How to be a REAL Success (Part 1)

Mark Cole:
Sometimes as leaders, we think there’s no way someone could do the job as good as me. It can be easy to feel like we must have our hands in literally everything for our organization, for our team to succeed. But as we all know, I couldn’t be further from the truth. No one accomplishes anything great by themselves. We want to be leaders who are thoughtful, effective and compassionate. We want to walk slowly through the crowd, as John Maxwell often says. But in the reality of day to day life, that’s easy to say, but all together, difficult to do. How often do you find yourself running through the metaphorical crowd to get to your next meeting or to your next task? Great leaders delegate.

Mark Cole:
And if you’re listening to this podcast, I know you want to be a great leader. And Belay is here to help you do just that. For over a decade, Belay has dedicated itself to helping leaders like you and me accomplish more by juggling less. Their highly vetted, us based administrative assistants, marketing assistants and accounting specialists can take the task off of your plate and free you up to focus on what matters most. So to help you, valet is offering its leadership toolkit free to you as our listener. In this resource, you’ll learn the necessary steps every leader needs to accomplish more and juggle. To claim this offer, just text the word Maxwell to 55123 for your free copy today. That’s Maxwell to 55123.

Mark Cole:
And in no time, you’ll be back to doing what only you can do, leading your business. Hey, welcome to the Maxwell Leadership podcast. Mark Cole here. I’m glad you’re here and whether this is your first time, whether it’s multiple times, I will tell you, you probably fit in a category where most of the questions around the world fit that are asked of John Maxwell. How can I be successful? Whether it’s successful as a father like I want to be, or successful like a significant person in someone’s life, or whether it’s something like you want to be the most successful entrepreneur or business person. Every one of us are chasing success in some form or fashion. And so today John’s going to talk to us about how to be a real success. This content is so good.

Mark Cole:
John’s formula is so solid, proven and tested. It’s going to take us two episodes to share how John can teach you and I how to be a real success. John’s going to give us four areas that will help us improve. This week it’ll be two areas. Next week it’ll be two more areas. These will help you improve your business. It’ll help you improve your leadership. And because this podcast is a podcast, committing to adding value to you so that you can multiply value to others, we are going to be successful and help success be generated in others.

Mark Cole:
Now, after this lesson today and next week, a very successful person in these four areas is joining me. You know him now because he’s been on the podcast recently. His name is Chris Robinson. And Chris, I am so glad you’re going to be here to help us talk about these areas and give practical ways to apply them to your everyday life. Now make sure to go to maxwellpodcast.com/realsuccess to download the bonus resource for this episode, or you can watch us there on YouTube. Okay, get ready. You want to be successful? Here is John Maxwell.

John Maxwell:
I thought about talking to you today about how to be a real success and share with you four things that if you would improve in these four areas, just like I try to improve these four areas in my own life, honestly, your business will improve. It really will. Let me give you the background of this teaching just for a moment. When I was in my twenties, I had a mentor, lass Parrot, who had written five books. I had not written any books. I was not an author. In fact, I didn’t have any desire to be an author. If you’d come up and ask me if I ever wanted to write a book, I’d say, well, I like to read them, but I don’t particularly care to write them.

John Maxwell:
But we’re having lunch one day, and my mentor, Les is talking to me about his latest book. And I asked him, I said, les, why do you write books? And he looked at me that day and said, john, I write books to add value to people and influence people that I will never meet. And the moment that he said that to me, within my heart, I thought, that’s exactly what I want to do. I want to add value to people. I want to reach people and help people. People that I’ll never, maybe ever personally meet in my life. And that was the catalyst for me becoming a writer. And I came to the conclusion that if I really wanted to add value to people, that I needed to ask myself and ask others what is it that is so important in their life that would help them to be more valuable and more successful? And for the next 18 months, I asked questions.

John Maxwell:
I read, I thought, I wrote down my thoughts, and I came to the conclusion that if I could help people do four things and improve those four areas, it would just greatly improve their life. And that’s where the r e a l comes from the letter r. There are four things. The first one, the letter r, stands for relationships. And I said to myself, if I could help people really just have good people skills, it’s just going to improve their life. And it’s kind of like this. People won’t really go along with you unless they can get along with you. Your success and my success is going to be more determined by our ability to get along with people, add value to them, connect with them than anything else in our life.

John Maxwell:
And that is exactly what I’ve discovered. Values really help people, help other people in a beautiful way. And caring for people and relationship values are just absolutely essential. I wrote a book several years ago called winning with people. And one of my chapters and one of my people principles is what I call the elevator principle, which simply says, some people lift you up, some people bring you down. And the question for all of us today is, what do I do? Am I an elevator that takes people to a higher level, or am I an elevator, maybe with only one button on it, with a letter b, which means basement, and I just take people down? Well, here’s what I know about relationships and why it’s so important in your life and my life. Each one of us, right now, we’re either a plus in people’s lives or a minus. We’re either an asset or a liability.

John Maxwell:
We either lift people up or to be honest with you, we kind of bring them down. One of the things that I’ve concentrated on for several years now, and wanting to be good relationally with others, is a commitment that I made to intentionally add value to people. Now I say the word intentionally because I think it’s a key word. And what I mean by that is, I think that we are born selfish. I know I was. And what that basically means is that I want somebody to do good things to me. And I get up in the morning and think, wow, I wonder if something good is going to happen to me. And we just have a.

John Maxwell:
We just naturally have kind of a selfish nature waiting for someone else to do something good for us. The reason that intentionally adding value is so important is that I naturally want people to add value to me. So I have to be very intentional if I want to add value to you. Here is what I know to be successful. You and I want to have good relationships with others. In fact, I would go as far to say that as you look in your past, as I look behind my past, honestly, the relationships that are positive in our lives are the highlights of our lives. So if you want to achieve and succeed well in any practice, remember relationships, commit yourself to getting along well with people and connecting with them. Let’s go to the letter e and the word real.

John Maxwell:
That stands for equipping. To be highly successful, you have to equip other people. In fact, if it was just you and me, let’s say you and I had the opportunity to have a one on one conversation. Okay, just you and me. If I could sit down, I would ask you two questions that will greatly determine the success of your business. The first question I ask is very simple. What are you doing to develop yourself? Whats your personal growth plan? The reason I ask that question is your people can only grow to the level that you grow. Sometimes as leaders, we keep our people from developing because weve not developed ourselves.

John Maxwell:
Its true that people follow the leader. So I have to be able to go high if I want my people to go high, I have to be able to go far if I want my people to go far. So the first person I need to develop is myself. Not because I’m selfish, it’s because the better I grow and develop, the more I can enable others to do the same thing. So question number one is, what are you doing to develop yourself? And now you know what question number two is. What are you doing to develop others? That’s all about equipping your staff. And the powerful thing about equipping is that when you begin to train and equip people, you compound all of your success. You compound your time because now others are helping you do things.

John Maxwell:
You compound your influence because now others are having positive impact in people’s life. You compound your finances because you have other people helping you work in the business, which creates more people to take care of and greater profits. I mean, compounding is a result of training and equipping other people. So let me just very briefly, in the next minute and a half, give you my five equipping steps, steps that I take to equip other people. And step one is very simple. I do it before I ever train you, equip you, develop you. I have to do it. Why? Because people do what people see.

John Maxwell:
Leadership is visual, pretty much. People don’t do what you say they do what you do. So my credibility of equipping you is the fact that I do what I’m going to equip you to do very well myself. That gives me credibility and it gives me influence to now train and develop you. So step one is I do it. Step two is I do it and you are with me. You see, equipping depends upon proximity. Again, leadership is visual.

John Maxwell:
And so if you’re with me and you’re getting to watch me, you’re going to learn much quicker how to do something very well. So this is where we’re together, and I’m visually demonstrating to you what I want you to learn how to do. Step three is, now you do it, and I’m with you. Isn’t it interesting? There comes a time when I literally, this is a water bottle, but there comes a time where I hand that baton off to you and you take it. And now, all of a sudden, you’re doing the work. But I’m still with you. I’m watching you, I’m coaching you, I’m tweaking you. Every time we’re finished doing a project, whatever it is, you and I may sit down for 15 minutes, and we may just kind of review what happened.

John Maxwell:
And now I’m sharing with you maybe how you could even do it more effectively. But again, we’re together. But now you’re leading, and I’m observing, coaching, and helping you. Step four is you do it. There comes a time, you don’t need to be with me. You know how to do it. And so you go, and that’s always an exciting time for an equipper, because now, all of a sudden, I have not only myself doing this job, but you’re doing it, too. So we’ve got two.

John Maxwell:
Now we’re. Now we’re starting to add. We’re starting to, starting to really kind of compound, in a small way, our success. Now, most equipping stops at level four, when you can do it, what I’ve taught you how to do. It’s kind of like, okay, I’ve done my job, and I go focus maybe on someone else to equip. But there’s a fifth step, and I don’t want you to miss it because this is the, this is the magic step in equipping people. You see, step five is you do it and someone is with you. In other words, you’re now equipping someone else.

John Maxwell:
In fact, when I began to train and equip someone, before I ever start, I asked them if they’re willing to train and equip someone after I do that for them. If they say yes, we start. If I see there’s a hesitancy and they kind of just maybe aren’t interested in training someone else, we don’t even start. Why? I don’t want my equipping to be a dead end street. I want to equip you so you can equip others. And that’s where true compounding begins. And really successful people, they get along with people really well. They’re really good at the relationships, and they train and develop others really, really well.

Maxwell Leadership Certified Team:
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Mark Cole:
Hey, podcast listeners, viewers, welcome back. Hey, real quick, I usually say this till the end, but all of these, all of you that kind of give us a comment or a question. Thank you. When you give us a rating and rank us specifically, if you rank us a five star, it really helps us in our ability to help others. And so I really do appreciate it. I talked to Chris before John taught us today. I talked about of every question that John gets asked, 90% of them is somehow centered on becoming more successful. And I do want to talk about that. Jon has taught for years that his formula for success is how you do relationships, how you do equipping, how you do attitude, how you do leadership. I’ve already given you next week’s two right there, if you didn’t notice.

Mark Cole:
But how you do those four, r e a l. Relationships, equipping, attitude, and leadership is a difference maker. Here at Maxwell leadership, we’ve looked at all of John’s content, and we’ve determined that everything John’s ever spoken about or read about or talked about or filed about or wrote a book about is in an area, we believe that fits into the acronym clear. Clear is communication, leadership, equipping, attitude and relationship. Communicating, leading, equipping, how you do your attitude and how you relate with others. And those five areas, we’ve created a whole personal growth platform that can help you become a success in those five areas. In fact, I’m excited, Chris, because you’re the attitude guy. You’re mister attitude in our clear growth plan.

Mark Cole:
If you want to expand your ability to relate with people or connect with people or lead people with a better attitude. Chris Robinson in our growth plan helps you with that. You can find out more information about our growth plan, about this digital process that we do to help people clearly become successful at growth dot maxwellleadership.com growth dot maxwellleadership.com and again, Chris, I told you this a couple of weeks ago when we talked about abundance, but I can’t think of a better person to help me talk about real and real success. You’ve been successful. You’ve been not successful and then became successful again. We’ve heard some of those stories, but I really do believe in this area of relating equipping, which we’re talking about this week, attitude and leadership. Next week you have the ability to help us. And so I’m glad you’re here.

Chris Robinson:
Yeah, glad to be here. Glad to be back and glad to talk about this topic. You know, it’s the foundation of everything that John has taught. And, you know, I love this content. I love talking about this stuff. I love having this dialogue. You know, if I look back at it now, you know, I’m 45. I just turned 45.

Mark Cole:
Happy birthday, young man.

Chris Robinson:
But I started listening to watching John’s content when I was 21 years old. And so now I’ve reached that tipping point where I’ve spent more of my life studying and teaching these principles than I haven’t.

Mark Cole:
Wow.

Chris Robinson:
I thought, man, that’s an incredible tipping point. When I think about how these pillars, how these principles have really shaped my life. You know, this first one, he talks about his relationships now, and I look at all these and I go, oh, my goodness, I think that I did all these wrong or all these to the extreme until you find that equilibrium of where you belong at. But this first one, when he talks about people won’t go along with you unless they can get along with you. My interpretation of that as an early leader was that I’ve got to be likable. I’ve got to be likable. And then I found that I was spending more time trying to be likable than actually leading. Talk to me about that balance between likability and leadership and getting along with people so that they’ll go along with you.

Mark Cole:
You know, we talked again a couple of weeks ago, shameless plug for our abundance podcast a couple of weeks ago, Chris. But we talked about people that lift you and people that take you down. And one of the reasons that I love working alongside of you, even if we don’t talk for a couple of weeks or however long, and then immediately click back is because we are relationally bent people. When you and I first started leading the entrepreneur solutions side of Maxwell leadership, we said, hey, let’s quit asking people to buy stuff. We’ve been asking them for a long time. Let’s add value a lot, and then we’ll start looking for things to do together. And you and I instantly bonded on that. That was a relational move.

Mark Cole:
That wasn’t a business move. It was a relational move. We wanted to connect, you and I. There’s disconnect and chaos, and people are devaluing each other. It grieves us. We can’t sleep at night. We talked about things that’s kept us up at night. So we really relate on this relationship category.

Mark Cole:
It’s very natural to us now. You’re best in class at attitude. We’ll talk more about that next week. But we really are naturally relationally bent at everything. It’s one of the things that I thoroughly enjoy working through challenges with you about. So here’s the point for those of you out there that are viewing or watching the podcast, and you connect on that and you go, yep, I’m relationally bent. A 99% vote is a loss. Who is that one person? John tells a story about that.

Mark Cole:
Who’s that one person that didn’t vote out of me, even though 100 did. It would kill me. Right? That’s a relational aspect. And I’ll never forget Chris giving us something practical. Now, as relational leaders, some of you don’t relate. You don’t even know the world consists of anybody other than you. You’re not a relational leader. By the way, if that’s you, for those of us relational leaders, I think that that paradox or that dichotomy that you’re referencing right there on how do I be definitive or how do I be production oriented when it’s relational? But I’m a relationship person.

Mark Cole:
I’ll never forget. It took John about 18 months to mentor me on this one question mark. Would you dread or be loved, or would you dreadher lead? Well, my response the first time he asked for that was both, John, you’re a cake and eat it, too, guy. I’m a cake and eat it, too, guy. I want to lead and be loved. And John said, that’s true. That’s good. That’s a good aspiration.

Mark Cole:
But there’s going to be sometimes, Mark, the higher you go with responsibility as a leader that you’re going to sometimes have to determine in this situation, would I dread to be loved, or would I draw the leader? And Chris, he was 100% right, because the more responsibility I’ve put on my shoulder, there have been moments that I had to make the distinction. When John pressed me on that, I’d never looked at leadership that way, because I’ve always used relational skills to lead, and I think that can work for me 95% of the time. But that other 5% got to figure out which one. And for me, that 18 month process helped me understand that I’d rather be a leader that was effective than a leader that was liked and ineffective. Now I want both. I’m still a cake and eat it, too kind of guy. He didn’t remove relationship out of me. Right? But in this concept, all of us relational leaders, and I’ve watched you, I’ve watched you make just this year, we could talk right now, we could cry together right now of just in the last six months, decisions you made of that says, you know what? I gotta lead for the organization, and this decision’s not gonna be liked.

Mark Cole:
I still don’t like them. I still don’t enjoy them.

Chris Robinson:
Correct.

Mark Cole:
But at the same time, I’ve determined, for the sake of the vision, for the sake of getting people to move en masse, where we’re trying to go, I will make decisions sometimes that people don’t agree with, but ultimately, they’ll many times come back and appreciate me for it.

Chris Robinson:
Yeah, I love that. Thanks for sharing that. And again, I think, you know, if you take these statements and you don’t get a chance to really flesh them out, because it’s one thing to hear them and think, oh, that’s a good idea. But then when you go and test these out in reality, sometimes it gives you feedback of, did I go too far or did I not go too far? And it takes time to develop these skill sets. But let me take you to the other extreme, then. So what if you do? What do you do when you just don’t get along with somebody? I mean, inevitably, we always come across somebody that we just don’t get along, no matter how likeable. Me, mister attitude and everything. And there’s some people like, hey, I can’t.

Chris Robinson:
I can’t do it.

Mark Cole:
And if Chris says I can’t do it, I go, boy, there is a problem somewhere. You get along with everybody. Yeah. I’m so glad you brought that up. You told me right at the beginning you were going to ask that question. And so it’s just kind of been on my mind. So most of the time, we just kind of cut on the recording and come in here and share raw and real. I appreciated that.

Mark Cole:
Heads up, Chris. Because when you are around someone that you just don’t get along with, you don’t like. Number one, the longer you stay in a toxic relationship that you can’t reach some kind of a resolution with, bad things are going to happen. Mark this. You’re 45. I’m 55. Mark this 55 year old words down. You are going to be in.

Mark Cole:
Bad things are coming. The train’s coming. So we have to really determine why I we don’t like someone. We don’t get it, and we have to. And that’s hard, because why sometimes is elusive. Why sometimes is there’s just no connection. There’s no. There’s no chemistry.

Mark Cole:
I have found often, if I’ll stay with it long enough, I can think of three people. Sidebar but very apropos to this, I can think of three people in my life, of 25 years of leadership with John Maxwell that I’ve heard John say three times and only three times. I don’t like that person. And I’m not kidding you. John sees the good in everybody. And it so struck me, I could tell you those three right now, I can pop them right off, because it was three times in 25 years.

Chris Robinson:
Wow.

Mark Cole:
I think that when I’ve got a lot, I’ve got three a day. I missed a relationship and I got three a day. When someone with a relational bent doesn’t like somebody, I think we owe it to ourselves and to that individual in determining why I don’t like that person.

Mark Cole:
Right? Yeah.

Mark Cole:
And when I have done that many times, it is a values different. I don’t like the way they treat people. They’re down on people. They don’t value people. They’re very egotistical. They’re stuck on themselves. They like their agenda more than they like the people their agenda is supposed to serve. I can give you.

Mark Cole:
Let’s. We could talk political. Right now we’re not going to. But I can tell you my disappointment with political leaders, religious leaders, that I just don’t even want to follow. And most of the time, Chris, for me, because I’m a relational guy, I love everybody. Come on. Most of the time, it’s a values issue. I don’t appreciate the way they get ahead of everybody else.

Mark Cole:
I don’t appreciate what they’re willing to do to get ahead. There’s a values mismatch. However, there are times that it’s not a values, it’s a stylistic. And I’m going to tell you if it’s a stylistic. I tell myself all the time, get over yourself, Mark, and quit thinking that your way is the only way, because if it’s a stylistic, I want to kill diversity in the world rather than embrace diversity. And I get really frustrated with myself when I determine I don’t like somebody and then determine that it’s stylistic, because then I think I border wanting the world to see everything through my eyeballs. And then I think there’s finally the drivers of a person, and there’s a lot of people that want to get ahead in business. They love money.

Mark Cole:
They love wealth. They love to get ahead. I personally love adding value to people, and then wealth trickles from there. Others want to get ahead financially and then add value to people. I don’t allow myself any latitude to not like somebody for drivers. I don’t like to see in myself a lack of tolerance in others, but I’ll let myself get away with a lack of tolerance when values are destroyed, when people take advantage of people, when people demean people, and I just don’t want to be around that. I get out. I do get out.

Mark Cole:
I don’t want to be in partnership with those people. I don’t want to do business with those people. It’s too volatile, it’s too toxic, and I get out of it. But on drivers and on characteristics and things like that, I give a harder time to myself than to the industry individual, right? Yeah.

Chris Robinson:
And I think we giving a hard time to ourselves. I think about one individual that we had on our team that I just did not get along with. And, you know, he was. I just. I couldn’t figure it out. It’s like, why can’t I get along with this person? This was a guy that was on our team, and then one day, we took some assessments, and, you know, personality assessments, and our personalities were exactly the same.

Mark Cole:
Wow.

Chris Robinson:
They were exactly the same. And I go, wait a minute. Look at this like, this is why we’re not getting along.

Mark Cole:
You basically.

Chris Robinson:
You’re not getting along with me.

Mark Cole:
You basically said, if I didn’t live with me, I wouldn’t want to like me.

Chris Robinson:
And what I realized, the way that we perceive things, the way that we address things were the same, but we were doing it from a different perspective, whereas I would have, you know, two years of a viewpoint or experience on it. He had two months of it.

Mark Cole:
Wow.

Chris Robinson:
And our quickness to answer things, and we would just butt heads, and then we would just. We would respond the same. Well, hey, I gotta talk to him. He doesn’t gotta talk to me. And we responded the exact same way, but it was in those assessments and really analyzing ourselves and continued to ask myself, why don’t I get along with this individual? You know, that assessment allowed for us to uncover that. Now it’s the ownership. After you discover that, that I found was most important for me to get along with this person. So I remember calling that person that day and saying, hey, look, you know, I realize that I’ve been trying to figure this out.

Chris Robinson:
I said, I realize that you and I have not been getting along. And for whatever reason, we clip each other in these meetings and then we just go our separate ways and don’t talk. I said, I realize what we’re doing. Hey, you and me are the exact same on this personality. He goes, wait a minute, let me take a look. He read mine, I read his. He goes, we are the same. And I apologize in that moment, you know, from approaching that, and it created space for us to do this.

Chris Robinson:
Now, you wouldn’t believe this, that at our past Maxwell International Maxwell conference that we were just recently at, me and that individual had one of the best times. I love this for hours, for hours, just hanging out and connecting. And still to this day, I mean, he just texted me yesterday, love him dearly. But it was from that realization of, you know, hey, look, we don’t get along, but we resolved this and it’s been beautiful ever since.

Mark Cole:
That’s such a great story, and I’ve got to pull something out of it. And then we go to your next question. Whatever, but I got to pull something out of it because here’s the deal. This is what I love most people. And now part of this is because Chris and I have already admitted we are recovering people pleasers. Okay, let me get it out there. Aa naeh. All you anonymous people.

Mark Cole:
I am no longer anonymous. I am a recovering people pleaser. But, Chris, here’s what I love. So part of this was natural because you don’t let it rest when you don’t connect with people. Many people don’t like somebody. They don’t connect somebody and they forget that somebody before they wrestle with it. What I love about the story that you so vulnerably shared just now is you didn’t let it rest. Why? Why, why? And you relied on a tool.

Mark Cole:
We’re talking about equipping if we get time there, but we want to stay on relationship for the next ten episodes. You equipped yourself with a resource to help because it was so much like you that you was a blind spot because we all have blind spots. You were a blind spot to the fact that there were things about this individual that was so much like you that it was, it felt like oil and water, but it was really water and water. And so I like three things about your story. One, you stayed with it. You stayed with it. Two, you called them out when you had a solution, said, let’s work on this. Three, you made sure to build something and saw results because you stayed with it.

Mark Cole:
And I’m just telling you, podcast family, that’s worth the price of your time. And listening to the podcast, how many people did you stop working with? Why? Because you didn’t get along with them rather than working harder at figuring out why to see if there was something salvageable. And in your case, there was something greatly salvageable. It’s great story.

Chris Robinson:
Incredible.

Mark Cole:
Great story.

Chris Robinson:
Love it. We gotta get onto equipment.

Mark Cole:
Here we go.

Chris Robinson:
Here we go. He talks about the five step process here and equipping others. Tell me about an area where you struggled to live out the principles there.

Mark Cole:
John has taught this for years. I can’t recall him teaching to this extent on any podcast. The I do it, I do it and you are with me, you do it and I am with you. You do it, you do it, and somebody is with you. Where I struggle the most, Chris, and I’m working hard to figure this out now. And it has changed the proximity of my leadership team, of you. You report to me, we don’t spend much time together. I’ve reported to John, and there were seasons that didn’t report much time.

Mark Cole:
The fourth point of you do it, giving somebody complete empowerment and then truly letting them 100% feel the weight of it, letting them 100% feel the struggle with it, and then feeling the celebration of results with it, is very, very hard to me. I want to get back in, and sometimes it’s a pure motive. I want to get back in because I want to tell everybody how good you are. It really is. There’s a moment to where I want to grab the microphone and tell everybody how good you are. I mentioned Craig Groeschel. One of his recent podcasts just really impacted me. He said that when he opens up a new place, he’s a pastor, multisite.

Mark Cole:
He says when he opens up a new place, he will never get on stage in the first years of that place because he never wants to be the senior guy grabbing the microphone that the junior guy should, he said, because it creates a perception problem. He said sometimes they’re better than me. It’s not a who’s best or all this. It’s that when the guy comes in and grabs the microphone, it diminishes. The junior guy. Now, think about this, dude. Now, you’re already thinking about the 15,000 times I’ve done that to you. Okay, stop thinking like that.

Mark Cole:
I’m just kidding. It struck me because the reason I do it, I think it’s pure. I want to show how excited I am about my guy. But when I do it, I remove a layer of perceived empowerment. Chris, when I heard that, I went, oh, my gosh. So now for you to ask, where’s the area that I struggle with most? I really do believe it is in proper and effective empowerment, because I don’t want you to feel like I’m dumping on you. Hey, you take the stuff I don’t like, so I leave it with you and then remove myself from proximity. What kind of a leader is that? And so I struggle with that.

Mark Cole:
I also struggle with wanting everybody to know how excited I am about how good it is. And then nobody can celebrate themselves the way that somebody else’s voice can celebrate it. But the point is not celebrating the leader. The point is getting proper empowerment so that they can move the ball the way that they feel like that they need to do the ball. And I’ll just be honest with you. Since that podcast a couple of weeks ago, to the point of you asking me this today, I think, man, I got a lot of work to do on empowerment in an effective way.

Chris Robinson:
Wow. I love that. Well, we all do have a lot of work to do. Leadership is not a one time thing. We’re growing every day.

Mark Cole:
Hey, but here’s the good news. This is a two part.

Chris Robinson:
There we go.

Mark Cole:
And so we’ve got so much work to do that next week, we’re going to work on two more factors in John’s real success formula. Today we studied relationships, equipping. I hope that it. You enjoyed it. There was a standout statement that I want to give you that came from the lesson today, and I want to leave you with this. And then a comment from one of our listeners. One of you. Well, let me give you a quote.

Mark Cole:
First, we must open the doors of opportunity, but we must also equip our people to walk through those doors. That’s Lyndon B. Johnson. Back to you. Do it. What? I just confessed publicly, Chris. Lyndon Johnson says we got to open the doors of opportunity. Sure.

Mark Cole:
But we must equip our people to walk through those doors. And I love that. In this lesson on equipping, here’s the standout statement. What are you doing to develop yourself so that you can multiply to others? That’s the question for you. That’s a standout question that John asked today, and I want to challenge you to answer it. Hey Sam, you listened to the podcast, a leader’s greatest enemy, and you gave us great accolades on the podcast and how helpful it was for you. But then you said, I agree with the path to improvement that it is outside of us, but we should have the attitude to accept the feedback and the improvement needed to become better. And Sam, you’re exactly right.

Mark Cole:
That’s the point of this podcast, and that’s the point of what we’re trying to do. I do want to tell you one quick product that we have available to you. It’s the 15 laws of growth. If you want to grow in your leadership, if you want to grow in your relationships, if you want to grow in your attitude and your equipping, you can get the 15 laws of growth. It’s a digital product, normally $4.99. We’re making it available to you right now as a podcast listener and viewer for $99. We’ll put that information in the show notes. Hey, thanks everybody.

Mark Cole:
Have a great day. Lead well, because everyone deserves to be led well.

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