The Potential Question (Live at Personal Growth Day)

Mark Cole:

Hey everyone. Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Podcast. Now, if you are watching this podcast, you can already tell there’s something new going on. I do not have 1800 people in the studio with me today. If you’re listening to the podcast, you too know there’s something going on because today, this podcast, that adds value to people, who multiplies value to people, is not coming from our studio in Florida or in Atlanta. Today we’re coming to you from Orlando at the Maxwell Leadership Certification event called Personal Growth Day, and we have a live group of people that’s growing with you today.

Now, my name is Mark Cole. You just are getting ready to hear from John Maxwell at a session that he did in Orlando, that I promise you will change your life. Because John talks today about the potential question, and this is the question that helps you understand the opportunity that is in you and the opportunity that you can live in and impact others with. That’s you. It’s all about you, our podcast family. After John’s lesson today, I’m joined with three program advisors, that I promise you have lived this message and are living, not only the opportunity in them, but they’re realizing and empowering the opportunity and the potential in others. So I’ll introduce you to these three right after this podcast, but I can’t wait to get to it because not only will you get to hear from program advisors that you guys add value to people for a living.

Y’all realize that? Y’all should be paying us for this, right? What is going on? But we’re going to help you, not only as a podcast listener, our podcast family, we’re going to help you not only realize your potential, we’re going to give you a way to cultivate it, develop it, and even give you an invitation to our Maxwell Leadership certified team. That’s where we will resource you and empower you, not only to build your business, but to impact others around you. Now, I can’t wait to dive in and listen to John and let each of you experience John. But if you are wanting to watch this on YouTube or if you would like to download our bonus resource button, let me encourage you to go to the show notes and you’ll be able to find all the links to each of those items at maxwellleadership.com/podcast. So, all right, that’s it. Here we go. Here is John Maxwell.

John Maxwell:

Are you enjoying this grow day? Huh? Isn’t this a blast? I’m sitting here today and I’m listening to the speakers and I’m hanging in here and taking notes just like you are, and I’m thinking, what a wonderful thing to be able to spend a day with like-minded people who want to grow, develop themselves and prove themselves and get better. I was talking to you about the potential question, how far can I go? And we started talking about how do we build out this potential path in the area of growth? And I shared with you three things this morning. I shared with you that I’m aware of the three pillars of potential. This is the foundation, remember. Awareness, you’ve got to be aware. You’ve got to be able to develop your strengths, and you’ve got to be able to make the right choices.

Then the second thing I talked about is you need to continually invest in your personal develop and your personal growth. And then I talked about maximizing. You got to maximize your mentoring. I gave the John Wooden story, the five pages, you got it. So let’s go to number four. So can I talk to you about, just for a few moments, about following your heart, and I have a little phrase in parentheses after I say I follow my heart, and basically my phrase is, my heart knows. My heart really does know. And I think there’s something about growth and authenticity and having a real sense of being in touch with yourself that’s really essential for your development. Authenticity doesn’t guarantee success, but without it, it guarantees failure. And I see a lot of people that have never been authentic or real or come to grips with where they are.

And there’s something that beautiful about just, there are times when you have to follow your heart in your growth because your heart knows. Your heart knows how you’re wired, and your heart knows things that other people don’t realize. I can still remember when I was beginning to write books, obviously I was a rookie. I was very green. There were so many things I didn’t know. And I remember, I told my publisher I wanted to write leadership books, and they discouraged me. They said, you don’t want to write leadership books. Only 8% of the people read leadership books. And so if you write leadership books, you’ve lost 90%, 92% of your audience. They said, you don’t really want to write leadership books. You want to go broader than leadership. And I said, but my heart’s leadership, and that’s why I want to train leaders, and so I have to write leadership books. And they say, well, you can write leadership books, but honestly, if you do, you just won’t sell a lot of them. 36 million later. I’m getting out of the author pile. Huh? Are we okay? Huh?

And I was willing to have not very many people have my book because I just had to follow my heart. Are you with me? I would rather follow my heart and be small than lose my authenticity and my realness and be big. Because if I’m not who I am and I’m big, it’s not who I am, and there’s going to be a day that I give account to God for my giftedness, but God’s never going to hold me accountable for gifts I don’t have, and he’s never going to hold me accountable for dreams I don’t have. And so there’s something about listening. Well, in fact, the publisher also told me, because I like lists, and he said, you write with too many lists. You just have numbers everywhere. And I do. Every chapter, I’ve got numbers. I just have lists. And they said, you can’t sell books if you write lists. People don’t want lists. I said, well, I don’t want lists.

In fact, if somebody asked me, they’d say, John, what’s one of your favorite things? I’d say one of my favorite things is making a list. I just like lists. Are you with me? And say, they said, well, you can’t have lists. And I said, well, I’m going to do lists. I’m going to do leadership. And I’m just talking about following your… I remember 11 years ago when we started the John Maxwell Team, the coaching company. Most of my friends and advisors said, don’t do this. You don’t want to do this. You’ve spent all your life building a reputation of integrity and leadership and authenticity, and if you start a coaching company, you’re going to get some screw-ups in there, and they’re going to do something stupid. And then it’s going to be, well, John Maxwell coach murdered somebody. You know what I mean? And I thought, well, that isn’t good. That really isn’t good.

That could be a little blunt there. And I had to work through it. I had to work through it. And one day I said, no, no, I’m going to give my name to you, and I’m going to give my name to you because I think that people deserve a shot. People deserve a chance. And if my name will help you get into a door, if my name will help you get a client, then why shouldn’t I help you? Because my name is John and I’m your friend. And that’s who I am. Now I’m talking about, I followed my heart and a whole bunch of people said, John, you going to regret. I haven’t regret it. By the way. We’re in our 11th year of 48,000 coaches, and there’ve been maybe, I don’t know, four or five screw-ups. We’ve had a few, but we don’t have many.

And know what I found out, the other coaches go pounce on the screw-up. And they’re saying, don’t mess us up. You’re messing our name. It’s so fun to watch my coaches just slap them around and I just say, go get them, go get them. I haven’t had to police anything. But you got to follow your heart. I can remember after we trained 5 million leaders in every country of the world in a 19-year period. I can so remember when I sat down with my board and they said, let’s just celebrate, have a big party, and let’s call it a day.

And then I said, well, I think there’s something more I that we need to be doing in leadership. And they said, what is? I said, I think we need to do transformation. I think we need to train leaders how to be transformational leaders, and I think we ought to go try to bring transformation into countries. And they looked at me and they said, well, do you know how that’s going to work? And I looked at my board, I said, no, I don’t. I have a vision for it, but I don’t know how it’s going to work. And they said, well, can you define transformation? I said, I can’t do that either. But I said, can I tell you something? I’ll know it when I see it. And I went to Guatemala with some of the players and we started doing transformation. And that’s when we learned values. And we slowly… Now, don’t miss this. Don’t miss this because let me tell you something, you can’t think your way into greatness. You have to act your way. Wow.

I call this action attraction. And what I’m saying is very simple. To reach your potential, you have to move. And the word traction has the word action in it. There has to be a move. And let me tell you something, in reaching your potential, there are times when you will move, but you won’t have clarity. But you know that you have to move to get clarity, that you have to move to find the opportunities. Opportunities don’t come and find us while we’re sitting. We’re supposed to leave our footprints in the sands of time, not our butt prints in the sands of time. You can’t sit on your ass, butt, for the Christians. We’re recording this, aren’t we? If you’re listening to this right now, my name is Mark Cole. I’m speaking. John Maxwell’s not feeling good today, so I’m just filling in for him.

Nothing like having friends. But there’s something about the moment that you take action, then all of a sudden opportunities begin to come your way. And when you begin to move, resources move. Can I tell you something? When you stop moving, the resources stop moving. I run into people all the time who say, well, we were starting and then we stopped because the resources weren’t coming. And I say to them, no, no, when you stopped you stopped the resources. And the vision, it always gets clearer as you move. The first day of your vision is the day that the vision is the most unclear of all. This action attraction, here’s how it works. The moment you start moving, all of a sudden people begin to come to you that you would have never expected. And ideas begin to fill your mind and you’ll begin to have words that you begin to say. And none of this happens without movement. And so I’m just saying to you that, follow your heart.

Because some of you have a dream that God gave you. What did they ask Mother Theresa? How do you feed the world? And what did Mother Theresa say? You start with one. And I can tell you something. You can’t go from where you are to great. You have to go from where you are to good, to better. Great ideas don’t begin great ideas, great ideas begin as good ideas, and then they become better ideas. It takes several good ideas to become a great idea. It takes a lot of small. So don’t despise the small dream and don’t wait. I’ve seen people not do the small things because they’re waiting for the big things.

If you don’t do the small things, you don’t get the big things. Well done thou good and faithful servant. You’ve been favorable over a few things. What’s the master say? I’ll make you rule over many. But you don’t get to ruler over many until you’ve done a few. You got to start with few. And don’t despise the few. Be so excited with three. Three’s good. One’s wonderful. If you can’t change your world with one, you can’t change your world with a million. The authenticity of your dream will always be tested in small places with a few people. That is so stinking good. In fact, Aaron’s our content curator. Write that down. I’ve never said that before. That’s just huge. In fact, I’ve already forgot what I said.

That’s the problem. That’s the problem. You get old and you start forgetting stuff. The other day, Margaret and I were in the car and she said, John, she said, we’re forgetting everything. I said, I know, baby, we are. She says, we got to have a plan. I said, I know. She says, I got one. I said, what is it? She said, you remember who we are, and I’ll remember where we’re going. It’s working. When we divided that load up, it’s a lot better. It’s just getting better. And what I’m saying to you is, don’t despise small. Don’t despise little. Don’t look and say, well, this isn’t really making a difference. It’s making a difference. And by the way, if it’s valid to make a difference with one, it can be valid to make a difference with a million. So just enjoy and embrace it where you are. Don’t play the win game. Well, when I get there, I’ll do. No, no, no. Play the, I’m in game. I’m in the game right now. Okay, so I followed my heart.

Number five. To reach your potential. One of the things I really do work hard at is I have an abundance mindset. And we hear a lot about abundance mindset. So we don’t need to talk a lot about it. It’s the way we think. But all leaders have one thing in common regardless of country. I just finished, I just did a worldwide trip around Vietnam and Dubai, just came back about 10 days ago. I’ve spoken in, I think, 120 countries, but no matter what country, there’s only one thing that all leaders have in common. All leaders see more than others see, and they see before others see. That’s what they have in common. They see a bigger picture and they see it quicker. In other words, there’s an abundance in leadership that if you don’t have, you won’t lead.

So the scarcity stuff never works in leadership. You have to have an abundance. And I realized many, many years ago, in fact, when Margaret and I were just… Wait, I’m talking about 50 years ago. When McDonald’s was young, I remember one day going to McDonald’s and Margaret wanted a diet Coke, and so I went up to the counter and I asked the girl for a diet Coke. And she said, I’m sorry. She said, we don’t have Diet Coke. It was before they had diet Coke. And so I thought, okay. And I thought, I said, could I have a cup of ice? Because what I thought is I’ll get a cup of ice and I’ll go to some convenience store, get her a diet Coke, pour it in there for it, give it to her, and everything will be fine. And when I ask her for a cup of ice, she’s looking at her little register and she gets this real puzzled look on it. She says, oh my. See, she can’t find cup of ice. She can’t find it, and I’m sorry, sir, I’m not sure I can do that.

And I smiled and I said, yes, you can. And she said, okay. And she got me the cup of ice. And I walked out of that day and I said, I think I’m going to be a yes you can, man. I think I’m going to walk into everybody’s life and say, yeah, you can get a cup of ice. And yes, you can lift your lid. And yes, your dream can become. I’m going to be a, I can man. I’m going to be be a lid lifter. You see, if you have an abundance mindset, you believe there’s always an answer. There’s always an answer. I know there’s always an answer. There’s always an answer. And if you have an abundance mindset, you believe there’s a better answer. There’s more than one answer. So what happens is when you find the answer, if you have an abundance mindset, you realize it’s a good answer, but there’s a better answer.

So what does that do? That keeps me from being satisfied. That keeps me from saying, okay, well I’ve got it down and this is the way it is, and here we are. But I have this, yes, you can abundance mindset. Several years ago, several years ago now, probably, oh, I don’t know, 20. My family, we’re going to Scotland for a trip and we’re going to play some golf. And so we knew the trip a year ahead. And so we wanted to obviously play the oldest course where golf was founded and started. So we applied to be registered on the day we were there so we could play golf. They said they were full, and so we tried every month all the way up to when we left. And they said we could play the new course, but not the old course.

Now the old course is where it all started. That’s what we wanted to play. But the new course is a hundred years less old. It’s like only 300 years old. And that’s the new course. And so we were registered to play on the new course. And I remember the day we pulled up to the old course and the new course are right beside each other. And I’m not satisfied because I want to play the old course. And so I told my brother, Larry, I said, Larry, I’ll tell you what, let me go in and talk to the steward about playing on the old course. He said, John, they told us no every month, you know that. We’ll just go play on the… I said, I know, I know, but I just got to try one more time. So I went into the steward, that’s the guy that says yes and no on the registrations, et cetera.

And he looked at me and he said, what’s your name? I said, John Maxwell. So he’s looking in his list. Of course, I know my name’s not on the list, but I’ll let him look. Miracles happen. And so he finished looking at the list, then he said, I’m sorry. He said, I’m a little embarrassed, I don’t see your name on the list. I said, well, it’s not. He said, well, what do you mean? I said, well, we don’t have a tee time. Oh, he said, oh, I’m so sorry. He said, we were full today. I’m sorry you won’t be able to play. I said, can I ask you a question? Have you ever knowingly helped a person’s lifetime dream come true? Have you known where you could look and say, I made that person’s lifetime dream come true? Has that ever happened to you? And then he sat me and said, well, I don’t think I have. I said, today’s your day. And I’m going to help you make your lifetime dream come true by letting my lifetime come.

And he said, well, he said, that would be wonderful. He said, honestly, I would love to be able to say I made, but he said it’s full. I said, well, let me ask you another question. I said, is it possible that somebody won’t show up today? Well, he said, that’s possible. It’s not a problem. It very seldom happens because this is the most important tee time on golf in the world. And I said, I know that, but if someone didn’t show up, could you slide us in? Well, he said, I can’t do that because then you’d have to go get caddies. And by the time you did that, that tee time would be gone. Oh, I said, no, no, no. It’s no problem. We already have caddies.

He said, what do you mean? I said, we’ve already paid caddies for the round that we hope to play. He said, you’ve already paid them? I said, yes. I said, we want to be ready. We don’t want to mess you up. We want to be able to slide right in, and you don’t have to miss a thing. He said, well, you probably won’t get to play. I said, well then the caddies had a real good day. Then he kind of smiled. He said, okay. I said, let me ask you another question. Now please, you got to understand, there’s always an answer. Listen to me. There’s always an answer. There’s always an answer. I said, do you have anybody come a little late? I don’t know. They got into traffic. And he said, well, that happens once in a while. I said, we’ll be glad to take their place. We’ll be glad to sign in. He said, well, he said, honestly, I don’t think those things will happen.

And I said, I understand. It’s okay. And I said, you got other people to take care of, and I’ve taken up way too much of your time. I’m so sorry, but I’m so excited that my lifetime dream is probably going to be fulfilled today. And he said, well, now, he said, please don’t do this. He said, I can’t make promises. I said, I know you can’t make promises. I’m not even trying to make you make promises. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. You take care of all the rest of these people. I’ll just stand right over here. And the reason I want to stand here is because when something happens and we get the opportunity, I want to be ready. I would never want to mess you up. I would never want to slow you. In fact, when it happens, all you got to do is nod.

And I said, we’re on that golf course. It’s going to be good. I stood over there, he’d check in some other people in, and of course, they were all registered. And every once in a while he’d look over at me and I’d be… The third time he looked up, I’d probably been standing now for 30 minutes. He looked up and he smiled, and I knew that I had him. I had him. I don’t mean this unkind. It’s going to happen. It’s going to happen. And I told the guy, ran out. I told my brother and the family, I said, Hey, we’re going to get a [inaudible 00:25:04] I don’t know when, but trust me, he’s leaning in now. He’s leaning in.

And about an hour and a half later, he looked over at me, nodded. We went out there and the guy that was our caddie, he’s been there for 18 years. He said, how did you get on? He said, I’ve never known anybody to get on unless they were already registered. And I just smiled. And let me tell you something, it’s amazing what an abundance mindset will do for you. Hey listen, you’re shutting doors that people haven’t even shut. You’re knocking once on the door and you’re going back out to your car and say, it didn’t happen. That abundance mindset just happen. And then another thing to hit your potential. I hate it. That clock is going too fast. I hate it. Okay, just ive me a second. Dear Lord. What I really hate is this is my conference and I can’t even stop the clock. Good Lord. So number six. Hold on. Am I on number six? Number six, to reach your potential, I give up to go up. The greatest challenge of tomorrow’s success is today’s success.

And the only way that I can keep reaching my potential is to give up today something so I can have something greater tomorrow. Your life is a series of trade-offs. Everything that you need in life and everything that you want in life, but you don’t have it, the reason we don’t have it is because it’s outside of our comfort zone. So what do we have to do? We have to get out of our comfort zone. Trade-offs are all about getting out of your comfort zone. And the higher you go, the higher the price. So we make trade-offs all the time. I make trade-offs every few months, I have to make another trade-off. And by the way, the higher you go, the harder it is to make the trade-off because you got more, right? I love people who say, when we started, we gave up everything. And I said, of course you did. You didn’t have anything to give up.

Good Lord, you had nothing. But as you go higher… Are you with me? You go higher, you have absolutely more. I made seven major career moves in my life, and five of them, I went for a lot less money, lot less prestige, but I went because there was potential there. And remember this, you don’t leave something, you go to something. If you leave something, guess what? You keep turning around. You keep looking back and saying, oh my gosh, wow, I’ve lost some friends, and gosh, I lost my title, lost my parking place. Number seven. Number seven. I prioritize very well. To reach your potential, you have to continually prioritize. And here’s why. Activity is not necessarily accomplishment. And so therefore, when we’re in activity, when someone tells me they’re busy, it really doesn’t mean a lot to me.

There’s a lot of people that are busy, and they are as ineffective as can be. It’s not how hard you work, it’s how smart you work. And when you read my book on developing the leader within you 2.0, man, I talk about this. I talk about the three Rs, what’s required of me, what gives me my greatest return, and what gives me my greatest reward? You got to line those three Rs up together. And when you line those three Rs up together, it becomes absolutely huge. To reach my potential, number eight. I’m moving fast, I really am because I’ve got something very exciting right after this that I want to share with you. Number eight is I know how to get a return on failure. I realize that in failure, there is something that gives me a return if I know how to get it.

Wow. Number nine. Number nine. I’m so proud of my, I just skipped some great stuff there. Good Lord. Wow. By the way, I just wrote a book since Christmas, another book. But I’m always writing. And right after Christmas, I said, I need to write a book on how to receive a return on failure. And I wrote it, and Charlie’s finishing it off right now, and it’ll come out, I don’t know, it’ll come out sometime either at the end of this year or the first of next year. And it’s just going to be on how to receive a return on failure. Because how many of you have failed at least once today?

Sure, we all do. You see, the question is not are you going to fail? The question is, are you going to get a return on it, a positive return? And I know how to do that. Number nine, I develop leaders. I develop people around me that can apply and multiply. Do you know how proud I am to sit in this conference over here, on the edge of the front row, and watch all these people come and teach on personal growth and development? And to realize that this incredible team of leaders that we’re building and developing, and it’s so wonderful, honestly, I’m hanging in, but they don’t need me. Sometimes they’ll say, that leader is so amazing, they’re irreplaceable. Can I tell you something? If you’re irreplaceable, you’re not a good leader. Your goal isn’t to be irreplaceable.

Your goal is to be replaceable. Your goal is to equip and train people. I used to tell my staff all the time, I’m going to hire you to do this job, and it’s your job to work yourself out of this job. And if you work yourself out of this job, I’ll give you another one. But if you don’t work yourself out of the job, I’m going to take it away from you. You want to train people, develop people, equip people, and then watch them run and watch them go and watch them develop. One more. Number 10, and I won’t stay here long because this is faith, but number 10 is I’ve always had God room in my life. I’ve always had a place for God to do exceeding abundantly more than I could do.

And I had a mentor when I was very young, and I’m a person of faith, but I had a mentor when I was very young, said, John, I want you to attempt something so big that if ever happens, people will look at you and say, I know you. You’re not that good. And they’ll give God the credit. And that’s how I’ve tried to live my life, and what we’re seeing in transformation of nations is just absolutely huge. And I’m so excited and I’m so excited about, but I try to have God. And by way, when you hit your potential, when you get to the ceiling of your potential, you are on the floor of God room. You understand that. You’re just now touching where he stands, and he’ll take you to a whole new level.

Mark Cole:

Hey, welcome back. I’m telling you, not only was John incredible on the podcast today, he was incredible in person here in Orlando. I, again, welcome back our studio audience. Over the next 48 hours, we’ve just finished an incredible seven-hour experience, but over the next 24 hours, we will be spending time with our Maxwell leadership certified team members, Damien, Kelly, Shelly. These are people that you spend your life adding value to. And I’m thankful that you’re here with me today and in front of this audience and listening to John. But has today not been one of the best days for growth in your life?

Damian Johnson:

Absolutely incredible.

Kelly Sylte:

Amazing.

Shelly Davis:

Amazing. Yes.

Mark Cole:

Amazing. I agree. I agree. Well see, what I’m so excited about is you connect people to their vision, their mission each and every day. And before I even get into notes and questions about what John shared today, I would love to hear what it’s like to be able to unlock the potential in others. And maybe it’s a story, maybe it’s something that you would love to share, but just give me what it’s like to be a PA for John Maxwell. Let’s go with you first, Kelly.

Kelly Sylte:

Well, thank you, Mark. We’re here and we’re talking about from success to significance, and we’re here to connect you so to something that’s very important in your life, possibly your dream. Maybe it’s a dream that’s so big, you never even shared it with someone. So this is very important to us. So it means a lot, right? But here’s the thing, I’m a better person because of you. So I get to win. So every day I get to do that for a living. I get to earn income and do what I love and connect people to what’s important. And guess what? If I can touch your life, I know you’re going to touch the lives of many more. So thank you for that. And I live it every day.

Mark Cole:

So Shelly talks to me, John talks about three types of people he shared with it today, confused people who don’t know what they would like to do with their lives. Then he talks about frustrated people who do know what they want to do with their lives, they’re just not doing it. And then finally, he talks about fulfilled people. Can you tell a story of someone you’ve worked with, someone that you’ve invited on the team that’s now living their best life?

Shelly Davis:

I absolutely can. I’ll never forget, it was around 2015. And the voice on the other end, she just sounded sad. She sounded tired. And she said, for 25 years, I’ve been a mental health professional and I love what I do. I love to serve others. I’m getting ready to retire. And I could hear some seagulls in the background. And I thought, where’s this lady? And she said, the beach is my place, Shelly. And I have a good friend. And she said, I know you’re retiring. I have to tell you, I’ve joined this team, most incredible place. It’s just an opportunity for you when you retire. Check it out. And she said, I don’t know why I’m on this call, but I trust my friend and I’m going to be retiring. Shelly, go ahead, give me the details.

So I shared the details, and as I got to know her, she said, I think I’m liking what I’m hearing. And I love the fact that John will share his intellectual properties, resources, so I can take that back as a licensed professional. I’ll use that with my clients. So she enrolled in the program. Well, a couple of months later, the phone rang, or I called her, she had an appointment, and it was a different lady. She was in Massachusetts. She was excited. And she said, Shelly, I have to tell you something. I have to share a story. Those resources, I went ahead and I picked them up. I ran my first mastermind where she was a facilitator. Again, John gave her the rights to those intellectual properties. She said, I had some clients. I was a one-on-one with my clients. I decided to do a little group session, and we went through the writings of the 15 invaluable laws of growth.

She said, I’ve had this client for years. He called me, crying at the end of this session and said, I’ve been a scientist in my company for over eight years, and I’ve been trying to get my message and an invention that I’ve had out there. Nobody would listen to me. But I attended your mastermind, and we went through the writings of John Maxwell, and they’ve accepted my invention. And I know it’s because you have the resources. And she said, Shelly, when I first met you, I didn’t know why, but I’m ready to continue my why long after my retirement, and that’s to continue to change lives.

Mark Cole:

That’s what it’s all about.

Shelly Davis:

We need to pay you guys. Those are the calls we love.

Mark Cole:

John today, talked in this room about investing in yourself. How do you add value to yourself and make yourself better? And what I love about each of you three, as well as all of you podcast listeners, is that is the discipline, is to add value. Damian, I’d love for you to tell us, at Maxwell certified team, how do we move people from success to significance?

Damian Johnson:

Thank you, Mark. In the Maxwell team, we believe in our members. And many times we believe in them more than they believe in themselves. And when they come into the program, what we try to do is to help them stop fighting invisible dragons. Sometimes you have a dream and you’ve been given a glimpse of the potential impact that you could have in people’s lives. But at the same time, you also bring with you doubts, insecurities, feelings of inadequacy. And so depending on which voice you listen to, that can get stronger. And so what we try to do in the team is we try to help you build your confidence so that you can take action and not die the death of a thousand what ifs. What if I’m not good enough? What if I’m not ready? You know what, we tell you to jump and grow your wings on the way down.

Chris Robinson tells us, learn a little bit and do a little bit, because here’s what we know. Perfection is not required. The heart to serve, the heart to add value to people, the heart to make an impact, if you will, just take your eyes off of yourself, use the resources that we give you, trust the process, and step into growth, you can make a difference in someone’s life. And we see a time after time after time again, again and again, team members coming back and saying, I did what you told me to do, and the results were incredible. And so what we try to get our team members to do is to borrow our belief that more is possible, and that someone is waiting to hear your voice, your story, to take these resources that we’ve entrusted you with, and to just let them flow through you. Because John teaches us that we should be a river and not a reservoir.

Mark Cole:

Yeah. Yeah. Come on. Hey, you guys, I want to go to this next question because you guys get a chance to talk to people, people that listen to the podcast often. And really what I would like to know is what is the biggest obstacle… You say, you talk to hundreds of people a week. What is the biggest obstacle that holds people back? Any one of you can jump in.

Kelly Sylte:

I’ll start. So they’ll say that it’s time or money. First thing, I don’t have enough time. Well, we all have the same number of hours in every day. And you can say it’s money, but just ask that… Let’s see, Ayo, I know you’re out there, from Nigeria. You know what the Rand Exchange is, someone who didn’t have the money in the bank is in this room right now. Their passion was bigger than their obstacle. And John was talking about that. What’s in your heart? You’ve got to go with your heart. If you’ve got a passion and you have this desire in your heart, you have a gift. A gift isn’t a gift until you give it away. And everyone in this room has some kind of a gift, whether it’s the gift of communication or helping other people. So what we do, the Maxwell Leadership team is just connect you to that platform because time and money, isn’t it.

It’s the fear. Fear of failure, fear of success. I don’t know where to start. I don’t know what to do. Look around this room. Somebody has hugged your neck today, at least three, four times. Someone is there beside you. And the support, the live support, the team, the family, welcome home, right? You’re here and you have that, and the resources and things that Shelly was talking about with her. So we give you the platform, we give you the resources, and we give you the support to do, like Damian said, right? Live your dream, follow your heart, and you have all of that. And guess what? You’re never alone. In this room alone, 1800 people, but 46,000 all over the world and growing.

Mark Cole:

Yeah. Yeah. Shelly, what is the biggest obstacle you see?

Shelly Davis:

When they get on the call, we know. And when you guys got on a call that you’re not the type of person that just jumps on ads and calls. So we get into what I call our zone, and we just want to be there for you. And as we get to know you, there’s always something you’re looking for and you just don’t know how to get it. It’s the missing link, it’s the gap. And as we talk and we get to know each other, you start sharing, gosh, everybody says I should do this or I should do that. And I’m working a million hours. Again, like Kelly says, I don’t have the time, but there’s something so deep in you, and you’re called for something so big, yet we know what’s on the other side, so we could just pour on top of you.

So we value every minute, and it is so special to us. And the obstacles, like you say, Mark and Kelly, it is the fear. It’s that, well, I’m going to talk to my husband or my wife, and they say, I invest in all these things, but they never work out. And so we do our best to help you get out of your own way. And some of you don’t even realize, I’m not saying you in particular. Maybe. You have a really tough time getting out of your own way and you’re running at the speed of lightning because you are living that life of success, but you want to leave that legacy for your children. You’re ready. And that’s the biggest thing I hear probably more than anything, is people saying, I’ve got the success, I’ve got this, or I want that, but I want to leave that legacy for my son.

Mark Cole:

So Damian, come off of being a program advisor. I’ve done webinars with you. We did one recently. Talk about you overcome the obstacle in your life to join the team, and now you’re a product of the product. Just give me about a minute of your story of overcoming that obstacle.

Shelly Davis:

So Mark, when I joined the team, I was a couple of years into serving in ministry.I didn’t grow up with a family that went to church, but I was new in ministry. And my pastor would call out the greatness, because many of us have people that can see our potential and will speak to that, right? But I didn’t see it in myself. And he said, Damian, God has put greatness inside of you. The challenge for me is that he couldn’t give me a strategy or a plan or a process to extract that greatness. And when you know that you’ve got more in you and you’re not extracting that more from within you, you get frustrated. And so it was a leadership conference, one Saturday morning, the speaker came and he was friends with John, and he said my friend John is opening up a leadership development program.

He’s going to do speaker training. And when I heard speaker training, I said, John Maxwell, I’ve read some of his books. I think I know this guy. I think I can trust it. And after that Saturday conference, Sunday, the preacher preached four services, I came home and that irritation came back to me. That irritation that’s like, I’m not doing what I’m supposed to be doing. And I remember going to the landing page, and at that time, John had a 40-minute video explaining why he started the program. I joined the team in December 2011, so founding member here. And of all the things that John covered, the one thing that John said, the one phrase that John said that burned a hole in my heart is this, and you all have heard this before, it’s I want to make a difference with people who want to make a difference doing something that makes a difference at a time that makes a difference.

And for me, that was the calling card. I knew I wanted to be around a tribe of people that was doing something that mattered. I wanted to be equipped for success. And so when I got on the call with that program advisor, at that time, I just said yes and jumped all in. And here is the decision that I made. If I wasn’t going to bet on me, who was I going to depend on to bet on me? Because guess what? There’s nobody that’s coming to rescue me. And for some of you out there, you know that there’s more inside of you. And can I just tell you, nobody’s coming to rescue you. You’ve got to bet on yourself. So if you know got that more, you feel it in your heart, there’s a passion that burns, then this is a place that you can trust. It’s a place for you to belong, and it’s a place for you to be surrounded with like-minded people.

Mark Cole:

Wow. So as you can tell, podcast viewers, podcast listeners, our challenge you is exactly what we started with, with John’s content. This possibility mindset, this understanding that within you there is an opportunity. 10 years ago, 12 years ago, we made the same decision that we made today. And that is, are you willing, as Damian said, are you willing to invest in yourself? Are you willing to make a commitment to yourself that you will be better. Today, we’ve talked to our program advisors, and I’ve got to tell you, I want to challenge you listening to the podcast today. Join our team. In fact, you can go to maxwellleadership.com/jointheteam, and you too can be in the room with us on August the 14th, betting on yourself.

Because John Maxwell, we, our program advisors, Kelly, Shelly, and Damian, we all are believing in you. And we want you to believe in yourself. Today, in this room. Today, so many of us have found out what you, in the podcast, have found out. And that is, if we want our world to be better, we’ve got to treat ourself better. We’ve got to believe in ourself better. So I’m excited. I’m excited for you guys. Can you, in the audience today, can you help me thank Kelly, Shelly and Damian. Give them a big round of applause. And for you listening to the podcast, join our team. The world needs powerful, positive change. We at Maxwell Podcast believe in that because everyone deserves to be led well. Thank you for joining us today.