Maxwell Leadership Podcast: Reflect Instead of React

Mark Cole:
Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Podcast. This is the podcast that adds value to leaders who multiply value to others. I’m Mark Cole, and in today’s episode, John Maxwell is sharing a lesson on how we can reflect on the things we are going through instead of reacting to them when they arise. After the lesson, I’ll be back and we’ll sit down and discuss what John has shared, as well as give some practical application, some tips that, when implemented, will impact your life and leadership. As always, I would love to have you download the free bonus resource for this episode or to watch it on YouTube. You can go to MaxwellPodcast.com/Reflect to download the free resource as well as watch it on YouTube. But here’s what I really want to tell you. Take a moment, slow down, and reflect on this podcast.

Mark Cole:
Because in the reflection, you will find impacting things that will make you better. Now, here we go. Let’s reflect. Here is John Maxwell.

John Maxwell:
Reflect instead of react to adversity. Now, we all know the definition of insanity. The definition of insanity is when we do the same thing over and over again and yet expect different results. Well, that’s insanity. Well, those same actions, those things we do over and over again, those are reactions. And what we need to do is instead of having reactions to what’s happening to us, we need to have reflection. And the best way I can explain that to you and share that with you is to share with you how I do this. Okay, to.

John Maxwell:
Because I understand the bookings of success. All is well that begins well and all is well that ends well. The beginning is all in preparation. Get ready, get prepared, start. Right. The reflection is at the end. That’s why I call them the bookends of success. So here is my reflection path.

John Maxwell:
It’s very simple, but I give it to you. Number one is, is I review by myself. I reflect by myself. I pull away every evening, I take specific time and I just ask myself what happened in my world today? And I just go through it. Doesn’t take long. I’m talking about two or three minutes, but I just go back and rewind the day. The second thing I do as I finish that process is I ask myself questions. I ask myself the questions such as, what did I learn today that I didn’t know before this day? And again, I just asked questions about how could I have lived the day better? What did I like about the day? Just ask some very simple, basic questions.

John Maxwell:
And number three. Okay, I talk to myself.

John Maxwell:
I do.

John Maxwell:
You see, Brian Tracy was right when he said 95% of your emotions are determined by the way that you talk to yourself. So I talk to myself. In fact, can I tell you something? The most important person you listen to every day is yourself. That’s a fact. So I not only think it, I talk it. And you know, what do I need to hear me say about this day? Number four, I direct myself. What do I mean by that? Jim Rohn said, one of the best places to start to turn your life around is by doing whatever appears on your mental I should list. Now, this is how I talk to myself.

John Maxwell:
At the end of the day, I ask myself, did I leave some I shoulds on the table? Do I look at this day and think, oh, you know what? I should have done that. I didn’t do that today. Oops. Oh, I wish I’d taken action on that. And what you gotta understand is, I look at that, what I should be doing in that list, and I say, okay, if I’ve got two or three I shoulds, I ask myself, can I do this tomorrow? Can I make up for today a little bit? And I try to take my shoulds into, I did. Okay, that’s huge. That’s how I direct myself. And then number five, I take action.

John Maxwell:
Myself. I take action. James Russell Lowell said, no one can produce great things who is not thoroughly sincere in dealing with himself. And dealing with myself means I take action on the things I’m reflecting about. In fact, does my reflection lead to action? If my reflection doesn’t lead to action, I’ll be a good philosopher. But if what I reflect on, I then act on, what I should have done, I then act on. When I do that, all of a sudden things begin to turn. Portia Nelson wrote a beautiful piece.

John Maxwell:
I give it to you. It’s an autobiography. And here’s what she said. Chapter one. I walk down the street. There’s a deep hole in the sidewalk. I fall in. I’m.

John Maxwell:
I’m hopeless. It isn’t my fault. Takes me forever to find a way out. Chapter two. I walk down the same street. There’s a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend that I don’t see it. I fall in again.

John Maxwell:
I can’t believe I’m in the same place. But it isn’t my fault. It still takes a long time to get out. Chapter three. I walk down the same street. There’s a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it there. I still fall in.

John Maxwell:
It’s a habit. But my eyes are open and I know where I am. It is my fault. I get out Immediately. Chapter four, I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it. Chapter five, I walk down another street.

John Maxwell:
Wow. That’s taking instead of a reactive life, turning it into a reflective life. You see, the old rule in business is that when it’s over, it’s over. But the new rule is when the event is over, it isn’t over unless I’ve learned something from it. I love that. So quit reacting and start reflecting.

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Mark Cole:
Hey, welcome back, everyone. I feel like this was short and sweet today from John, but I think it was really potent. If I thought of one thing that I admire the most about John Maxwell, it would absolutely be the discipline he learned in the book Thinking for a Change or how successful people think. Because I do think in the magic of what John is sharing with us today, especially for Mr. Emotion here, especially for Mr. High Strung, super Passionate Leader here, I think. I think what John is teaching us on the difference between reflection versus reaction is probably the magic to taking passion and putting passion into purpose and purpose into productivity. See, John Maxwell’s philosophy emphasizes the importance of choosing reflection over reaction.

Mark Cole:
Specifically, when facing challenges. Reactions are often automatic and emotion driven. I know. But while reaction is all about the automatic, about the emotion, reflection allows for thinking for a thoughtful, measured response. I’ll never forget several. Several years ago, John and I were in the middle of determining that we had a transition that was needed for a senior leader in our organization. And John had been really clear that the performance, the focus of this individual was not measuring up. And in fact, I watched John painstakingly go through the difficulty of this transition.

Mark Cole:
I’ll be honest with you, if John would have empowered me to make the decision, he did not. But had he, I would have been very quick. I would have been very spontaneous is the word I would use very nicely. But I would been very reactive and probably explosive if I’m really candid. But yet I watched John take the emotion out of the decision and by reflecting on the best way to move forward, came up with a great game plan. Here’s what John did and I learned significantly in this example. In fact, I told John after he had modeled this, I said, john, you’ll never have to be the author or the leader of a transition again. I learned so much from this.

Mark Cole:
And here’s what I learned by taking reaction out of the equation and putting reflection in. John did three things. One, he honored the person that needed transitioning. He gave clarity on what was going to happen if the transition had to happen. But most importantly, he gave opportunity to change the course of the transition. He sat down with the leader and he said, hey, this is what’s not working. It’s not working. You’re not measuring up here.

Mark Cole:
This is what I want. This is the clarity that I have given you. And yet we’re not measuring up to this. But here’s the great news. We’ve got time to correct it. We’ve got time to begin to change the outcome and what is impeding or the pending results if you’ll do these five things. And literally he sat down and said, you’re not measuring up. This is what measuring up looks like.

Mark Cole:
This is how to measure up. It’s very clear. In fact, it was so clear that when John very reflectively said, what did you hear? It was repeated back flawlessly with great clarity. In fact, John went one step further and said, this is the amount of time that you have to change the trajectory that we’re on. But in this certain amount of time, I’m going to come back and we’re going to assess how well you’re performing to the clear plan that you and I agree on. John did not look for agreement on what the results was. He looked for agreement and alignment on what the results should be. Too often as leaders in a reactive time, we allow emotions to rise rather than when we put reflection into it.

Mark Cole:
We take the emotion out and put clarity in its place. Emotion confuses, it accelerates misunderstanding. Reflection settles and creates great clarity and great understanding. As I watched John transition this person over a 90 day period, one thing that was clear to me is when you honor somebody with reflection, you give opportunity to move forward without the emotion, that reaction happens. So this approach led to a very positive outcome. The teammate didn’t make it, but the teammate knew why they didn’t make it, agreed that they couldn’t make it, and on their own resigned from the organization. Here’s my challenge for you and I today as we Counter balance, reflection and Reaction Recognize when you’re tempted as a leader to react emotionally to a situation. After you have recognized that temptation to emotionally respond, then take a step back and give yourself time to process your thoughts, your feelings.

Mark Cole:
In fact, in this step back, I would encourage you to bring somebody beside you and let them speak into you. In other words, consider the perspective of others involved and look for situations that benefit everyone. Too often when I am in a reactive mode, I realize that it’s in the thinking partner, it’s in the expanding the input in my life that I come up with a better conclusion, a better solution, if you will, on how to move forward. As we think about times that we have reacted rather than reflected, I want to ask you, what’s a recent situation where you reacted emotionally? How could you have handled it differently if you would have taken time to reflect before reacting? I have identified in my life some triggers that tend to provoke a reactive response rather than a reflective response. What are your triggers? How can you plan to move ahead to respond more reflectively in those situations? You know, John talked today about asking himself questions. He said that he talks to himself regularly. I’ve heard him talk to himself. There’s a power in self talk.

Mark Cole:
There is a level of insight you will get if you will take time to talk with yourself. See, the most important person you listen to every single day is yourself. And it’s your self talk that has a significant impact on your ability to reflect and respond positively to challenges. It was Brian Tracy, John said it. It’s in your notes. 95% of your emotions are determined by the way you talk to yourself. Cultivating positive self talk promotes a reflective mindset while negative self talk hinders reflection and positive responses. There’s no better example to this than right now here today.

Mark Cole:
As I’m privileged to be in the studio today sharing with you, I can’t tell you how relevant this is. In fact, if Jake or Wade, our podcast producers, were to turn on their microphone, they would let you and share with you exactly how this just happened. We’re at the end of the day as I’m recording this podcast. I had a very, very exciting morning today. In fact, I brought all of my leaders around and we did a big debrief on an event that we had recently. And I was determined, in fact, before even this lesson, even listening to the lesson this afternoon, I came into this morning’s meeting committed to reflect the debrief rather than react to the debrief. There were too many good things about this event that we were debriefing for me to react with a challenge, but I knew if I was not careful, I would undo all the good that had happened with some things that I really needed the team to pay attention to and note. And so this morning, for four and a half hours, we did a debrief and I was challenging myself without these words.

Mark Cole:
I didn’t have these words until this podcast. I was determined that I was going to reflect the debrief rather than react. So right before we were recording this podcast into the studio comes one of our leaders. And I asked this leader, I’m studying, I’m thinking, I’m preparing, I’ve already listened to John’s content and I’ve got it down pat. And I asked this leader, I said, hey, what did you think about today? And he said, mark, I’m going to tell you, it was very different. It was very different for you. Most of the time you come in with emotion and whether it’s good or bad, you just come in with this emotion that overpowers the room. And today felt different.

Mark Cole:
Today felt like you really wanted us to reflect on what we were debriefing. And he said it was very unusual. He said, but I’ll tell you, what you did is you empowered us to own the results of the recent event rather than task us with your reflections of the event. And I’ve got to tell you, I’ve spent all afternoon working on some things and the whole time in the back of my mind I was going, was that a good meeting today? Was I effective with the team? I’ll be honest with you, without that conversation of that leader that came into the studio right before this podcast, I would have went home and said, I don’t know if I led well today. I don’t know if I got the team where I needed them to get to. You see what my self talk was doing? You see how I was challenging myself to second guess my reflection to the point that when this leader walked out of the studio, I said to this leader and I said to Jake and to Wade, I said that was a gift to me because it validated that my reflective approach to the debrief had long lasting impact. That a reactive debrief would have had a short term impact. Here’s what I’m saying.

Mark Cole:
By reflecting and allowing the team to hear my questions and respond to them, I didn’t get the momentum in the short term that I wanted because I wanted clarity, I wanted movement, I wanted to go. But I got long term results because the leader that came in three hours later and said, let me tell you what I discovered today was a very empowering return on the meeting. Here’s what I’m trying to communicate to you today. When you make an effort to speak to yourself with kindness, when you make an effort to speak to others with kindness and with encouragement, you equip yourself and others around you to handle difficult situations with clarity, wisdom and ownership. When I come into a debrief meeting and I know exactly what needs to be done and I move people that direction, I may get that immediate, aha, they got it. But I don’t teach them the long term value of reflection today. Forgive me for tooting my own horn, but today I walk out of this studio this afternoon understanding the power of reflection and I want you to as well. Now, how do you do that when we’re talking about self talk and how we use that as a power within us? Pay attention.

Mark Cole:
Pay attention to your inner dialogue. Pay attention to the messages you’re sending yourself. Pay attention to the conclusions you’re making before it’s time to make a conclusion. You see, if I would have done this podcast before this leader came in, I would have been uncertain on the power of reflection in today’s debrief. But by having that conversation and not making a conclusion, I was able to stop any questioning or negative self talk and replace it with positive empowering statements. Where are you giving yourself negative self talk? Where can you replace it with a positive empowering statement? Use affirmations to reinforce your ability to handle challenges effectively. I don’t know what yours are, but I wonder what your common negative phrases that you tell yourself internally. For me today it was, I did not get the momentum that I needed.

Mark Cole:
I did not. I did not get where I wanted to go. What if you and I reframe those negative statements to more positive supportive statements? Now, today I was given a gift. Somebody helped me and gave me a positive supportive statement. But the task ahead is for you and I to be able to do that internally. How can we make positive self talk a daily habit? Are there some reminders or cues that you can use to help you stay consistent and stay encouraging as you reflect on yourself? As we talk about reflection instead of reaction, maybe you’re not as emotional as I am. See, I’m convinced before I kind of give you the final point for today, I’m convinced for me that my passion, my energy, my enthusiasm is a difference maker. For me.

Mark Cole:
What I’m really telling you is I have used reaction as a superpower to Effectiveness, I respond, I respond quickly, and I turn that into action. This last point, rather than turning reaction into action, let’s start turning reflection into action. Did you catch that? Too often we allow especially type A driven leaders like me, we turn reaction into action. Today, I’m challenging myself. I’m challenging you. John is challenging us. Turn reflection into action. Reflection is only valuable when it leads to action.

Mark Cole:
By using a simple framework to turn reflections into actionable steps, you and I can create meaningful change in our life and in our work. I’ll tell you what I’ve determined today. I’ve determined that the next time that I debrief something, I’m going to spend more time on the front end reflecting than on the back end reacting. I constantly find myself overwhelmed by workload, or I don’t really have time to debrief, or I don’t have time for the team to discover what reflections we should have out of this. And so what I do is, rather than go through the pace reflection, I accelerate to reaction. But by taking time to reflect, I identify areas where I can delegate better, I can designate tasks, I can prioritize agendas and workloads more effectively. Implementing these changes significantly improve my productivity and, by the way, reduce my stress. Today, as I reflected on it, I didn’t feel stress from not getting where I needed to go, but I felt reflection, or maybe even perplexity.

Mark Cole:
Was it the right move? I walk out of here today convinced it was the right move, because what did I do? I used reflection to. To identify areas for growth and improvement in myself and in my team. I developed a plan of action based on the reflections, and I implemented changes to monitor results so that I could adjust as needed in the future. I want you to do something for me today. I want you to think of a challenge you’re currently facing. Do you have it visualized? What is that challenge that you’re facing? What is the situation, maybe at home, maybe with one of your children, maybe it’s at work, maybe it’s with a leader that is difficult to deal with. I want you to take that challenge, that difficulty that you’re facing, and I want you to use the Reflection to Action framework. Identify, reflect, choose, implement.

Mark Cole:
Now, if you’re watching on YouTube, you saw me count those four things out. You need to watch sometimes. What is the Reflection to Action framework? Again? One, Identify. Two, take the actual time to reflect. Choose. Three, a plan of action. Four, implement. And as you use this Reflection to Action framework, identify the steps that you can take to address the challenge.

Mark Cole:
Ask Yourself. The question today, how can I make reflection and action planning a regular part of my routine? John said this. He takes every morning and he spends time preparing for the day, probably as diligent as anything John does. He sets out in the morning and builds a plan. Preparation to begin. He said it like this. He said, the beginning is all in preparation. The reflection is at the end.

Mark Cole:
What tools, what strategies can you use to stay organized and accountable? Remember this, developing the habit of reflecting instead of reacting is a process. I’m talking to myself here, so give me just a moment. Be patient, Mark, with yourself. Be patient with yourself, podcast listener, as you learn and grow and celebrate the small victories along the way. Why am I taking just a moment more of this? Because leaders have a bias to action and action oriented people have a bias to reaction. So by consistently choosing reflection over reaction, you’ll be amazed at the positive changes that you create in your life and your leadership. So what do we do? We begin to reflect more than we react. Now, if you would like more to go deeper into this subject, I have two podcasts that I want to give you.

Mark Cole:
Podcast number one is the episode that we call the Growing Leader. We’ll put that in the show notes. You will absolutely be impacted as you go back and listen to that. For some of you and others of you, you’ll want to listen to it for the first time. The second podcast comes from Arlene. Arlene, listen to the podcast, redefine the problem. And Arlene, we’re going to put that into our show notes as well as your recommendation. Because what Arlene says is I really loved watching the podcast.

Mark Cole:
Thank you, Arlene for watching. I’m so glad you’re enjoying it. She said, it really helped me in my personal development and I gained a lot of knowledge from redefining the problem. Arlene, that’s our goal. That’s our plan for all of you that’s listening. Our goal is to help you and answer the question today, does my reflection lead to action or does my reactions impede my actions? Now, today, as I challenge you to go and lead and lead well, I want to encourage you that a reflective leader driven to action will make better long term impact on the leaders they’re leading rather than the reactive leader that makes a short term impact but does long term damage. Go lead with powerful positive change because everyone deserves to be led well.