How to Live with Purpose Every Day

Mark Cole:
Welcome to today’s episode on how to live with purpose every day. Hey, you’ve tuned in to the Maxwell Leadership Podcast. My name is Mark Cole, and today John is going to challenge us to be an everyday purpose kind of a leader, an everyday purpose person that is passionate about intentionally living the life that you want to live. So I’m so excited. I wanna get you to John just pretty quickly, when John is done, I’m gonna come back, I’m gonna share with you some of the takeaways that I have from today’s podcast and how I and you can put purpose into our life and therefore see great results from that intentionality. If you would like to watch this episode on YouTube or even download our special bonus resource, you can go to MaxwellPodcast.com/LiveWithPurpose. Here’s John.

Mark Cole:
Grab your pen, grab your paper. Hey, grab your purpose. Let’s be challenged to live and be an everyday purpose person. Here’s John.

John Maxwell:
Purpose is essential to a person’s life. It’s the anchor that holds you during a storm. It’s your North Star that guides you when you’re just absolutely pretty well confused or everybody around you is confused. And I wanna talk to you about what it means to know your purpose, to find it, and then to live it. We’re gonna be talking about being what I call an everyday purpose person. I love that phrase. Everyday purpose person is one that every day gets up and they live their life on purpose, which means that they’re gonna make it count. It means that they’re gonna get the highest return from that day.

John Maxwell:
And what’s beautiful is that once we learn to be intentional with our life, once we learn to find our purpose and then live our purpose, we can be an everyday purpose person. You see, there are two great days in any person’s life. The day they were born and the day they discovered why. You see, we’ve all had our first day, our birth, but a lot of people have never had the second day, the day that they discover why they were born. And I can remember very well the day that I began discovering my purpose. I was in a college freshman. I was in Psych 101 class, and a guest teacher sat there in that classroom that day with us and said to us, if you’re gonna be a leader, there are three questions that you need to ask yourself. So here I am, I’m in class, I got my pen, I got my paper, and I’m getting ready to write down these three questions, just like a college kid does.

John Maxwell:
You write every day notes. What I didn’t realize is as I was writing these three things down on paper, these three things would be written on my heart. These would be notes that I would never get away from. Because that college Prof. That day said the three questions every leader needs to ask himself or herself is what do I sing about? What do I cry about? And what do I dream about? I wrote them down. I wrote them down on paper, not realizing at that moment how significant that would be in me. Discovering my purpose in finding your purpose, it is more than a discovery, it’s a journey of discovery. Because even after you find your purpose, even after you find it, you have to develop it.

John Maxwell:
In other words, when I began my purpose of trying to add value to people, it was just kind of like, I wanna add value to people. But there was nothing sophisticated about that. I didn’t know how to add value to people. I didn’t know how to use my gifts to add value to people. I didn’t know what kind of people I wanted to add value to. I didn’t know how I wanted to even add value to the people I needed to add value to. So I started what I call the. The discovery journey of developing your purpose.

John Maxwell:
So it’s one thing to find it and it’s another thing to mature it. And in maturing it, how do you do that? You mature your purpose by once you knowing what it is, determining to dive as deep as you can to make that purpose meaningful and fulfilling not only in your life, but in the life of now. There are two ways to find your purpose. Very simply, through your passion and through your giftedness. That’s how I find my purpose. That’s how you find your purpose, through your passion and through your giftedness. So when that teacher in Psych 101 asked, what do you sing, cry and dream about? He was talking about passion. Because those are words of passion.

John Maxwell:
Those are emotional words. What do you sing about? What really makes you happy, what do you cry about? What makes you really sad? What do you dream about? I mean, what do you. I mean, if you could be anything you wanted to be and do anything you really want to do, what would you be? What would you do? All that stuff. That’s passion stuff and that’s essential to developing a great purpose. But if you’re going to find your purpose and live it out, you have to not only ask yourself, what am I passionate about? You have to ask yourself, what am I gifted in? What do I do? Well, and the reason that you need to do that is very simple. It’s in your giftedness that you’re effective. And so therefore, when I can match my passion, sing, cry, dream with my giftedness, the things I do well, now I have not only discovered my purpose, now I’m going to be able to develop that purpose and I’m gonna be able to take that and use it to beautifully add value to my life and the lives of others. Because when you find your purpose, you find your why.

John Maxwell:
And this is huge because there are a lot of people, they’re going through life, they’ve never discovered the purpose and they just are constantly asking why. Now, when people look at things as they are and ask why, there are people that have never discovered their purpose. In other words, they’re looking at life and it’s not good and it’s not turning out really well for them. Why is this happening? Why is this happening? When a person, the best thing they can do is ask the why of life, they’ve never discovered their purpose. But those who look at things as they could be and ask why not? They’ve discovered their purpose because they’re looking at life as it is. And they’re saying, I think there’s a better way and I think I could make a better way and I think I could provide a better way. And I think I have an answer and I think I can help you see, when you find your why, you find your way, the why gives direction. When you find a person that has discovered their purpose, they’re no longer lost.

John Maxwell:
When you find your why, you find your why. You begin to now live a life that has some direction, some aim to it. And when you find your why, you also find your will, your discipline. We talk about discipline quite a bit. And when people say I need to get more self discipline in my life, one of the first things I ask them is, do you know what your purpose? Because let me tell you something. You show me a person, you show me a person that doesn’t have a purpose, they don’t have a why. And I’ll show you a person that isn’t self disciplined. You see, discipline is a result of having a reason to be disciplined.

John Maxwell:
And when you don’t have a reason to be disciplined, if you’re just being disciplined for discipline’s sake, you’re never going to achieve and do and stick with and complete and finish the task that’s before you. And so when a person finds their purpose, almost immediately with them, they find discipline to fulfill that purpose. And if you have no purpose, I promise you, you will lack the discipline so when people say, well, you need to really stick with it, you need to be disciplined, I always say, let me ask you a question. Do you know what your purpose is? Because it’s the purpose that puts steel in the backbone of discipline. So when you find your why, you find your way. When you find your why, you find your will. And when you find your why, you find your wings. All of a sudden, now you can fly.

John Maxwell:
All of a sudden you can go higher than you’ve ever gone before. Why? Because now you, you have a reason to soar. And you need to find your wings and you need to be able to fly. And here’s why. Everything worthwhile is uphill. Your purpose gives you the reason to go uphill.

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Mark Cole:
Hey, I can tell you welcome back by the way. I can tell you as a guy that for 25 years have been up close and personal with John, that he lives every day with purpose. I’m a better person because of John Maxwell’s intentional living each and every day. I will challenge you today as I just want to pull three points out of today’s teaching and I want to share with you some things that has been extremely helpful to me in leading John’s companies. If I haven’t met you yet, if you’re new to the podcast, I’ve been with John for 25 years. I’ve been the CEO of John’s company for 15 of those years and I have learned a thing or two about leadership from John. But one of those things is the importance of intentionality as it relates to purpose and living that purpose out every day. In fact, the first thing that I will share with you as we get into our three points today is you need to find your purpose and then you need to mature it.

Mark Cole:
I was 33 years of age when I discovered my purpose. That second day that John was talking about in his lesson that day, I discovered why I was born. Now, I know you’re saying, 33, man, you’re late. But. But others of you are saying, wow, you discovered that at 33. It took me till 63, took me a little bit later in life. Really doesn’t matter the age you are when you find it. It matters what you do with it.

Mark Cole:
When you find it. It matters how you spend the rest of your days. And so today is all about maturing your purpose, living intentionality with your purpose. Now I’ve got to give you a little sidebar, a little homework assignment. If you can’t articulate, if you can’t define your purpose, the second most important day of your life, I would challenge you. Get started today asking yourself the questions, what is my purpose? I would start with the three questions that John talked about in the lesson. What do you sing about? What is it that makes you happy? What is it that just fulfills you? Go listen and think through some movies. Go listen to some songs and listen to some movies that speak deeply to you in happiness and fulfillment.

Mark Cole:
That’s what you sing about. Second question John talked about is, what makes you cry? What do you cry about? What are the movies? What are the scenes in movies? What are the storylines that grabs your heart and gives you that feeling of wanting to do something with what you have, your skills, your gifts, your talents, your finances. What is it that makes you cry? The third question that John challenges us to help give an indication. Answering the question will give us an indication to our purpose is what do you dream about? What are you hopeful for? And what fills you with hope? Because when you can figure those things out, you’re well on your way to identifying this purpose of your life. John has a quote that I love. I love it every time he says it. He says, success is knowing your purpose in life, growing to reach your maximum potential and sowing seeds that benefit others. That’s what we’re talking about, your purpose.

Mark Cole:
That’s what we’re talking about when we say, hey, find your purpose and mature your purpose. The first point I want to pull out from John’s teaching today is this statement that he said. He said, purpose is essential to a person’s life. In other words, I think what John is saying when he uses words like essential is you can’t live a life fulfilled until you fulfill that life towards your purpose, towards your existence, toward your legacy. I think John is exactly right when he says that when you can find your purpose, you give your life new meaning. And until you find your purpose, you. You don’t really have the ability to know, to realize, to intentionally plan a life filled with purpose. See, purpose serves as an anchor for us.

Mark Cole:
It serves as. I don’t know, it serves as this real strength, this linchpin, this navigation point that will help you live a life of intention. It will help you make decisions. It will help you assess success elements in your life. As I said earlier, I found my purpose at 33, and I can tell you it shaped every year in review that I’ve had since that moment. I was 33. I was in the middle of a year in review, and like a light bulb illuminated from within, and it illuminated. Every past decision, every current reality, and every future decision that I made became clear to me when I discovered Mark Cole exists.

Mark Cole:
My purpose is to inspire people and motivate them to reach their full potential. That’s why I’m on the podcast today. That’s why I’m really excited to be sharing with you today, because I find great fulfillment in believing that in this podcast episode, I’m going to challenge one of you to find her purpose and to begin living his life with great intention. Over the last three or four years, I discovered something in my life. In fact, I was thinking today about when are the times in leadership that I feel out of sync, that I have felt over the last 20 years since I found my purpose statement? When are those moments? And I can tell you there was a season over the last five years, a long season, over a year that I was mechanical in my daily task, that I was on autopilot, that to be honest with you, I was working hard to find fulfillment rather than working hard to fulfill my purpose. And there’s a big difference. There’s a big difference than when they live their days with purpose, than those that find their days meaningless living out of obligation. As I went through this season, and I spent well over a year defining and designing and redefining, redesigning my daily task and my daily agendas.

Mark Cole:
I don’t know what it was. I may need to invite one of you to be a guest with me today and challenge me with some questions. I don’t know what it was that took me a year to realize that I had spent that entire season of my leadership living life without purposeful intention. I had purpose. I knew it. I quit using my purpose to make my life’s decisions, to make my business decisions, that’s why I went back. Just like I instructed you just a little bit earlier, I went back and said, okay, Mark, what makes you sing? What makes you cry? What makes you dream? What is it that you have lost in your life? Today I’m talking to some leaders out of the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, that will consume an episode of this podcast this week. I’m talking to some people that know your purpose.

Mark Cole:
You’re just not living on that purpose. So see, that’s what’s really important to this lesson. It’s not just that you know your purpose. You know that day, that second day, that day of your existence. You’ve got to manage that, you’ve got to mature it. You’ve got to live that each and every day. Purpose is essential to a person’s life. As I went through this recent time and as I realized that the purpose that I have been given is essential to successful living, it’s essential to legacy, I realized what I want to share with you today is that to find a purpose is part of the journey.

Mark Cole:
To intentionally live that purpose is a second part of the journey. But the third part of the journey is to make sure that you’re utilizing your gifts, your resources, your talents in the way that would make you most effective. To live on purpose. That’s why I pulled out today from John’s teaching. The second point I want to share with you and that is it’s in your giftedness that you’re most effective. Did you catch that when John said it? It’s in your giftedness when you are most effectiveness affected effective. See, as I thought about that today as John was teaching, I thought your giftedness creates effectiveness within you, your strength, where you’re good, what you have that makes you unique. See, I believe that your giftedness gives insight in four areas.

Mark Cole:
First, your giftedness, your strengths give insight into your purpose. It goes back to this period of time, this over a year long series, to where I was not utilizing my strengths with intention on my purpose. I was getting things done. In fact, during that year we reached some record numbers in our KPIs. Things were going well, but my sense of fulfillment was lacking. My sense of realizing the results of my work was not there. And that’s because I lost alignment with my giftedness and my purpose. So giftedness is going to give you insight into purpose.

Mark Cole:
The second thing that giftedness is going to do, it’s going to give you insight into your passion. It’s going to let you know. It’s why we use words like what makes you cry, what makes you sing, what makes you dream. Those are all things that elicit passion, that elicit that unique awakening that happens within you. For me, I am a passionate person. I was sharing with one of our leaders today, just before coming down to the studio. I was working with one of my leaders and he said, mark, I’m still trying to figure out how to work with your passion. He’s been on the team for over 18 months.

Mark Cole:
And I said, tell me what you mean. He said, just yesterday we were in this meeting and you were super passionate about something and you took that passion and it was almost like you were not pleased. You had a unholy discontentment. I said, well, I’d like it to be holy discontentment, but okay, call it unholy discontentment. He said, it’s almost like you, you were not getting what you felt you needed. And in that moment I found myself reeling that I was not giving you what you wanted. And I’ve got to be honest with you, your passion in that moment felt like intensity. And that intensity felt like it was unhappy.

Mark Cole:
And that unhappiness made me unsettled that I was leading like you wanted me to lead. And I pulled him back and I said, let’s unpack that. We spent about 20 minutes of an hour long meeting unpacking the blind side of my passion. That’s intensity. Well, I think when we’re talking about today, about your giftedness to be effective, we’re talking about this ability to understand. Your giftedness is going to give you a passion that others around you won’t understand. It’s going to give you an expectation that other people won’t understand. Now, I’m not justifying or even condoning what I did today or what was described to me that I did yesterday by a leader.

Mark Cole:
What I am telling you is your passion will give you so much focus in the area of your purpose that you will have a propensity to leave others behind. This was illustrated to me, oh, some years ago. We have a product here at Maxwell Leadership called the Maxwell Leadership 360-degree assessment. And so this is an assessment that you get seven to nine raters, people that will take the assessment thinking of you and your leadership and they will rank you in 64 areas. And so you’ll get this full 360 view, people that report to you, people that are peers, people that are above you in the leadership structure and then those outside the organization. You get nine people to speak into your effectiveness as a 360 degree leader. I went through it. I was so excited.

Mark Cole:
And one of our great coaches, Greg. Greg sat me down and he said, mark, you’ve got some areas that I feel like that you need to work on here. I said, great, I love this. I love finding areas that I can work on. He said, the first thing is you didn’t give yourself any seven. Seven is the top ranking of anything that you can. It’s the highest ranking in this assessment. I said, no, Greg, I never give myself a full seven.

Mark Cole:
That would indicate to me I didn’t have any room for improvement. He said, that’s not really what that means. He said, in fact, when I rated you in your passion for the company, in your sense of buy in into the purpose, the mission, the vision of Maxwell Leadership, you gave yourself a six. Every other person that rated you all nine other people gave yourself, gave you a seven. Here’s my problem. He said, if you give yourself a six while others give a seven, number one, no one can be any higher than a five in your organization. And he said, because you don’t have a true perception because of some hang up and not wanting to give yourself the top ranking. You look at people all the time and you lead those people as if the best they have is a five because you measure everybody to you and you won’t even give yourself a perfect score.

Mark Cole:
And he said it’s given a blind spot to you that you will not let people be bought into the purpose and the vision and the mission of this organization any higher than you and you are ranking yourself too low. And he said, mark, your passion is a liability in this category. Now, today’s not about the passion liability or an asset of a passion, but it is. You need to know the things that light your fire, the things that get you excited and purpose giftings, strengths give us insight into your passion. So giftedness gives insight into purpose. It gives insight into your passion. Number three, strengths give insight into your people. Now what do I mean by people? I mean the people you surround yourself with should complement your purpose.

Mark Cole:
They should compliment. In other words, there’s areas about your purpose and fulfilling your purpose that you’re weak in. And you need to surround yourself that have strengths with people that have strengths in the areas of your weakness. It also when you’re feeling low, when you’re feeling discouraged, when you’re feeling like I was for a year, you need to surround yourself with people that have the same passion for your purpose because those people need to lift you. In those days we teach inner circle, outer circle. You need to have people around you that will keep you grounded to your purpose and mission. And you need to have an outer circle around you that will stretch you to your potential. The people you surround yourself with should be in direct correlation with the strengths, the gifts that you have.

Mark Cole:
And oftentimes we relate with people based on a sense of joy, a sense of fulfillment, a sense of relationship. All of those are good indicators. But when’s the last time you surrounded yourself with people with a direct connect to the strengths and your giftedness? You need to have people around that compliment your giftedness. You need to have people around you that protect you from your weaknesses. Giftedness and strengths gives insight to the people you need around you. Then number four, giftedness gives insight into your production, into how well you produce, in other words, your sense of fulfillment. When you can get that insight into what you produce and how that production is gives you a sense of fulfillment, you’re well on your way to living with purpose every single day. You’re well on your way.

Mark Cole:
As John said, being an everyday purpose person, that’s what I want to be. That’s what I want. To challenge you today is to be an everyday purpose person. So we talked about purpose is essential to a person’s life. We talked about it’s in your giftedness that you’re effective. Let me give you the third point that I pulled out from John today. And it’s this concept that everything worthwhile is uphill. Everything worthwhile is uphill.

Mark Cole:
I remember 12 years ago when John first made that statement. Oh, it was such a great statement. Here’s how John said it. For those of you watching YouTube, let me give you my best John Maxwell impersonation here. Not with the Voice and not with Southern. I protect those assets of mine. But let me tell you how John said it. John was in the room and he said, I’ve got to just tell you something.

Mark Cole:
Here’s the thing. We all have uphill dreams. We all have uphill aspirations. And he’s holding his hand up here like this, and you’re just dreaming about speaking on stages with 10,000. You’re dreaming about having success in your family. You’re dreaming about that car you want to drive after you’ve made all that money. You’re dreaming about that dream house. You’re dreaming about that coveted position.

Mark Cole:
You’re dreaming, oh, yeah, I’ve got uphill aspirations. John, you’re speaking to me. And so he’s building you. He’s building you. Think of an uphill. Think of an aspiration that you Have. And he said the challenge with uphill aspirations is it’s uphill to get them. But the problem with most people is they have uphill aspirations, they have uphill dreams, but they have downhill habits.

Mark Cole:
And you feel every time he says that, you feel this air suck out of the room. Because we all recognize, yeah, I do want to get here, but I get really comfortable with coasting. And then John says, no one’s ever coasted their way to success. You have to climb. You have to be intentional. So I loved it when John would say that and it would motivate me and get the crowd. But then about a year later, he added these two words on the back end. He said, everything worthwhile is uphill.

Mark Cole:
And then he added, I’m sorry, three words. He said, everything worthwhile is uphill all the way. And that all the way is the driver of today’s lesson. Because you can’t live on purpose for a year. You can’t live on purpose for 25 years like I have. And feel like you’re going to arrive, you won’t. You’ll get to a plateau. You’ll look around.

Mark Cole:
You may be a little bit fulfilled and excited, but you’re going to stop short of your potential. You’re going to stop short of your destiny if you don’t recognize and embrace. It’s uphill all the way. I have four questions that I want to ask you today. Just in this. Everything worthwhile is uphill. John did a great job just kind of leading this. We’ve talked about everything worthwhile, uphill all the way.

Mark Cole:
But I want to leave. You may teach a little bit in these four questions, but if I had a homework assignment for you to do with yourself and then with your team, this would be the homework assignment. Number one, I want to ask you this question. It’s going to be four questions, and I want you to jot them down. If you’re running right now on the treadmill, I want you to finish the treadmill and then go back and listen to this episode, the last four or five minutes of the episode. Because I really want you to have an answer to this question. I want you to be honest with yourself. Here’s question number one.

Mark Cole:
What price are you willing to pay? What price are you willing to pay to reach your potential? What is it worth to you? What will you give up to go up? What will you sacrifice to accomplish that purpose inside of you? And then can I challenge you with something? Be prepared to pay double. Be prepared to pay it again and again because it’s going to always cost you more than you anticipated. It’s going to require more of you than you anticipate on the front end. It’s going to require not a day, not a year, not a month or not a decade. It’s going to require a lifetime pursuing that purpose. So what price are you willing to pay? Second question I would ask you today, and really answering this question of how to live with purpose every day. Question number two, how long are you willing to stay? How long are you willing to stay? John says, right here, you got to live it every day. I just talked about, John says, everything worthwhile is uphill all the way.

Mark Cole:
How long are you willing to stay? Is this a fad? Is this a hobby? Is your purpose just kind of a pursuit of your own accomplishment? How long are you willing to stay? I love when people ask John, when are you retiring? And one time he fired back at somebody, says, what does retirement mean? They said, it’s when you get to do what you wanna do whenever you wanna do it. He said, well, I’m already retired. I do every single day what I want to do, when I want to do it. I feel a lot like that with John, too. I want you to feel like that podcast viewer, podcast listener. I want you to feel like you’re already retired because you’re living on purpose in such a synchronous way that what you’re doing directly connects with why you are here, and why you are here is living that legacy that will make you a legend to the people around you. So what price are you willing to pay? How long are you willing to stay? Is this a life decision? It’s an everyday decision. I got it.

Mark Cole:
I got it. And I hope you’ll make it again tomorrow. And that’s because it will cost you more than you intended, and it will take you longer than you intended. There is a cost and a time commitment that I answer every single year. Am I willing to pay the price again? Am I willing to go back and do it all over again if it’s repeating everything I did last year? That’s the question we’re answering. Let me give you question number four. I want you to answer, or question number three, rather. What payoff are you willing to delay? What payoff are you willing to put on hold? Oh, I know the car, I know the family.

Mark Cole:
I know all the things that we want early in life, and we want it yesterday, right? Anybody like that out there in podcast landers, it just me. I want what I want and I want it Before I get it. Okay, it may not be yesterday, but it was at least this morning. I just want it and I want it now. This delayed gratification is always a component of a life lived with purpose. Always. There’s no shortcut. You’re not going to get it.

Mark Cole:
You’re going to have to delay some gratifications, you’re going to have to delay some payoffs, you’re going to have to delay some rewards to get what you want. It’s so funny because I’ve been with John for 25 years and I remember as a 33 year young man and that feels younger and younger by the day, gang. 33 is feeling mighty young right now. Jake Wade, they’re in the studio with me today and I’m looking at these young kids out there and saying, man, they’ve got life ahead of them. Sounded like an old man. I can remember at 33 putting on a piece of paper. I want to be at the leadership table of a company just like this one. I wasn’t really brazen enough.

Mark Cole:
It really wasn’t that. I was pretty brave, but I really never got caught up in titles. I just wanted to be at the table where decisions were made. I remember when I was 42 and John Maxwell asked me to run the table at the organization. He asked me to be a co owner in that man. It was a good eight years, gang. I had a good, excuse me, 10 years. From 2010 to 2020, life was, as my father used to say, an RC Cola and a Moon Pie.

Mark Cole:
It was going good. Only to discover at 2020, as I took over ownership of the company, that I had to begin to delay some payoffs again. See, what we want is, what I wanted, I should say is I really wanted the payoff of 2010-2020 to continue in the next stage of success or purpose pursuit. But I found out there were some payoffs I had to be willing to delay again. So fourth question. Question number one, what price are you willing to pay? Question number two, how long are you willing to stay? Question number three, what payoff are you willing to delay? Question number four, what people are you willing to slay? Now, I know, I know, I know you guys are rolling your eyes at my Southern humor right now, but it’s a very serious question. What relationships are you willing to slay? What relationships are you willing to shed that are holding you back? In fact, you. I’m talking to you, viewer, listener, some of you.

Mark Cole:
It’s not clarity of purpose, it’s not willing to pay the price. It’s not payoffs that you’re willing to give up. It’s not delays, it’s not how long you’re willing to stay. It’s that you are surrounding yourself with people that are roadblocks, that are people blocks that are journey obstacles to your purpose, to your fulfillment. And I don’t know how else to say it but fire them, get rid of them. Change your, change your community. Find people that will surround you, that will lift you toward your purpose, not hold you back. I’m on the phone every week with, I don’t know, 100, 150 of our Maxwell certified coaches.

Mark Cole:
We have 59,000 in 169 countries. And every single Tuesday that I’m in town and not on a plane somewhere, I have a phone call with them. And I am surprised at the number of people that come to my calls just for a place of encouragement because they don’t get it with their family, with their friends. They need the community that we call mentorship. They need that just for a shot of hope in their arms. My dear friends, my podcast family, if you’re not getting relationship support, if you’re not getting people bought in to living your life on purpose, your days of pursuing that purpose are short. You cannot do it as an island to yourself. So I asked you again, what people, what relationships are you willing to slay now before I close today and just kind of have to cut off the cameras because they’re making me.

Mark Cole:
I just have loved our time together today went a little long. I didn’t even have a co host in here to ask questions. But I went long because I wanted to challenge you today. I wanted to challenge you with a challenge that I wish I would have had at 15, 18, 20, 24, 25, 28. It really wasn’t until about 30, 31 when I walked into John Maxwell’s environment and I was asked the question mark, how intentional are you pursuing the life you are meant to live? And so today, as I was preparing for you and thinking about you, I thought about the power of that question that day. I thought about the intention from that day to today. I thought about the price tag, I thought about the time, I thought about the give ups that I had to give last week, last year, last month, last decade. And I thought, today I’m sent to ask some people, are you ready to live a life with purpose? Are you ready to make a difference in your life so you can multiply a difference with the lives around you? I know you are.

Mark Cole:
I can’t Wait to see listener comments on people that took this lesson, how to live with purpose every day and made a radical change in your life. In fact, speaking of comments, your comments help us. They encourage us, they strengthen us. They also give us insight into what’s helping you today. We have a listener question from Solomon. He listened to the podcast accountability makes you better. It’s not too long ago, Solomon. We’ll put that in the show notes.

Mark Cole:
But here’s what Solomon said. He said, never empower anyone as a leader who isn’t willing to be accountable. Thanks for that point in this great lesson. Now, here’s the question. Why is today’s generation struggling with accountability and how can we reverse this trend? 1 Solomon, I love the question. Thanks for the kind comment as well, Solomon. But I love this question because number one, when I answer a question like this, I want to make sure I’m not acting my age like I talked about a little bit earlier in the podcast, and acting like my generation is the last generation that didn’t struggle. We were the generation of overcomers.

Mark Cole:
And this new generation, the Jakes and the Wades, the young kids, their generation just stinks. My daughter, who’s in her second year of college, just the generation stinks. Solomon, I know that’s not your point, but I want to state this. Today’s generation, I am more hopeful, more certain and more confident that they’re going to make impact and do good for the world than any other generation before us. They’ve got the tools, they’ve now got technologies, they’ve got distribution mechanisms. They’ve got the speed of thought like we’ve never had. And I believe there’s going to be leaders that rise up and they want to make a difference. So, Solomon, to your question, why is today’s generation struggling with accountability? I think it’s because we didn’t give them a good sense of accountability and a good purpose to be accountable to.

Mark Cole:
I think our leaders, my leaders, Solomon, perhaps your leaders, leaders in the 7, 8 streams of influence have not given us a good model of accountability because it’s been about their agenda and not the people’s agenda. I’m leadership sad with what I see in high levels of leadership, in what they’re doing with power and with driving their own agenda. But I think this next generation, they’re going to step up, they’re going to make it about something bigger than themselves, and then there is going to be a peer accountability that happens like we’ve never seen before. So how we reverse the trend, we model it Solomon. We show them what peer accountability is. We show them what leadership looks like when it’s done in the benefit of others around here. At Maxwell Leadership, we call that bringing powerful, positive change to the world around us. Because everyone, including today’s generation, deserves to be led.

Mark Cole:
Well, thank you for joining us. We’ll see you next time.

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