness to input. But when I miss that coachability, then I can more quickly determine whether it’s pride or ego that I’m dealing with because I have hired some people that I blamed it on ego and it was pride. And I’ve not hired some people that I thought was pride and it was really a little bit of ego, a little bit of confidence. And so I’m looking for the determiner between coachability and I found people that are not coachable. There is a great level of pride there.

Mark Cole:
People that are very confident almost have this swag of an ego. If they’re still coachable, then I have found that there’s still someone that we can make use and work with on the team. As long as it’s not this prideful thing.

Traci Morrow:
That really is part number three where we’re talking about feedback and we can get there in just a minute. But I feel like number one and number two, when he talks about pride. So one of the things he says, when he’s talking about two kinds of pride, he says there’s good pride where you feel confident in yourself and that you want that in a leader and somebody on your team where they feel good about themselves and they feel confident what they can do. But there’s a humility that can come with it, that they are coachable, what you just talked about. But then there’s the bad pride where he talks about conceit and arrogance, and it’s all about themselves and their independence. They aren’t really a good team player. I heard a saying a long time ago, and it has always stuck with me, that gives me compassion, actually, where pride can kind of repel a person. But I want to have compassion.

Traci Morrow:
I work to have compassion for people. And this saying really helps it and hopefully it will help our listeners. But it says pride and arrogance is insecurity worn inside out. So it actually is, while it looks like they’re puffing themselves out, that it’s actually a truly, truly confident person doesn’t need to lead with puffing themselves up to people. If you’re truly settled with yourself, you don’t need to lead with that. So if you are leading with puffing yourself up, then it’s really, that’s a sign of an insecurity that you’re having to lead with that. And that always gives me such a compassion for people who are doing that. And I felt like the problems of pride, where he talks about, you know, it stops us from building a team and it renders us unteachable.

Traci Morrow:
I feel like if you’re hiring somebody, if you’re bringing a team member in very quickly. Those two things show up very quickly even in an interview. But I feel like, do you weed team members out pretty quickly if you feel like they can’t build a team and they’re unteachable because it means they’re not coachable. But if somebody is listening to this, before we get to three and we talk about feedback and coachability, if someone is listening to this and they’re saying, oh my goodness, this is me. Because John talks about blind spots all the time. And this episode, I feel like really is a revealer of a blind spot for people that you don’t know. You’re prideful until you hear about the symptoms of pride. And then you might be listening and thinking, gosh, this is, this is me.

Traci Morrow:
I haven’t been growing. I haven’t been growth oriented. I’ve been stuck in, this is how I am, take me or leave me. I know the way it is. I’ve had great success. You should listen to me. And then you hear this checklist and you might be thinking, gosh, this is me. Where would you recommend somebody who was listening in all of the content that we have from John? What would be a great first step to somebody who might be at a little bit internal crisis right now, who’s listening and thinking, what should be my first step after listening to this podcast? The first step they take on a growth journey to overcome their pride or to start working on themselves to take that first step in growth.

Mark Cole:
Well, for me, it’s always in things like pride or self confidence or even, I think a form of pride is when some of us, I’m certainly like this, we’re harder on ourself than we should be. We beat ourselves up. I think that’s rooted in some similar tendencies, that pride is rooted into this self. You know, you just really are tough on yourself, the self esteem thing, and we can perhaps talk about that a little bit more later. But in response to your question, I have found in most things like pride, that they are rooted in a lack of self awareness, that people don’t have clarity in who they are or what they’re coming, that they’re not coming across the way that they would like to come across. In other words, they’ve got blind spots. And so if I were really convicted by multiple categories that John talked about today, multiple these points, I would really go to a safe relationship environment and I would say, hey, I really feel like I’m struggling with this. Would you agree? Hopefully it’s safe enough that if there is agreement that they can say that, not just tell you what you want to hear, and then I would make myself accountable to them in these areas of pride.

Mark Cole:
Now, that’s going to be the hardest step. So I’m giving you the hardest step for the first step, because a prideful person, the last thing they want to be told is you’re being prideful. But if you really sense that you are having some challenges with this, there’s a chance you’re not overly, you’re not as prideful as you think you are because you have a sense of openness to what John’s saying. Most pride filled people would listen to this and go, oh, I can tell you who has that problem. I can tell you has that problem. And they don’t have one moment to pause and say, oh, this one applies to me. That’s the people that I’m struggling with. But they’re not asking the question.

Mark Cole:
You’re asking, what do I need to do next? They’re going, what does the next person need to do next? And so, and so. But if you really see some areas that you really think is causing you problems and paralyzing your results because of pride, I work that out in a trusted environment because chances are it’s a blind spot for you and you’re going to need another set of eyes and ears to help you bring things to light.

Traci Morrow:
I love that. Which is coming right up on number three, feedback. So let’s talk a little bit about the value of feedback and having developing, you know, the quote that he gave from Stephen Covey about it takes humility and wisdom to receive feedback. So let’s chat a little bit about the value of feedback.

Mark Cole:
Well, I really do believe that the source improvement rest outside of us with an attitude that rests inside of us. So if we knew, think any leader that has a huge passion to be more effective, they would be more effective if they had the answers within them. Because there’s the attitude that passion, the hunger to be better is in most all of us. So if we’re not better, it’s because we don’t know. We don’t have the know how of how to get out of the rut, we don’t have the enlightenment to take us to the next level, or we don’t have the awareness that we’re not utilizing what we already know. Therefore, that’s why I say, I think the pathway to improvement most of the time rests outside of us. And the attitude to improve is an inside matter. And so I would look at this idea of pride closes our mind to feedback.

Mark Cole:
I think about me, and I’m gonna, I’m gonna take a little bit of twist. And I knew I was gonna do this somewhere as I was listening to John. I think that when people believe that the results totally rest on them and their leadership, it’s a matter of pride. Let me explain. I’ve watched so many successful people own the results and not spread the results of success to others. And we instantly pick up on that. They’re prideful. They, they’re self absorbed, they’re egocentric.

Mark Cole:
We got all the names for them. But could it be just as true that when somebody, a leader, owns 100% the failure, that it’s a matter of pride as well that they took this? Now, I’m not talking about high degree of responsibility. We should even in the success, we should take a high degree of responsibility. But don’t take yourself too seriously. But I think oftentimes for personalities like yours, Traci, maybe like mine, for sure, and maybe like yours is we have trained ourselves for so long to take no responsibility for the good things. So we deflect, we defer, we, we give credit, but then when things go wrong, we take all the responsibility. And I don’t think that’s healthy. I don’t think it’s healthy to give 100% internally results of good things to everyone else and not see that everything rises on leadership.

Mark Cole:
But I also don’t think it’s, it’s true to not let people carry the weight of shortfall with you as well. Think it’s a matter of pride, or a sister, if you will, of pride. That’s why this point is very important to me. Pride closes our mind to feedback. John told me the other day I was working through something that I discovered about myself and my leadership through a really particular challenging time. And I was expressing that hymn some time ago, and I was expressing that to him. And John went, where did you hear that? And I said, man, I just discovered it in thinking this morning. I was prepping.

Mark Cole:
This happened just a couple of weeks ago from the recording of this podcast. And he went, do you know I’ve been working alongside you for several years now, and I’ve been waiting on you to acknowledge what I just heard you acknowledge. And I went, really? Why didn’t you tell me? He said, what do you think I’ve been trying to do? You wasn’t open for it in this particular case. He said, now, before I go any further, are you, are you discovering this because you’re looking for an opportunity to beat yourself up because John tells me all the time I’m my own worst critic. I’m my own worst enemy. I said, no. In fact, I feel no emotion to this. I just feel elation that I finally see it.

Mark Cole:
He said, that’s what I wanted to hear. Now, let me tell you how far off you were in this area. He had to make sure I wasn’t using the revelation to beat myself up. And once he discovered that, he gave me some insightful stuff that, according to him, and I believe him. He’s been trying to give me for several years now, and I just wasn’t ready to hear it.

Traci Morrow:
Interesting. So you’re almost the opposite of number four, which is pride prevents us from admitting mistakes. It’s almost over admitting, like taking all the blame on yourself and no credit. And so, so it’s like that insecurity worn inside out. Like it’s an insecurity. Pride is insecurity worn inside out, but it’s an insecurity. And boy, can I relate to that. And I’m sure some of our listeners can, too.

Traci Morrow:
It’s all related. I mean, we’re just trying to figure out how to lead the best that we can. And so some of that comes out in insecurity, worn inside out. Some of that comes out in just plain old insecurity. But I’m curious, as you assess what John says and you look back on some of the things that he said, if you can now look in hindsight and see those markers and those times when you can say, oh, that was John trying to tell me that I was taking too much on, too much of the burden on for myself. And I would love to come up back on another podcast when we hit on some topic that we can drudge that back up again and say, hey, that reminded me, I assessed and I found that this is what John did because I think that we can all look back because that question would be, my question was going to say, do you have a process of helping. My next question was going to be, do you have a process of helping team members assess so they don’t blow up, cover up, speed up, back up, blame themselves, even cover up all of that. And maybe, like, John was trying to do that with you.

Traci Morrow:
I wish John was with us because it could be like, how did you try to get through to mark? But then it’s layered learning, kind of. It’s just keep trying, keep trying, and one day they’re going to get it. Like one day it’s going to break through, whether it’s pride or insecurity and taking it on too much. Can you look back and say, like, do you think it was something that John, like John over and over, chatting with you about it and teaching, or not teaching, but mentoring you on that? And what was the final thing that it just kind of you just being bathed in that mentally and then you finally just grasped it?

Mark Cole:
Yeah. So we identified about seven of them, in fact, for the first time.

Traci Morrow:
This was amazing.

Mark Cole:
I’ve been working with John for 24 years. As we all know. This was the first time John looked and he went, you have the ability to deliver world class, thought provoking content in this subject right here. It’s the first time he’s ever said that to me because I’m not a content guy. I’m not a thought leader. I’m carrying other people’s thoughts to fruition. And so I’ll give you a couple. And certainly we’re going to do podcasts and maybe even write a book one day on it.

Mark Cole:
But here’s what I would tell you. I think when in times of great success, in times of great struggle, I think we tend to, first and foremost, we overanalyze our contribution to what happened. And so there is a lack of reality of the control, the power and the influence we have over a situation. We overinflate our importance, good or bade. The second thing that we do is we deflect the criticism. We already know we’ve critiqued ourselves too hard, as was the case in my case. So John would tell me something that would really help me, but I had already been beating myself up that I felt like what he was telling me wasn’t even relevant. So I was deflecting.

Mark Cole:
So we distance ourselves, we deflect, and then we diffuse. Well, it wouldn’t be as bad, but this situation was outside of my control. We diffuse it, therefore, it doesn’t allow us to get responsibility. And then finally, we create distance with it. Well, it was, it was so far ago. Why would I go back and revisit that? It’s too far. The lesson’s too long. And so, yeah, there’s a lot of reasons, but I think it all comes back to we all struggle in some way with insecurities.

Mark Cole:
I was telling Macy the other day, she has a friend. She really, really likes this friend, but this friend every once in a while, comes off with so much certainty and confidence and egotism. And Mason and I sat down just a weekend recently and said, you do know that that is insecurity that’s causing this person to be like this. And I think it’s insecurity for people to over own failure. I think it’s insecurity for people to over own success. You’re wanting to matter so much that you’re wanting to establish it as if you are the only one that can control the outcome. I’m a person of faith. You all know this.

Mark Cole:
But I believe that’s what the apostle Paul was writing about when he said, some plant some water, but only God gives the increase. But how often do we really put that in practice? In leadership, we over own the success or the failure rather than realizing our responsibility is to do our best and take security in the fact of doing your best. Then take security in the ups and the downs.

Traci Morrow:
That is so good, Mark. I’ve written so many notes and it all goes back to your point that you made at the beginning. Is having a trusted person. It doesn’t like for all of us. It’s not going to be John Maxwell, but it doesn’t have to be John. It’s just a trusted person who can see that you are over owning what Mark said, over owning your success or over owning your failure. And it’s the value of a dear friend or mentor, a close enough relationship that will be honest enough to say to you, and this takes the courage in us, as that person in someone else’s life, to not just witness it and think, boy, they are really over owning that. They are really being prideful in over owning that success or they are really being too insecure in over owning that failure and never saying it.

Traci Morrow:
I think that. I think it is very easy to observe it sometimes and not. It is so difficult to say the words and deliver them with loving care. But it is the most important thing that we can do for the men and women who are in our lives that we can deliver those words because it can be life changing. And they may not get it the first time, the 6th time, the 7th time, like John and Mark. But then one day it connects and it’s like a game changer in that person’s leadership and in their life and in their relationships. And so I just love that you shared that, that with us because it impacts every single one of us in every relationship that we have. I love that.

Traci Morrow:
I love that. So I have one last question and then, because I know I could go on, I have so many other questions that I did not ask Bratz and so. But I think, like when he talks about. I have to hit on the one about relationships when pride can destroy relationships. And I’m so passionate about this because I hold myself up to this. And boy, could I connect when it said average people don’t want others to go beyond average. Prideful person always wants to be first. And I don’t know if it’s because of the sports model or what, growing up or it’s just human nature, but when I was a young person, I would be jealous of competitor success.

Traci Morrow:
I would be jealous of my friends success because, not because I didn’t want them to succeed, but as much as I wanted to succeed, I wanted to be first. We might not have been competing in the same sport or the same category or in the same business, but when someone else’s business had great success, that wasn’t even in my category of business. I had jealousy because I wanted success, too. And so I think I just, I wanted to be. I wanted to be first. I wanted to have success. And I didn’t have the maturity as a young person to be celebratory for them. I would outwardly do it, but it wasn’t in my heart.

Traci Morrow:
And so I really had to learn that from John. And so I would just love to close out, you know, just have you close on sharing a little bit about how that has been for you. Was that something that you struggled with, or is that something that you worked through with Macy or with your team in learning to the process of learning to celebrate other people and how freeing that is for you to celebrate someone else and still stay in your own lane as a leader?

Mark Cole:
Yeah. You know, it’s so funny. As you were recapping how you’ve struggled with that before, so did I. I have struggled with that a lot as an adult. I grew up, I like to say this often, I grew up a big fish in a small pond. A lot of stuff came easy to me growing up. That was a small pond. I wasn’t competing with a lot of people.

Mark Cole:
Went to a very, very, very small private school. I went to a very small college. But I grew up, if I set my mind to do something, that the talent or the competition wasn’t always there because there wasn’t the mass amount of people. And so I could get there because I had a little bit of natural talent, had a whole lot of passion to excel. And you put those two together, and in a small enough pond, you can get a lot of things and a lot of experiences. When I went to college, it was a little bit different. But where I noticed it in me was when I got out into a world where nobody knew me and I didn’t have that family name favor, or I didn’t have that small world favor. It became a much bigger world.

Mark Cole:
And I went, man, it’s a lot harder out here when the competition is more. And then I would see people excelling so easy. And, yes, there was something that rose up in me often that would say, man, they’re getting all the success, they’re getting all the deal. Why is it easier for them? I’ll tell you that there would probably be still times that I have to watch that and make sure that I’m genuinely happy for others, even if they are competing with me, and certainly even if we’re not even in the same game being happy for them. I think two things come to mind when we talk about that. One is really our only competition, period, is with ourselves. Yeah, that’s it. The second is, if you cannot be genuinely happy about someone else’s success, you’ll never be satisfied with what you accomplish.

Mark Cole:
And so, Traci, what I have done in this whole thing, and I hold up this book not even knowing that’s how you was going to end it, I have discovered about every two years I need to read this book, 15 invaluable laws of leadership, or, excuse me, invaluable laws of growth. Why? Because I’m really only in competition with myself. And yesterday’s success should be the floor to tomorrow’s opportunity. Yesterday’s best should be the launching pad for better today. It should not be a stopping point. It should not be a success moment. It should be. I was gifted with the success of yesterday, so I can reach for even better tomorrow.

Mark Cole:
I’m in competition with myself. My challenge to all of us listening to the podcast today, and here’s what I know, gang. Every one of us wish that we could be a better version of ourselves. That’s why you’re listening to this podcast. That’s not a rocket science statement. You’re listening to this podcast because you want to be better. What’s driving you to be better should be your own personal reflection and your own sense of accomplishment and your own stewardship to opportunities ahead of you. That should be the thing that drives you.

Mark Cole:
And my challenge to all of us is how well are you focused on yourself, your growth, as you pursue the best? And if you can focus on yourself, you’ll find the competition with others, or even the ability to get very excited about other people’s accomplishment began to be genuine. It will begin to be real, because when you’re satisfied that you’re pursuing your best, you become less likely to want to pull others down to be less than that. Here’s what I want to do, just simply because it fits right here. Of course we’ll have the book and we’ll put the book in the show notes. But we have this online course that I want you to take advantage of how to compete and be your best version. It’s called the 15 Laws of Growth online course, it’s normally 499. We’ve got it available for $99. And if you’re struggling with this comparison trap that Traci and I’ve been talking about, or this competitiveness with others in your industry, on your team, or outside your team in a whole other industry, begin to put all that energy into focusing on being your best and you’ll find a great sense of fulfillment, a great sense of reward.

Mark Cole:
I want to close today with a listener comment. Mauricio, listen to give your best to your best. Speaking of best, in fact, I want to put that in the show notes as well. Mauricio said, this podcast is great. I heard about John Maxwell so many years ago in a course of the 21 laws of leadership. Now I’m continuing to learn and enjoy the knowledge through this podcast. And Mauricio, thank you. For the rest of you, leave us a note, leave us a comment, ask a question.

Mark Cole:
I’d love to get into some of our listeners questions with some of our future podcasts. Thanks for joining us today. Stay away from pride. It is your enemy and we don’t need you prideful. We need you powerful about making the best out of everyone else because everyone deserves to be led well.

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