How to Surround Yourself with Great People (Part 2)

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Mark Cole:
Hey, welcome back to the Maxwell Leadership Podcast. You have joined in today. If it’s your first time, you’re in part two of an incredible lesson that John is teaching. Traci, I know how you feel about your family, specifically your husband, Casey. Since our last lesson of surrounding yourself with great people here in the US We’ve experienced Valentine’s Day and you surrounded yourself with a great husband, I guarantee it.

Traci Morrow:
I really did surround myself with him. And we are excited. Not only that, but we have a little Valentine’s granddaughter that has been born to us, our new granddaughter. We are popping them out. So what better thing to to have come in in Valentine’s Day than a new little family member?

Mark Cole:
So we have so many of our podcast family that’s outside the United States. Here in the United States, we find a day to celebrate everything. I don’t know if it’s like that in your country, but it’s like that in our country. And so, on behalf of our podcast staff and friends and family, podcast podcast listeners, viewers, we love you. It’s Valentine’s Day. We love you. And we really do.

Traci Morrow:
We love you.

Mark Cole:
We do.

Mark Cole:
We love you. Hey, seriously. Today we’re picking back up part two of John’s lesson on how to surround yourself with great people. In part one, John talked about have a desire to become great. It’s gotta start within you. It’s gonna end today. It’s gonna end today with you. Number two, go where great people are.

Mark Cole:
Three, do what great people do that’s just kind of to recap where we were. What I wanna do today is I want to get you in the mindset of continuing this march to surrounding yourself with great people. Andrew Carnegie said it like this. I owe whatever success I have attained to my ability to surround myself with people who are smarter than I am. I think Andrew Carnegie had it right. I’ve heard John Maxwell say that often. So today we’re going to talk about covering and surrounding yourself, protecting yourself, guarding yourself with great people, great leaders. And we’re gonna help you do that with three more points.

Mark Cole:
Hey, I am so excited because you can view this podcast if you’ve never done that. We’re on YouTube and you can go to our show Notes. You’ll be able to click on the link there and go straight to viewing this podcast. Also, if you would like to download the bonus resource button that we’ve been using, go and download that. You can get all of that at MaxwellPodcast.com/GreatPeople. Here is John Maxwell.

John Maxwell:
The fourth thing if you really want to surround yourself with great people, and that is be unforgettable. Jack Welch, in our conversations before he passed away, he had an expression that, you know, get out of the people pile. In other words, in every company over in the United States, there’s just a pile of people. How do you distinguish yourself? How do you set yourself apart? How does that happen? How do you become unforgettable? And I can tell you that all of my life I’ve really worked hard in trying myself to be an unforgettable person. And there are certain things that just kind of help me do that. For example, let me just give you one practical one, and that is do for others what they cannot do for themselves. In other words, just very simply ask yourself, what can I do for that person that they really probably don’t do for themselves? And spend a lot of time in prepping. You spend a lot of time prepping maybe for that 35 seconds, but at that moment you slip it into them and perhaps it catches their attention.

John Maxwell:
And I just think that that is absolutely a way for you to begin to surround yourself with great people. Always be in a servant’s posture. But ask yourself, what can I do for them that I can’t do for themselves? Get unforgettable. It will be absolutely life changing for you. Number five, live out your great vision.

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John Maxwell:
A vision itself can be inspiring. You know, you cast a vision, what’s something you want to accomplish, and if it’s a great vision, there are people that Just get attracted to it. But what I’m saying, in surrounding yourself with great people, your talk won’t get you that audience. It’s your walk that’ll get you that audience. You got to live this out. I didn’t just say a great vision. I said live it out. In other words, become what I call a show and tell.

John Maxwell:
Remember when we were in elementary school, we’d do show and tell, and once a month we’d bring something to the classroom and we’d show it to the other class members and we’d tell a story about it. Show and tell. How much fun was that? Well, in vision casting, telling is not enough. You have to also show it. Again, back to my mentor, John Wooden. He looked at his basketball players and he would say to them, don’t tell me what you’re going to do. Show me what you’re going to do. So I thought about our time today and this best advice lesson, and I thought, I want to maybe be real practical here and talk to you about vision maturity.

John Maxwell:
How do you and I mature a vision in such a way that it’s more than tell, it’s show and tell. And how does it progress to a place that it gets the attention of great people? Because again, talk is cheap. You can talk about your dream and what you’re going to accomplish. To be honest with you, doesn’t mean much. But when you begin to live it out and people begin to say, oh my gosh, look at that, they are fulfilling their own dream. Now, all of a sudden, you’re contagious. So let me just give you just a few steps of what I call vision maturity. First of all, it begins with you.

John Maxwell:
In the beginning, the vision is about you. It really is. When I started off on my vision, it was about, I had a dream, and I kind of look for people to add value to me, come around me and it’s okay, this is where it starts. Once in a while, the vision is about someone else. But most of the visions that we try to aspire to, they’re about ourselves. And then now we’re talking. How does this vision mature? So it starts with me. So then I began to have goals, numerical goals.

John Maxwell:
I would call them markers, Things that mark my progress in this vision journey maturity that I’m taking. And by the way, remember, they’re markers. They’re not makers. A lot of people think goals are makers of their lives. Goals don’t make you, they just mark you. They’re there to help you gauge your progress. Now with the vision matures, it goes from, it’s about me, and I’ve got some goals I want to accomplish. And very quickly it begins to be about others.

John Maxwell:
There’s no maturity in a vision that just has me to it. It has to have we to it. It has to be inclusive. It has to be about you and about me. And all of a sudden I’m asking you to come and make my vision a reality, and you’re helping me and you’re adding value to me. So it starts with me. And then we kind of put some goals, markers out there. Then we begin to bring others around us.

John Maxwell:
And then we begin to ask the real question. We’ve got this vision to make a difference. We begin to ask questions. And one of the key questions in vision maturity is, what do others need in their life? Or what do other people want in their life? Now, once we start asking that question and we get intentional in finding out what people need and what people want, this vision has a chance of really maturing and blossoming. And then once you start to answer that question, the next part of your maturity is you put, and I never heard anybody talk about this, put your vision in a vehicle. In other words, how do I move my vision from where it is to where I really want it to go in my life? When I realized that I wanted to add value to leaders, to multiply value to others, I said, well, okay, what’s my vehicle? How am I going to move that vision? And that. I started with conferences. I started to speak about leadership and do leadership conferences.

John Maxwell:
And then I said, well, I’m going to write books about it and so that can get out. And then I said, I’m going to start developing organizations. And then I said, well, let’s bring in people and make them the legs of the legacy. And when that vision matures and you put it in a vehicle, it should begin to be a vision of attraction. But it should always be a vision of participation. And you never know the validity of your vision until you ask for commitment. So, so far on surrounding yourself with greater people, be unforgettable. Be unforgettable to great people.

John Maxwell:
Catch their time and attention. Wait for your moment, but be prepared when that moment comes. And then live out the great vision. Don’t just talk about it, do it. And number six, and this one’s absolutely huge. Be greater on the inside than you are on the outside. In other words, have bigness of spirit. Now, how do I describe bigness of spirit? It’s all about thinking of others.

John Maxwell:
It’s all about Attitude. It’s all about generosity. The best way I can explain it, as I’ve told you before, and I’ve used this as an illustration of John Wooden, my first mentoring experience with him in la, when I left his apartment and I was walking out to my car into this kind of public parking spot for people that were visiting anyone in the. In the complex that John Wooden lived. And I was about to the car, I was just about to ready to open the door, and I had this feeling turned around. I turned around, and when I turned around, I looked up on the second floor where he lived, and there he was. He was standing on the balcony, just watching me, watching me leave. We’d spent several hours together, and as soon as I turned to him, he smiled that big, beautiful John Wooden smile and he gave me that wave.

John Maxwell:
It was the wave. It was the John, you’re so important to me that I think I’ll just wait until you get in the car before I go back in the house. Oh, by the way, thanks for coming. Let me wave to you. That’s what I’m talking about. And so I’m talking about a spirit of generosity, abundance more than scarcity. High road instead of low road. You know, we talk about the golden rule.

John Maxwell:
Treat others as you would like to be treated. But there’s a high road that’s even higher than the golden rule. It’s the platinum rule that says, treat others better than you’re treated. Go that second mile at the end of the year. Every year, I do a review of every day of the year, and I ask myself. One of the questions I ask myself is, who do I spend my time with? And every year I say, wow, I need to spend more time with that person. Why? Because they have this bigness of spirit. There are other people.

John Maxwell:
I say, well, maybe I need to cut a little bit of my time with them. And so this lesson was meant to just help you, to help you have an inward spirit that is attractive to others, that will help you to be unforgettable. This was a lesson that just helps you. If you’ll do these six things that I gave you, great people want to be around you. You’ll not only want to be around them, but to be honest with you, they’ll begin to seek you out.

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Mark Cole:
Hey, welcome back, everybody. I told you just in listening to John, number one, I’m watching what he’s teaching today in real life, visually, because that’s what he’s done. And so, Traci, I want to jump right into the lesson. Today, John teaches three incredible points that here at Maxwell Leadership, we have turned his personal points into company culture. And so I can’t wait to share it with you. I can’t wait to share it with our podcast family, because John’s given us some great gold today.

Traci Morrow:
Yes, he sure does. Building off of the last one. And I love how he kicks it off by being unforgettable. I think that’s something that we can all get really creative about. I think we talked about it last week, and I was talking about how when I went to exchange, how I wanted to be unforgettable. And I took that to heart. Not to try to show off or be something that I wasn’t, but how could I show up and serve people? And one of the ways that I’ve found to do that when I show up in different spaces is how can I pray for you as a person of faith? And, you know, that’s a way that you can serve somebody. It doesn’t cost you anything.

Traci Morrow:
It’s something that you can spend your time. Time to not money, but time. And to truly pray for somebody. And people appreciate that. I find that is something that is unforgettable. Because who’s out there offering to pray for people? And so what is a way that Maxwell leadership stays committed to being unforgettable?

Mark Cole:
Yeah, thanks for asking that. You know, it’s funny. I’m so glad you even mentioned exchange. I remember that exchange that we were talking about. We talked a little bit about it last episode to where you were unforgettable. Somebody came up to us and they said, hey, you need to meet this incredible lady. She has such a balance with her passion for family, her passion for relationships, and her commitment to success in business. And she’s got a personality.

Mark Cole:
I mean, she’s done things and so, I mean, you were unforgettable. For me, that first exchange, that exchange was unforgettable to me because that exchange we did racing in sailboats. I’ve never sailed before. Trust me, my team that I was on realized I had never sailed before because we lost. But that day, that week, that year of exchange, we brought people together, and we did something that most people had never done before, including some of our staff. And I still remember it to this day. It was unforgettable. That same event exchange.

Mark Cole:
You’ve been to many others. We sat in Winston Churchill’s seat behind the glass at the bunkers. We went out and met with his grandson, who was also serving in Parliament. And then we went and we went on a train ride out to one of the castles and Buckingham Palace. We took it in, but we created it not as a tourist, as an experience specialist. And so, truly, we have taken that concept that John’s taught right here, and we work hard to be unforgettable. Just three weeks ago, we have an event called the Maxwell Masterclass. John has selected 78 people.

Mark Cole:
He’s 78 this year. He selected 78 people, and he’s introducing them to people that he knows, that he wants the people in our Masterclass to know. 78 people. Well, we are coming down. It’s going to be incredible. But we put this surprise in that they were already going, but we brought Jack Nicklaus into the golf environment, and they spent an evening with Jack. That wasn’t in the package. That wasn’t in the promise.

Mark Cole:
That was a surprise. Then we took them and we let them go into an environment where Tiger woods was competing with other people in the indoor golf league that’s going on. Not in the package. That wasn’t in the promise. That was in the unforgettable moment. And people, Traci, were blown away at what they got to do. Why? Because you want to look for something unexpected to grab someone’s attention, at how you value them and how you want to add value to them. And when you can grab somebody’s attention with a surprise, with a surprise and delight, with a commitment to serve them.

Mark Cole:
I have watched in every one of our experiences, every one of them, we ask ourselves the question, what’s going to be unforgettable about this moment? What’s going to be that moment that everybody is still talking about? One of our podcasts or one of our exchange? Traci, can’t remember if you went to this one, but one of our exchanges, we. We flew them from Atlanta on A private plane, on a Delta plane that we chartered. We flew them from Atlanta to Nashville to have dinner with Dave Ramsey. It was just kind of a surprise and delight. Nobody had bought that. Nobody had paid for that. They just were paying for an exchange. And we created an unforgettable experience.

Mark Cole:
Everything that we do within Maxwell leadership, we work hard to be unforgettable in doing that. It’s a challenge. It’s a discipline of ours. Yes.

Traci Morrow:
And as you’re talking about exchanges, I’m thinking of two other examples where when we were in England, where you, John, did an interview of former Prime Minister Tony Blair, which was such a shock. And I mean, talk about people being able to. Who could ever have that experience if it wasn’t for that exchange? And oh, my goodness, talk about unforgettable. Just incredible memories and experiences where you not only get to. When I went to those exchanges, I also want to say that I think is important. It’s not just being in that moment, but what I always like to do when I see the way that you and John run an event is not just to experience the event itself, but to also watch how you run an event, how you interact with your staff, how your staff treats the people, how the whole thing rolls out, how the meetings happen before and after. I’m just observing and watching the whole thing because I’m thinking as a. As a business owner, as a leader, how do I want to treat my people? How do I want my people to treat other people? I kind of study the event itself and how you guys run your team and how your team interacts with people.

Traci Morrow:
So it’s a whole study of being unforgettable on every level. And so I just. I so appreciate not just John and what he does, but also how you interact with your team. And I like. It’s. It’s really a study in leadership. So. Yeah.

Traci Morrow:
Yeah. So living out. This is a vision lived out and people getting to interact with that. And John talks about the maturing of a vision. So you got you. The two of you. You know, John has experienced all this and now it’s. It’s really compounding as the two of you are the crossover.

Traci Morrow:
But with John now that passing of the baton of now it becoming something that now you’re expanding and, and, and bringing it to the next generation with all the things that you have accomplished and, And I would love for you to share a little bit of the things that. That are being accomplished out into the world, because not always does everyone see that with the children in the Schools and I lead and, and, and countries. How do you continue to do that, to mature the vision that was cast so long ago and is continually being cast?

Mark Cole:
Yeah, I think it’s one make sure your vision is alive. You know, too many people are operating on yesterday’s vision and the vision is dead and the organization is not. They don’t think it is anyway and yet it really is. You got to make sure that your vision is alive and it brings people alive when they hear it. It gives energy. There’s energy, there’s movement, there’s excitement around the vision. One thing that I can say about John is he is constantly excited about the vision that we’re pursuing. He is constantly repeating it, he’s constantly sharing it.

Mark Cole:
In other words, the vision is alive. You know, one of our Nonprofits trained over 6 million leaders in every country of the world. And let me tell you what a trained leader was. A trained leader was not just somebody that came to an event. We gave them some training or gave them a book. It’s leaders that committed every six months to come to a two and a half day event to learn leadership. But that wasn’t all. They had to then go share that curriculum with 25 or more people to continue to scale that across the country.

Mark Cole:
And as we crossed over 6 million leaders in every nation recognized by the United Nation, we realized that it was the vision early on. Because the vision beginning at that, Traci, was can we train? Can we train 1 million leaders in all seven continents? And it transformed as we went. We could see more, we could see greater potential to where we literally trained leaders in every country of the world, not just a million in seven continents. We have a coaching company. Many of you listening to the podcast, you’re part of our coaching company. I’m so proud of you. Our certified coaches around the globe. We have 59,000 in 169 countries around the globe that are coaches.

Mark Cole:
We started that with a vision of wanting to impact people that would go impact their communities. That was kind of the vision. We felt like we could get to 3,000. What if we got to 3,000 in the United States? How great would that be? And then people started coming from all over the world and now we’re at 59,000 and counting. We have a vision of training the next generation with values based leadership. We feel like there’s a values deficit in the the world today. And so we started just three years ago or four years ago, we started, we developed a curriculum called I Lead that is really designed around a student led environment to where they can hold each other accountable. They can build and make commitments around doing things of value that would value people.

Mark Cole:
And now we have over 3 million kids in public schools that is a part of this curriculum that’s going through it right now. Today they’re going through this curriculum. We’re seeing a decline in disciplinary actions, we’re seeing an increase in attendance, all because we had a vision to go make a difference with the next generation. If I could say anything to all of you that are listening today, is your vision excitable to you? Because if it’s not, guess what? It’s not excitable to anybody else either. Is the vision alive and are you communicating it in a way that it invites and engages others to be a part of the journey with you?

Traci Morrow:
So I have a little question about that. Just as a side note, when you talk about a vision, when John talks about vision being we and not me, I think sometimes about leaders who have a vision that’s maybe not catching. And so how, how does, how does a leader find whether or not it’s they just aren’t expressing it well enough to their team or if it’s really more about them? Because sometimes a leader can be too close to their vision that they can’t tell. So how do they distinguish whether or not if you were advising them, how do they distinguish whether or not it’s about me and not we? Actually when they’re so excited that they are maybe too close to not?

Mark Cole:
Well, one question to ask is who’s the benefactor of my dream? Who’s the benefactor of my vision? And if the greatest benefactor is you, then it’s your vision. It’s not a people’s vision. If you’re going to be the greatest benefactor of your accomplished vision, then it’s going to be hard to inspire people to reach that. So the first question is who’s the benefactor? The second question is, is, is it believable? So the benefactor question, who’s the benefactor? The believable question, is it believable? And that’s that question really is when you’re casting it, not how you’re communicating it, but when you’re casting that vision to people close to you, do they believe it or do they question it? And by the way, I’ve had a lot of vision, especially with John Maxwell’s, that’s not believable that people didn’t. But he only engaged and entrusted people that would believe it, that would come into it. I’m reminded of Rudy Giuliani when He went into New York many, many years ago and he dropped crime rate the lowest it had ever been in New York. He surrounded himself with people that believed they could do it. And too many times we have a great dream, but we don’t have the third B.

Mark Cole:
We don’t have buy in. So it’s believable. But does it have buy in? Does it? And if you don’t have buy in with the vision, you’re only going to accomplish the vision that only you can accomplish, not what we can accomplish. And if you’ll take time and really build out the bees of vision and then surround yourself with people, because we’re talking about surrounding yourself with great people that will go after that vision with you, that’s how you’re going to see great success.

Traci Morrow:
Yeah. I’m also wondering too if it can be a we vision. But I’m thinking about when John wrote his book and he had the vision for transformation. I’m looking at my bookshelf. I’ve got all John’s books here. And I’m trying to remember the book that he wrote. The name of it. It’s escaping me.

Traci Morrow:
You’ll know it. When he had the vision for transformation and he wrote his first book on transformation and people just didn’t catch it like he thought they would. And he remembered that and then he realized that he was probably casting it too big and he needed to bring it smaller. And I like how you talk about the coaching. It’s now 59,000 in. What did you say? 169 countries. I like how you talked about starting small because it really. You said maybe we can get 3,000.

Traci Morrow:
Like you started with a small number. So maybe is it that leaders sometimes just cast too big? And it was Intentional Living. That’s what it was. And he thought that Intentional Living was going to catch on and that was going to be his transformation book. And then he realized that it was just too big. He needed. What was it? Can you talk about what John learned from trying to lead within transformation with Intentional Living. And then he eventually needed to rework that and mature the vision a little bit.

Traci Morrow:
What was that process with you guys?

Mark Cole:
We feel like two books really has captured John’s heart for transformation, for making an impact. And one is the book. I’m getting ready to comment on that. You talked about Intentional Living. The second one is Change youe World. And what John discovered in Intentional Living. It’s an incredible book. In fact, it’s one of my highly recommended books for people that really want to get A life on purpose, a life filled with vision.

Mark Cole:
It’s intentional living. But what we discovered is in trying to create a scalable movement, people can’t scale if they’re only focused on themselves. And that’s what intentional living was. It is the best book of insight into John Maxwell. But Change youe World went from me to we change the world around you. There’s a world that needs you. And so we feel like we hit the mark. Well when we changed it from intentional living from an internal standpoint, which is necessary.

Mark Cole:
It’s needed. It’s one of the best books and change to change your world. Because that book is the one that really has created this movement that we’re seeing now.

Traci Morrow:
Yeah. So that’s maybe the great me to we one, two, punch is intentional living and then change your world. That those books, you know, get the. If you haven’t had a chance listeners to read, to read those books and really take it inside yourself. If you’re looking at living out your great vision, you may want to read those because that is the expression that Mark’s talking about. As, you know, the number one guy who has spent the most time with John and as they’ve. They’ve been trying to express and get that out of John. Those are.

Traci Morrow:
That’s a great expression of maturing that vision.

Mark Cole:
I love that Tracy, too. In fact, I love it so much that I’m going to tell you what we’re going to do. We’ve got a digital product on Change youe World. And we’re just going to put that in the show notes and we’ll give you that. We’ll give it to you for a third off. And so you’ll see the. I know, I love it. You’ll see that.

Mark Cole:
And so thank you for saying that, Traci, as a next step. Hey, guys, I’m going to tell you this right here. As I just think about closing down today’s podcast and as I realize the significance of. Of what we’ve been talking about for two weeks, I want to tell you that the importance that we tell our kids, you are who you hang around, you are who you’re spending time with. Remember that parents we told our kids. Told our kids. Well, I’m telling you, this is leadership. You are who you hang around.

Mark Cole:
That’s why for two weeks we’ve been saying how you surround yourself and who you surround yourself with and what you do with the people you’re surrounded with is an incredible ingredient to the success of your leadership. And if I can tell you anything. I can tell you this. You need to do this so that you will lead better. You’ll be more positive. You’ll bring powerful change. Because everyone deserves to be led well.

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Transcript created by Castmagic.