When I was 27 I did this. So I developed a strategy I want to give you right now called plan ahead. And this is how to navigate successful change. And can I tell you something? I started, I wrote this down at 27. I followed it.
I follow today. It really works. The letter P predetermined the change that's needed.
The first thing you want to do is you want to sit down and you want to predetermine what is the change that's needed in my life. Because if you're going to turn something around, change has to happen. Now, you don't want action without understanding what you're wanting. So your whole goal isn't to go in and change something. Your goal is to change something that matters, that works.
So only you as a leader can predetermine what that change needs to look like. And the way you do it is basically say, this is what is. I mean, hey, Lou Holtz said, I have a losing team. I want to have a winning team.
What's it mean to take a losing team and make them a winning team? I asked him that process. And Lou told me, he said, John, I asked the players that were on the team that were coming back, why do you think you lost so many games last year? He said, what I did is I did two things. I listened to everybody that was in that losing environment.
I asked a lot of questions until I figured out what the issues were. And then he said that great statement. How does a leader that doesn't ask questions ever figure out what to do? I love that. If you're not asking questions of your people, you don't have a clue where they are.
You don't have a clue what they think. And he said, I just ask questions. Arthur Blank, when he bought the Atlanta Falcons, told me the very same thing. He said, John, I just went out on the street and I just asked the fans, tell me, why don't you go to the Falcons games? They said, because they stink.
They're not any good. Prices are too high. Food costs too much. He said, I just got all those lists. And he said, here's what these leaders know.
The answers to the questions you ask will be the strategy that you implement to make the change. The strategy is within the people, but nobody's extracted it out of them. So you've got to predetermine, you've got to predetermine the change that is needed. And I think you do that by finding out where the people are, asking the question.
After a while, you've got it. It begins, the picture begins to be clear. The letter A, lay out your steps.
Now, I've got to lay out my steps to bring people through successful change. If I walk close to the people through this change, I'll be their leader. If I walk far ahead of the people in this change, I'll become a martyr. You don't want to be a martyr.
The good news is if you die a martyr's death, you're always special in the hearts of people. Bad news is you're dead. That's just not a good thing.
You with me? So you've got to do what I call the leadership dance. This is the leadership dance.
You can call me the Arthur Murray of leadership. Okay? Here's the leadership dance. This is the way this works. You've got to walk ahead of them so they can see where they've got to go.
But you got to be close to them. Don't be walking far ahead of them. You with me? Close enough so they can see.
You got to walk beside them so they can participate with you in the journey. So that you can listen. And you can interact.
And you can take this journey together. They're in the seat beside you. And you've got to walk behind them so that you watch the people that you empower.
And the leadership dance is doing all three of those things at the same time. You walk ahead as an example. You walk beside as a friend. You walk behind as a leader that empowers. And once you can do those three things and mix it up with the people, you're laying out your steps very well.
The letter A is adjust your priorities. Very simple. Whatever you're going through change, there's no such thing as a pre-game plan. that you actualize out completely.
Let me tell you the difference between a manager and a leader. A manager is a person who took plan A and won't get off of it. Because he doesn't want it to change on him.
He's got the plan out. He's got the strategy out. Don't mess with it. This is the strategy.
Stay right here. Let me tell you a leader. A leader starts plan A because he knows you have to have a plan. But he at any moment is ready to change to plan B because he's found out a better way. If you think you get the answers on the front end, you've not led very much.
Your answers come in the leadership itself, not in the front end. That's why Plan A never ends up Plan A. It's Plan B or Plan C. Why? Because you adjust and you hear and you listen and you, hey, by the way, you seize that opportunity.
Remember, the great coaches are great because they make half-time adjustments. That pre-game plan At halftime, it has to be revisited. And you have to say, okay, what works? What doesn't work? And the changes you make have to be critical changes, not cosmetic changes.
Remember this. Cosmetic changes are easy to accept and implement. So people like cosmetic changes.
They change the color. They change the number a little bit. And they just love that kind of stuff. It always kind of bugs me a little bit because I sit there and say, and? Where are you going with it?
Where are you going? Outside they like gray better than black? Okay.
What else are we going to do? Okay. And so you want to make critical changes. You don't want to make cosmetic changes. And understand, understand this.
As you make these changes, there's always an answer. Don't ever get into that scarcity mindset as a leader that if I go this path, there's no answer down to this path. There's always an answer.
And there's usually more than one answer. That's why leadership is such a great art. Leadership is such a great art because you begin to understand that as you lead them, as you journey, you give them the best leadership.
And that's why trust is essential in the people with you. That's why trust is essential so that you can make these changes as you go to get them there. Okay. And the next one is notify your key personnel.
Sit down when you're going through changes. And there are two kinds. of key people you need to notify.
You need to notify your influencers. These are the people that they better say yes because you're not going to get it done without their yes. Their approval is essential. Are you with me?
So you've got to notify up front the influencers and you've got to notify up front the implementers. They're the ones, hey, they're the ones that are going to make the dream come true. So you've got to get the permission of the influencers for the plan to fly, but then you've got to get your implementers because they're going to work the the plan. So you notify key personnel. Then you, A, you allow time for acceptance.
Now you sit down with your key people and you allow them to have time to accept where you're going. Now this is where leadership art is at its highest form. Because your only gift, your only intuitive, intuition and timing are a result of a leadership gift. Or they're a result of giftedness.
Whatever you're gifted in, you understand timing and intuition. If you're not gifted in it, you don't have timing or intuition going for you at all. So you're intuitive in your giftedness. Your ability to do timing is in your giftedness. So this allowing time for acceptance, this is where you begin to allow people to have the time that they need to move forward with you.
And to do that, you have to, first of all, slow down. And when I say slow down, this is something I've always had a problem with. I'm dealing with one of my weaknesses now.
I don't slow down well. When I see it, I'm gone. And then I realized, ooh, I got to take people with me.
So I come back to get you. But when I come back to get you, it's like, are you ready? And if I come back to get you and you're not ready... I got you.
And I'll sometimes go again. And I have to really work hard on this slowing down process, okay? Because naturally, I want to speed up.
I don't like anything slow. There's nothing, I just, you know, I like to drive fast. Yeah, I just, you know, it's just...
I have a need for speed, okay? I have a need for speed. Okay.
And as a leader, what happens is you get too far out in front of your people. So you got to slow down. Second thing to do in this allowing time is you got to make sure you're clear in your communication. Because when they don't understand, people cannot follow what they do not understand. And so all communicators understand the value of clarity on the front end.
So I travel a lot, and I brought this with me because I just love it. When you travel, you just find some funny things that are written. And these are signs in English from various parts of the world.
For example, a dry clean... in Bangkok. I love this.
Drop your trousers here for the very best results. So a bunch of people in front of that dry cleaners mooning the rest of the people. Hotel brochure in Italy. This hotel is renowned for its peace and solitude. In fact, crowds from all over the world flock here to enjoy its solitude.
This is from a Tokyo hotel. It is forbidden to steal hotel towels. Please, if you're not a person to do such a thing, then please do not read this. In Bucharest hotel lobby, the lift is being fixed. for the next day.
During that time, we regret that you will be unbearable. Hotel in Athens. Visitors are expected to complain at the office between the hours of 9 and 11 o'clock daily.
Is it complaining time yet? In a Rome laundry. Ladies, leave your clothes here and spend the afternoon having a good time. Outside a Hong Kong tailor shop.
Ladies, may have a fit upstairs. In a road tailor shop, order your summer suits. Because it's a big rush, we will execute customers in strict rotation.
Bang! Next, next. In Copenhagen, an airline ticket office, we take your bags and send them in all directions.
It's our gift. We'll just send them anywhere they are possibly. Make your communication clear. Head into action.
head into action. Get going. Just start going.
You never know the level of commitment from your people until you ask for action. You just never know how committed they are. The letter E, expect problems.
Expect them. Why? Because motion causes friction.
You start moving. And it's a tremendous leadership mistake. To think that you have such a plan that is problem-free, okay, and that everybody will buy in. So what leaders need to do, this is so beautiful, it's so negative, but it's so good.
When I say expect problems this whole process, here's what you got to do as a leader. You got to think the worst first. You got to think the worst before anyone else.
You got to speak the worst first. And you've got to answer the worst first. You've got to do all three of those things.
In other words, you've got to think, what problems are going to be there? And then when you figure out what problems are going to be there, you say, now as we do this, there are a whole bunch of problems we're going to encounter. When you speak it up to the people, they'll say, oh my gosh, he's already figured it out.
out that we got hey and let me take when those problems occur let me tell you what we're going to do when you could do that well understand you're really helping them with positive change and the next one is always point to your successes. Somebody said, why? I said, because you always have people point to your failures. I mean, some people, that's their spiritual gift.
You understand. They can't find criticism. They're just not very comfortable.
And then daily review your progress. Daily review your progress. Why?
Because things get off on a daily basis. Things get off course on a daily basis. Problems occur on a daily basis.
And I close this section of creating positive change, which is the acid test of lead. I close it. Because of the 21 irrefutable laws of leadership, I have what I call the law of buy-in. And the law of buy-in, I think, answers this whole process of creating positive change within an organization.
The law of buy-in just simply says people buy into the leader before they buy into the vision. And so what I want you to understand is when people say, can I create positive change within the organization? Can I do a U-turn? Can I turn this around? The question is very simple.
How much have the people bought into you? If they bought into you, you can turn it around. Just think, as I close, of the story I gave you of Lou Holtz, that turned six university programs around, losing programs within two years out of him in college bowls. Think of what happened about the fifth college he went to.
With a reputation of a turnaround, you can turn it around. turn leader. Can you imagine just the excitement and the momentum of Lou Holtz coming to our college?
We just stink. And he's going to come here, and he's going to turn us into winners. Now, let me tell you something. It's a phenomenal thing when you have your reputation. That you're a problem solver, and it's a phenomenal thing when you have a reputation, that you turn things going the wrong way around, and you make them positive.
Once you get that, this is a leadership edge that you have. It's a leadership edge. It gives you a sense of momentum. It gives you a sense of moral authority that allows you to come back into a situation.
Now, here's what I learned a long time ago. When people believe the best in you as a leader, they give their best to you as a leader. So you want to become good at this session because this is the area that once you can do it and you can do it well, you kind of get a reputation as a turnaround artist, a U-turn leader that creates positive change.
And then all kind of very good and exciting things happen. So I wish that for you. I wish that for me.
I wish that for all of us. What leaders really do, and that is they lead people through successful change. In fact, if you think about it for a moment.
That's why you have leaders. You have leaders to help you do the difficult things of life. I mean, if everything was easy and there was a fast answer for everything in your life and my life, maybe we wouldn't even need leaders in our life.
But because life is uphill and because times are difficult and because adversity happens, that's why leaders are needed. In fact, I tell leaders all the time, during the most difficult times, be happy. Because...
That's why you're a leader. Do your best to help people go to that next level. I did a lecture recently entitled U-Turn Leadership.
You know, we go down the road and all of a sudden we realize we're going the wrong direction, so we make a U-turn. And in this lecture that I taught on U-turn leadership, basically I said that you prove the strength of your leadership. The, um...
the capability of your leadership by being able to U-turn an organization around. And what I mean by that is, if something happens that's pretty adverse or difficult and the organization is kind of going down, if leaders step in and begin to slow that downturn and eventually they kind of even it out and then they start to get the organization going the right way and start to building it and growing it and and they start going to the top again that's a that's that's a u-turn leader and and the best leaders are are not leaders who lead during easy times i mean honestly i think almost anybody can lead during easy times but but leading during um difficult times takes a lot of courage it takes a a lot of thought. It takes a huge amount of teamwork.
I mean, you really have to bring your team together because at that moment you have to have truly all hands on deck. And so when I think of leading through change, you know, the first thing I think about is that when you lead through change, People look back at it and they say, wow, that was growth. We really grew during that time. And if you don't lead well during change, you kind of substitute the word growth for grief. And we say, oh, my gosh, that really wasn't very good.
So let me give you some comments on change because I deal with a lot of organizations that are going through change. And I try to help them kind of work their way through that process. And they're just some very simple comments that I want to make.
And when I make them, you're going to say, well, yeah, that's very true. You're going to identify with them immediately. But hopefully, not only will you say, yeah, I got that.
I think that's very true. Hopefully, it will help you to, within your own leadership and idea, to be able to respond in an incredible way to really lead your amazing work. Even better than you have in the past. So just let me give us a few comments on change. Number one is first of all few people like If you go out and just talk to people about, do you like to change?
Most people say, no, not really. I saw a cartoon one time said, the guy is asking, how many of you would like to see change in the world? And everybody raised their hand.
And then the guy says, well, how many of you would like to be the change that's needed to make our world better? And of course, nobody raises their hand. It's kind of like, I really want you to change, okay? And so start changing.
I'm not sure I'm going to make those changes. In fact, one of the things that's interesting in my leadership years that I discovered was that when I used to teach leadership, I would say something like this, that leaders really love change and then followers didn't. It was kind of like leaders were pioneers and they were going into unknown territory and saying to the rest of the team, come on, follow me, follow me.
And the followers were saying, no, I don't want to go. I don't want to go. But. But I came to the conclusion after several years of teaching leaders and leadership that leaders do not necessarily like change either, unless it's their idea.
Now, when it's the leader's idea, then all of a sudden he or she is saying, okay, gang, let's make the changes that we need to make. But regardless, whether you're leading, supporting on staff, regardless of what position you have. you have, in many ways, a leadership position.
And when we think of change, it's just uncomfortable. It's very uncomfortable. It's not easy for people to make.
Let me illustrate that with you now. In fact, I'm going to ask you to do what I do. Just do me a favor. Just cross your arms like I have mine.
You cross your arms probably every day, okay? You've probably done this thousands of times. And now every one of us, we have our arms crossed.
And let me just tell you what I know about what we're doing. When I cross my arms to kind of visually show you what I wanted you to do, I crossed my arms the same way this time that I do every time. I've done this thousands of times, and when I cross my arms, I always cross them like this every time. Every time.
And so do you, by the way. So what I want you to do, there are really, there's two ways to cross your arms, but we only do it one way. So let's just have some fun for a moment.
Just cross your arms the other way just for a moment. And the moment that you cross your arms this way, it feels totally uncomfortable. Now, why does it feel uncomfortable? Does it feel uncomfortable because it's wrong?
No. It feels uncomfortable because we've never done it this way before. It's not an issue of right or wrong.
It's an issue of we get into a familiar pattern. It's called a habit. And we just basically do things the same way.
And we love that because what we really like is automatic. There's something wonderful about... not having to think.
There's something about going through your day kind of like in automatic and you just through habit do these several things and you kind of finish your day. And sometimes for people, 80% of their day is automatic. And automatic is really good for efficiency.
There's a lot of wonderful things about automatic, but automatic is not good when it comes to changing or thinking of a better way to do something. or looking around and say, there has to be another answer. But when we ask people to change, go back to that arm for a moment, when we ask people to change, it's uncomfortable to them.
Let me do one more exercise quickly with you. Just fold your hands like I'm doing here with you right now. Okay, okay.
Now, as we are folding our hands, again, we have done this thousands of times. Let me tell you what I know about you and me. Every time I fold my hands, clasp them like this, I do it the same way. Every time I put these fingers together just like this.
Now, there's another way for me to clasp my hands. I mean, this isn't the only way to do it. If I wanted to, in fact, let's do it.
Let's just go over one finger at a time. And now clasp your hands. Now, the moment you do this, it's uncomfortable. It's almost like, oh, my gosh, let's get back to the right way. And the right way to us is the way we've always done things or the way that is automatic or comfortable in our life.
Now, I use this visual kind of on-hands illustration, literally, to help you understand that's what happens with people and change. It's just uncomfortable. And most people do not want to continue to be uncomfortable.
And so we would rather kind of almost have old problems that we're comfortable with. than to go in and find new solutions in territory where we've never been before. The second comment I want to make about change is that it happens whether you like it or not.
I love the people who basically say, well, I'm not going to change. Well, it's almost like if I say I'm not going to change, that everything's going to stay the same around me. And that's just impossible.
I love the story of a man up in New Hampshire. I heard this story a couple years ago. And he was 100 years old. And so one of the local town reporters went out to his farm to interview him and talk to him about 100 years. So the interview started by the...
reporter look at him says he said i i bet i bet you've seen a lot of changes in your in your lifetime haven't you and the old man he crosses his arm on the porch he said yep he said i have it he said i began i've been against every one of them and when i when i hear that little kind of humorous story i think my gosh this is so true with so many yeah i've seen the changes and i've been i've been against every every one of them Now, here's what I know, and this is where we're starting to get into what I would call the important part of the teaching. Change requires energy. Anytime you get out of automatic, you have to up your energy level. One of the things we like about automatic is we just, by habit, can do certain things.
And so, therefore, we don't have to expend mental energy, much physical energy. We've kind of got it down. So, for us to change… It requires energy.
So what I want you to know that if change requires energy, the question is, how are we going to channel that energy? Is it going to be positive or is it going to be negative? Because a lot of times change requires a lot of negative energy when people are fighting or say, no, I don't want to do that.
Or I'm against that. Or, hey, I've seen a lot of changes. I'm against all of them.
So the energy. that change requires can either be positive or negative. And the secret, of course, obviously, is to not fight yesterday the old ways, but to engage all of your energy in where you are and what you need to accomplish now and have what I call positive forward energy. And I think that is really very, very important because the tendency is, you know, one of the tendencies I found is during adversity and difficult times, What people really want to do is just hold. They don't want to go forward.
They don't want to even go backward. It's almost like if I could just stand still and hold my breath. And that's kind of a natural response when adversity hits us.
I can still remember way back in 9-11, gosh, 20 years ago, I can still remember I had a company that helped nonprofits raise money. And every day of the year, we would sign a contract with some nonprofit to help them raise some money for the dreams that they had. It was kind of a rewarding business. When 9-11 hit, America just was paralyzed. And from September 11 to the end of the year, we never signed another contract, not one.
Everybody was just saying, oh, I got to wait. I got to see what happened. When COVID hit, you know, oh, my gosh, well, let's just hold still.
How long is this going to last? And we just, when you're uncertain and when you have a lot of questions, the tendency is, it's almost like if we stand still and kind of don't breathe, don't move. Then it's kind of like, oh my gosh, I think we're going to be okay. Okay, there's another comment I want to make about change.
And this comment is a leader's comment. This is kind of really down this leadership lane that I want to take you. There are four times I've discovered as a leader, there are four times when people change.
And leaders know this because leaders are change agents. And so they look for these tides. They look for these momentum times where it's kind of obvious that they can change. And the first one is people change when they hurt enough that they have to.
Sometimes we are forced to change. I mean, we have just, you know, and it can be something very difficult. I mean, it could be the death of a family member. Well, it can be an adversity such as COVID. So many really hard things happen until we look at ourselves and we say, well, okay, I've got to make a change.
I really do. In fact, during the first part of COVID, I would inform leaders that people were so numb that if they wanted to make changes, it was a great time to make it because people were so hurting. You know what I mean? They would embrace any change, basically, they saw, especially if they thought it would in any small way help them. So people change when they hurt enough they have to.
They change also. And by the way, that's not the most positive way to change because sometimes that change is almost too late. We've probably waited.
longer than we should have to make. We would like to be in front of change, not dragging and being drugged into change, that's for sure. People change, secondly, when they see enough that they're inspired to.
In other words, this is a great way to have change, where people see, during adverse times, they see a leader that's leading well. I think right now, as I think of the leader of Ukraine, And what they're going through, of course, with the incredible adverse situations with the war with Russia. And I just have to think, every day I think about...
this leader of Ukraine and how he has to be the most inspirational visual figure in that country by his strength and by his resolve and by his commitment to care and help the people and by his continual leadership decisions that he's making that's allowing the people to to take a stand. There's just sometimes Hopefully an idea. Hopefully in your organization, you're seeing some people in the midst of your change right now that they just inspire you. And they maybe don't even understand the change well, but they're in. They're all in.
They're committed. They're settled. And they're saying, this is what we're going to do.
And it's wonderful when you see somebody that is doing what they should do during a crisis. And you look at them and say, well, I want to be just like that. They inspire me to make the changes I need to make because I'm watching them make those changes themselves. Thirdly, people make changes when they learn enough that they want to. Sometimes in our difficult times, we just find a better way.
We find a better answer. We find another answer. And that's one of the reasons we need to be out of automatic.
And that's one of the reasons change is so important. It kind of moves us. And I made a statement during COVID, and that is everything that you want or need, but you don't have. Okay? You want it.
or you need it in your life, but you don't have it. Everything that you want or need, but you don't have, is outside of your comfort zone. If it was in our comfort zone, we would have gotten it, because it's comfortable. But there are things that we don't have.
There are some things that we really need, but we don't have. But we never had them, because they're... outside of our comfort zone.
And so people change when all of a sudden they learn. They say, oh, I didn't realize that there was a better way. I had no idea. I see it. Oh my gosh.
Wow. Why wasn't I doing this a while ago? So people make changes when they learn enough that kind of makes them want to make the changes.
And then finally, people, they make changes when they receive enough. that they're able to make those changes. And receiving enough could be support, encouragement. Okay, since I used the illustration a moment ago, go back to your crane. What's the president of Ukraine continually asking our country and other countries, give me some more supplies.
If you'll give me enough weapons, I can withstand this. I can hold this country. Well, once he waited, he said, if you'll just give me enough resources I need, I'll be able to make this change. So those are four times that people...
make changes. And as leaders, we have to look for those four times. Is there a hurting issue? Hey, are they seeing and getting inspired?
Are they learning? Are we giving them something that helps them to receive what they need to make those changes? Because we're change agents, we're trying to always look at these times and not miss them when they come.
That's for sure. Another comment about change is the fact that we have to face reality we we just have to face reality max dupree says the first responsibility of a leader is to divine reality so in idea and in every other organization there has to be a leadership who says okay this is where we are this is where we need to go These are the changes we need to make to get there. And, you know, reality just has to become, it becomes really the foundation for change.
Reality becomes not only the foundation for change, it becomes the foundation for the growth of your organization. Somebody told me this recently, I thought it was kind of humorous. They said the definition of a crisis is when you cannot say, let's forget the whole thing. Well, if you could say, let's forget the whole thing. That's not a crisis.
It's when you can't say, let's forget the whole thing because the whole thing is here. And I've got to deal with the whole thing because it's right before me. Now, if I've got to do that, I've got to face reality.
And by the way, the moment I face reality, I then begin to really have a foundation to really build my organization off of. Several years ago, I wrote a book on the 17 laws of teamwork. And one of my favorite laws is the law of the scoreboard.
And the law of the scoreboard just simply says, the team can make adjustments when it knows where it stands. In other words, the value of the scoreboard at any time is not only to tell the fans how the game is going, but it's to help the coaches and the leaders of the team. Because on that scoreboard, pretty much, they have a very realistic viewpoint of where the team is. Are we ahead? Are we behind?
Is it time to substitute? How many fouls does a player have on them? Basically, when we can see that scoreboard and we have a reality check, it allows us to make the adjustments we need.
We make our adjustments off what is real. In fact, have you ever noticed in any stadium or any coliseum, the scoreboard is always extremely visible? I mean, you don't have to leave the... the gym and go down the side hall and enter the corner lobby to look at the score.
The score is right in front of everybody. Why? Because it's a realistic reminder at any time in the game exactly where you are and what you need to do to keep winning or to come back. And so there's a real sense of reality that is just very, very important.
that has to happen in change. And leaders, they're the ones who help us to have the reality. They're the ones who give us the clear picture.
And the clear picture really is how we base all decisions on what we're going to do in the future. The reality is what we base our decisions off, not what we wish would have happened, or we question what happened, or why did it happen. I think this could happen.
No, it has to be, you start with reality and then you build your organization. Another thought as we're talking about how leaders help people through change is to lead well and to help people through change, you have to practice what I call a positive life stance. And I really love that phrase, positive life stance. because there's something really solid about having a life stance that's positive.
And I'll talk about that in just a moment. You see, during difficult times, during adversity, when everything is kind of uphill, attitude is the difference maker. Attitude isn't everything. It never has been.
Attitude doesn't replace. If you have a great attitude, but you're incompetent, the good news is you're positive. The bad news is you're incompetent.
So attitude doesn't replace incompetence. I don't think attitude replaces experience. So when somebody says, well, attitude's everything.
And I said, no, no, it's not everything. But. attitude is the most important thing. If somebody said, what's the most important thing that needs to happen in the idea as you go through the changes that you're going through right now, and you're getting ready to go to a greater future than you've ever had before, I would say to you without any question, attitude is essential.
And that attitude comes out of what I call that positive life stance. So let me kind of define it for you. A positive life stance is about having daily attitudes.
It's about the attitude I have of myself every day. It's about the expectations I make of myself and others every day. And it's all about... It's all about how I see things.
How we view things is how we do things. And a positive life stance is I view things and I view people through positivity, just like a negative life stance or negative viewpoint is I see things through more of a difficult, negative, dark environment. So if our attitude is continually positive, this is a life stance. This isn't like I had a positive attitude for an hour. This is who I am day in, day out.
This is a lifestyle, okay? This life stance is a lifestyle. If I have a positive life stance, lifestyle, then basically I'm going to view everything in a positive way, just as if I have a negative life stance or lifestyle, I'm going to view things from a negative. standpoint.
So several years ago, I built my positive life stance from the statements I'm going to give you right now. These statements really work. I will promise you, if you'll just kind of follow the five things I share with you right now, you can develop a positive life stance. In fact, I think what I'm going to give you right now is a case for every person to develop a positive life stance in their life.
Here we go. Here's what I know. Number one, I know that life is filled with good and it's filled with bad.
Every life, your life, my life. I have some good in my life. I've got some bad in my life. I have some good days.
I've got some bad days. I got some things that just are wonderful. delightful and i have some things that are just ugly and appalling okay so every day it is filled with good and and bad there's it's a mixture it's not like my day was all good or my day was all bad okay the second thing i know in this positive life stance is that some of the good and some of the bad I can't control.
It's just life. Now, this is very important because there are some people who think that somehow they can control everything that happens. You see, I can't control what happens to me.
I can only control what happens in me. Okay? So there's stuff that happens, just bad stuff that happens to me.
It wasn't my fault. I didn't bring it on, but because life has some bad to it. I mean, I have some things that happened to me that are very difficult.
I didn't bring it about and I don't control it. And it's the same thing with good. There's some very good things I've had in my life that I didn't bring that about either. So what we have to understand, in fact, I had a mentor one time that just shared with me.
He said, John, a problem is something that you can work on. He said, there are some things, they're not problems, they're just facts of life. And some of them are good and some are bad, but it's just a fact of life.
No matter what you do, it's still going to happen. It's a fact of life. Well, I think that statement number two, there are some of the good and some of the bad.
I can't control. It's just life. I think that's where my mentor was.
So you and I have good things and bad things come in our life. We didn't bring them and we can't get rid of them. It's just a fact of life.
The third statement in the positive life stance is this. Some of the good and some of the bad will find me. It just will.
No matter how fast I run, some of the bad will find me. And every day, some bad finds me, some good finds me. They just kind of seek you out, okay? And that's just the way it is. Again, I didn't bring it to pass.
I didn't. I didn't go after the good or the bad. I just sometimes, ooh, that wasn't what I wanted.
Okay, well, it found me. Oh, wow, that was good. It found me.
So some of the good, some of the bad will find me. Now we're coming down to the essence of a positive lifespan. Number four, statement number four.
If I have a positive lifestyle, okay, then the good and the bad will become better. That's a fact. In other words, if I have a positive life stance about good things, good things become great things. If I have a positive life stance even about the bad things that happen in my life, the adversity, the difficulty, the changes that I'm having to make, if I have a positive life stance, guess what?
The bad is still not great, but it will be less bad than... if I lack a positive life stance. So, a positive life stance takes the good and the bad and elevates it and makes it better. It just does.
Statement number five, if I have a negative life stance, the good and the bad will become worse. They just will. In other words, I didn't bring everything on that comes to my life, but I do control whether the bad and the good get a little bit better by my attitude or the bad and the good become worse because of my attitude. And a positive life stance. understands that regardless of what you're going through, if you think correctly, wow, life will get better.
If I could do one thing for people, one thing, I mean, honestly, that would bring a great change. I would talk to them about how they think, how they think. The great separator between successful and unsuccessful people is how they think. I wrote a book several years ago.
It's a very popular book. It's a million-plus seller. And the title of the book is just How Successful People Think. And successful people think differently than unsuccessful people.
It's just a fact. It's what is. And because they think differently, they receive different results than unsuccessful people. So if you want to really lead well through change, have a positive life stance.
This is just too huge. I'm going to take a moment. I'm going to go back in. The comments I've made about change is few people like it. Secondly, change happens whether you like it or not.
There are four times that people change. We talked about that. Heard enough, see enough, learn enough, receive enough.
Number four, face reality. That's the foundation of where we start. Practice a positive life stance.
And number six, be teachable. Be teachable. I saw a sign on a friend's desk one time I thought was quite amusing. He said, the sign said, if I had to do it all over again, I'd get help. I think that side could be on everybody's desk.
If I had to do all over again, I would get some help in my life. So let's talk for a moment about being teachable because I think this is just absolutely huge. People ask me sometimes, what's the leader's most important quality? And I think, for me, the most important quality that I can have as a leader, that you can have as a leader, is humility. And the reason I think humility is so essential is because humility makes me teachable.
If I truly am humble, I'm ready to learn. I'm ready to learn from you. I'm ready to ask questions. I have a learning posture in my life that's very receptive to people speaking into my life.
And I want to hear what they have to say, because I know that they're going to help me become more self-aware and they're going to help me learn. And they're just going to improve my life. And I would just say that during adversity, being teachable is so essential. Every month, I've done this for 40 years, I have what I call a learning lunch where I ask seven questions of a person.
And I sit down and for an hour and a half, I buy their lunch. I take notes personally. And one of the seven questions I ask is, what's the most important lesson you ever learned in your life?
And I've asked that hundreds of times to hundreds of different people. And there's one thing that every answer has in common from every person that's different. When asked, what's the most important lesson you've learned in your life?
They always talk about a time in their life where they had adversity, difficulty. They talk about a time in their life where they had to make a change, a change maybe that they didn't even want to make, but sometimes they had no choice. Remember, they heard enough, they have to. And one day, it really helped me.
One day, I looked at this and I said, wow, this is huge. That in the adversity and the difficulty, that's where they received the greatest lessons. And then I was reminded of what Bill Gates said.
He said... Success is a lousy teacher. It makes a person think they can't lose.
And I thought how true that is. And so when we are teachable, in fact, one of the things I'm teaching right now, and I want to pass this on to you, and that is that we need to keep failure and success together. Failure and success in our life should be just like this. Sadly, people try to separate success and failure. They say, be successful and oh my gosh.
Don't fail. Succeed. Don't fail. Get it right.
Don't miss it. And we separate success and failure. And that's not the way life is at all.
I've never had anybody say, you know, for 10 years of my life, I had all success. And then for three years, I had nothing but failure. No, no, no, nothing.
Success and failure are in our life almost on a daily deal. We have some wins. We have some losses. We've got to keep them together. And the reason that we need to keep success and failure together is.
If I'm doing really well and I'm on a momentum roll and I'm just, well, I'm just succeeding a lot. I need to keep failure right beside that success because it teaches me humility. And if I'm having a few bad months and I'm failing, I'm kind of in the ditch all the time, I need to keep success right beside me because success will give me resiliency.
You see, failure helps success and success helps failure. They need each other. They don't work optimally.
unless they're together. And so I just want to encourage you throughout all the changes that you have, some wins, some losses, some ups and downs, some hills, some valleys, you're going to have that in idea. We have it in every organization.
It's okay. It's okay. Be teachable. When you're failing, Say, okay, what do I need to change? And by the way, when you're succeeding, say, okay, what do I need to change?
The problem is we try to hold success as it is, which causes us problems in the future. And we try to get rid of all failure, which causes it. We don't need to treat them as either or. They're both and. And they really work together.
Number seven, the seventh comment about change. is okay this is kind of um this is kind of like oprah okay this is something she would say to you or me but it's just true and that is during the difficulties adversities the changes uh the things you don't understand things that you don't like during that time just uh be your best friend just be your best friend you know the most important person that you and I are ever going to listen to every day is ourselves. What you say to me is important, but this is not as important as what I say to myself. If you say, Maybe I didn't do a good job.
Okay. But if I say I didn't do a good job, that has a whole much more weight. Or if you said, John, you did a great job, and that's nice.
But if I say, boy, John, you did a really good job. You did well there. The words that you hear from yourself are the most important words that you're ever going to hear. And so be your best friend in our companies. I teach what I call the 24-hour rule.
The 24-hour rule is just very simple. You know, I tell people when we do something great and we have a great win, let's celebrate for 24 hours, then could we get back to work, okay? And if something bad happens and, oh my gosh, we got hit in the gut, we didn't see the punch coming, and it was terrible and it's not good.
moan, groan, moan, cry, kick the cat, whatever you do for 24 hours, it's okay. But after 24 hours, get back to work. I have a sign in my office that just simply says, Yesterday ended last night. And guess what? It did.
Yesterday ended last night. If it was a bad day, it ended last night. If it was a good day, it ended last night. It ended last night.
What part of that do we not understand? If it ended last night, we don't do any effective work on what has already ended. We can only do effective work on what is happening right now. So be your best friend.
I can still remember as a very, very young leader, when my best friend left the organization, left my team that I was on. Wow, that hurt a lot. But when he left the organization, I was my best friend. I can remember there was a position, a leadership position I really wanted when I was in my late 30s. And I didn't get it.
Ooh, that stung a little bit, but I was my best friend. I can remember a financial business decision that, you know, cost me a couple million dollars. And, ah, wow, that really hurt.
But I was my best friend. There's something important about you loving yourself and being your best friend during a crisis that really helps to make a difference in your life. I think it brings a rebirth in your life when you can, during crisis and change, be your best friend.
So I would like to talk to you out of a book that I wrote a couple years ago, and it's called Leader Shift and Leader Shifting. is all about becoming agile and nimble. I wrote this book before COVID, but when COVID hit, because there was so much immediate upheaval, it became just really a bestseller because we use the word pivot all the time during COVID, and this is kind of like a pivoting book.
How do you change? How do you change successfully? And we all know, we all know, including ourselves, that a lot of times we resist change.
It's just natural. I think all of us kind of like to kind of get in a comfort zone, kind of like to get into automatic and, okay, now, hey, I've got this down, been there, done that type of a mindset. But I'd like to visually illustrate change just for a moment for all of us. And that is, I'm sure you're going to be taking some notes as I teach, but before we take notes, if you'd just do me a favor and just... Cross your arms like I have right here.
Just everybody just cross their arms. And hey, look at your neighbor. Make sure they're crossing their arms just like this.
Now, here's what I know. We've done this thousands of times, thousands of times. Every day we cross our arms. But what's interesting is we do it the same way every time. Now, there are two ways to cross your arms.
I have one of the ways right here. But obviously, if I want to. I could cross my arms the other way, but I don't.
I always cross my arms this way. And because I've done it this way for years, thousands of times, this is comfortable to me. This is, quote, the right way, the right way to close your arms, just like this.
And the moment, now do me a favor, just cross your arms the other way. And the moment you cross your arms the other way, it's uncomfortable. You think, oh, my gosh, I've got to get back to this way.
Change is uncomfortable. Do me one more favor if you would just kind of Clasp your hands like I'm doing right now Okay Just like this now now we've done this hundreds and thousands of times over the years and here's what I know we always do It the same way every time every time every time I class my hands I do it this way now There are two ways to do it. I could also go move over one finger.
In fact do that with me Okay, move over what and you clasp your hands like that And the first thing you feel is, oh, this is uncomfortable. It's, you know, well, sure, it's uncomfortable. We've not done it this way. We always do it the same way.
Now, the reason I use that illustration is because change is uncomfortable. And whenever we do anything kind of different or new, it doesn't feel right. It doesn't quite feel the same.
And what leaders do is leaders understand that change is so essential for the growth of an organization, for the growth of a person. I can still remember, Mark, many, many years ago, I'm talking about, I would have been in my early 30s, and I was sitting at a restaurant having lunch with a mentor of mine in Pasadena, California. And that day, we were talking, and he took a napkin, and he just took his pen. And on a napkin, he wrote these three words, change equals growth.
That when you change, it's the only way, the only vehicle, only possibility of bringing growth into your life. Without change, it's impossible to grow. And that day, we had a long lunch, and he talked to me about the importance of change.
and the importance of how personally it would help me to grow to be the person that I would like to become. But he said, John, you're a leader and in your organization, again, your ability to help people make positive changes in their life is just going to really grow your organization. So that day he taught me as a leader how to know when people are most prone to change.
Because he talked to me about how change is important and timing is important. And he shared with me four things that day. I share them with you quickly.
This is not the heart of the lesson. I'm just kind of laying the foundation for how we leadership change correctly and do it right. But he said, John is a leader.
He said there are four times that people change. He said they change when they hurt enough that they have to. And we've all been there.
We've all been in the... situation where we really had no choice. We were just, you know, we were on a dead end.
And if we didn't change, we, you know, we were in deep trouble. And by the way, that day he taught me that if you wait until you hurt enough that you have to, in other words, oh my gosh, I have no choice. I got to change. He said, I want you to know that you're always too late. He said, you've got to, you've got to make change in your life, in your organization before you hurt so bad, you don't have any choice.
He said, if you wait that long. You've missed your opportunity. But change happens when we hurt enough that we have to.
He said also, people change when they see enough that they're inspired to. Now, this has a visualness about it. And I like that. He said, John, you be the leader that inspires others to change. And we learn visually.
That's how we learn. Stanford Research says 89% of everything I know. and probably everything that you know and that you've learned, we learn visually. And so he said, as a leader, you really want to let your people see you change and be positive about it, and it inspires others.
It inspires others to change. He said, thirdly, people change when they learn enough that they want to. In other words, It's the old, this is really old, most of you are too young to remember this, but it was the light bulb.
And I think it was Ford Motor Company. The light bulb would come on and they would have, it's a new idea. When we learn something that we didn't know, sometimes we say, wow, I didn't realize that.
And oh, by the way, I think I need to make a change here. Hey, I just found a better route to get to my destination. So people change when they heard enough they have to, but that's always too late. So you never want to get in that position.
When they see enough that they're inspired to, one of the things that great companies do is the leaders pave the way for the change of the people because they model such a good attitude and possibilities of what that change will bring to the organization that it inspires the people. And then, you know, all of a sudden I learned a better way. And when I learn a better way, what do I do?
I start taking that way. That creates change. Fourthly, people change when they receive enough that they're able to.
And that receiving enough that a person's able to make a change, that may be resources. That may be a team around you to make that change. In other words, you supplement the things that you need to do with people, time, resources, ideas. But...
But those are the four times that people really change most naturally. Heard enough, they have to. See enough that they're inspired to. They learn enough that they want to, and they receive enough that they're able to. When I teach on leadership, one of the things I teach is the fact that the one thing that all great leaders have in common, and this is really true in your life, Mark.
But in the lives of great leaders, great leaders, they see more than others see. In other words, they see a bigger picture. And they see before others see.
They not only see a bigger picture, but they just see it quicker than everyone else. And I have taught leadership around the world. We've trained leaders, 6 million leaders in every country in the world our companies have. And so I understand different countries, different cultures.
But the one thing all leaders have in common, regardless of country, culture, time, is that leaders just see more than others see and they see before others see. Now, when that happens, when that happens, if I see more than others and I see before others, what that means is that I need to lead the way and bring in about positive change in the organization. If I see the bigger picture and if I see before anyone else, then it's important for me to are.
you know, to move. I had a wonderful mentor, John Wooden, who was a great coach for UCLA Bruins. And in fact, he won, we just finished March Madness. My gosh, John Wooden won 10 national championships. And that was a pretty amazing accomplishment.
I also know Coach K. In fact, I went to Cameron, the place where Duke plays basketball, just a couple weeks ago. And I watched the last game at Cameron with Coach K when they were upset by North Carolina. And then, of course, then they were beat by them. March Madness.
But Coach Wooden was a great teacher. I've talked to a lot of the guys who played for him. And they basically say he taught them so much about life that, yes, he taught them how to be a good basketball player, but he was bigger than basketball. Anyway, one of the statements that Coach Wooden would often share with me is he would say, John, when opportunity comes, It's too late to be prepared.
He said, some people say, well, you know, if an opportunity ever comes, then I'll, you know, I'll prepare. I'll kind of learn how to do it. And he said, no, he said, we ought to be growing and learning in such a way that when opportunity comes, we can, we can seize that moment.
Let's move to the second one that he talks about. Again, your growth as a leader and the decisions that you have to make and are making continue to grow. And I would say that as a listener and a podcast follower, it's going to be the same thing for you at different levels, personally and professionally.
I love what he talked about where he says, hey, decisions are about setting goals. The discipline is actually about achieving that goal or getting that goal. Just talk a little bit here about the decisions you've had to make and how that grows and how that changed. And in order for you to be useful now, you're making decisions now that you didn't have to make last year or in the years past.
Talk to us a little bit about that. You know, when you were asking me, I was thinking about decisions that I've made, personnel decisions, hiring decisions. And I thought about the discipline that I used when I was leading the sales team. or when I was leading customer service, the different functions of leadership that I have served in John's organization. And then I thought today about the role and responsibility of stewarding this vision of transforming a world, of creating great, meaningful leadership because everyone deserves to be led well.
And I think about the scrutiny and the decision-making process, going back to relationships, obviously, but... in decision-making of who's going to own what and what level of expectation you're going to have on them. You know, when you get really clear, Chris, on the vision of the team that you lead, the organization health of the organization that you're a part of, or the decisions you as a team leader or as a leader in your home needs to have, there comes with that a responsibility that the... Effectiveness of the decisions we make needs to have greater gravitas.
There needs to be greater significance. A great example of this, great example. I mean, think about John. For those of you that's watching YouTube, I'm holding up John's book that I mentioned at the top of the show. John has had 36 million pair of hands hold a book like this in his life.
He's done okay. He speaks to. Several million people a year through webinars and different things like that.
He's doing okay. He's had a successful life from a financial and from an accomplishment standpoint. He's doing okay.
What would drive him to make a decision to get into the songwriting arena? Now, seriously. I don't know.
I'm hoping you tell me. Yeah, podcast listeners. Podcast listeners. What would make John Maxwell...
No songwriting ability, no performing musical talent ability. What would make him get into the songwriting world with his books? The belief that he can reach an audience that he's never been able to reach before.
Which, by the way, is the same reason he started writing books. Which, by the way, is why he stopped being a pastor so he could get into the business community. Which, by the way, is why we go and respond to these presidents and prime ministers in over 23 countries saying, come help us. It's because there is a passion to make his life useful. And so right now, wherever you listen to music, there is a John C.
period. Don't forget the period. John C. period Maxwell streaming channel wherever you download music, whether that's Apple, iTunes, whether that's Spotify, YouTube.
We have now gotten into the music business. Why? Because we think we're going to make any money?
No, we're spending. money on it. Why?
Because we think John Maxwell's going to go on concert tour? No, it's not even him singing, but it's him writing songs from books like Intentional Living so that he can impact a new arena to make his life useful. The decision was not easy for me.
I was like, oh my goodness, I got to learn a new industry. I got to learn a new thing. For John, it was extremely easy, Chris.
because it was a way to make his life useful. It was a decision to make. So go online because there's two songs we've already released.
We're getting ready to release a third day by day and a song set telling you to get over yourself. Okay. So there's the two songs I want you to listen to.
You're going to love it. We've had tens of thousands, tens of thousands of downloads already. They've just come out, get to that music.
But again, going back, Chris, you know why? He intentionally set up a long time ago. I want to do something that makes a difference.
Doing something that makes a difference with people that make a difference at a time that makes a difference. Going back to this book, it was an intentional decision. You know what?
He made that decision to get into the songwriting business 50 years ago. Yeah. Because he determined when an opportunity presents itself and it allows me to impact more people to make my life more useful, I'm going to go to Nashville and write some songs. So here's our challenge to you.
Listen to a song. Get you pumped up before you listen to the podcast. Listen to the podcast, then close.
It's almost kind of like a service. Then close with your song on the back end, and it'll be a complete show. Yeah, Jake, we need to do some bumper music with a Maxwell Rudd song. Let me just stay here for just a minute because there's two things I want to unpack. In our notes, John talks about good decisions plus daily disciplines, which he has, very disciplined, equals a masterpiece of potential.
It's amazing when John talks about living a useful life. The potential that he sees in decisions that he makes and his boring daily disciplines that he lives out, you know, on a daily basis because of the potential. There's not another guy you and I would know that sees more potential in people. That's probably gotten all of us in trouble.
Things, opportunities to be useful. He sees the potential where I would see that and go, to your point, we got to learn another industry. What are we doing? But he's going, no, no, no, this can be extremely useful to people that we have not reached before. And there's a lot of potential there.
So I wanted to make sure I brought your attention to that. It's in your notes there on potential. Now, before I come off of this, the decisions that you make, your transition as a leader went from consulting with John, letting him hear what's going on.
grassroots of the organization, you guys making a decision, ultimately John finalizing it, and then you coming over and implementing it. That was a decision-making process. As we talked about, this is growth. It's going to happen. It's going to be different every season of your life.
Now, that decision-making process has flipped. You're consulting with John. Really, John's consulting back to you. But ultimately, now you're making the decision, and now you are carrying the weight, as I've heard you mention. in this podcast and others, of in order for us as an organization to be useful, to carry the potential of John's legacy.
Now that's on you. That's a shift and a growth. Talk a little bit just about that process that now you feel that weight, but also from a growth standpoint of now going, hey, in order for me to be useful, the decisions I'm making now are different than they were before.
And it's okay. It's just different. Yeah. First, I would say this. The temptation when we mature, we mature as leaders, we mature in winning, we mature in effectiveness, we're in greater demand.
The tendency is for us to redefine the things that need no redefinition and to keep dormant the things that need to be redefined. John Maxwell says that there's two areas in his life only that he has not redefined himself in. Everything else has been up to redefinition after redefinition after redefinition.
My question to you and I is, number one, do you know your two things? Five things. Three things.
One thing. Do you know the areas that must be what you want your life to be about? The bedrock.
When you have those, I've found that decisions that need to be made to make us better, to make us more effective, are... easier to make when we don't feel like we're violating the things because we know what is our irreducible minimums. Yeah, that's good. And most of the time I talk with leaders, they don't know their irreducible minimum.
For me, I'm a passionate person. If I can't get excited about it, even in a difficult meeting, I find myself just saying, guys, I'm sorry. I know we got some challenging things ahead of us. I just. He's got to tell you what I just experienced.
There's this passion. You know why? Because that's an irreducible minimum for me.
I've got to have that enthusiasm in my life. So my question is, Chris, to our podcast listeners, our podcast viewers, is what are the decisions that you're delaying because you don't know your irreducible minimums, the things in your life that will be the bedrock of your influence? Because for you to be useful, you've got to have a level of dependability. But for you to be useful, you've got to have a propensity for change.
And the only way I know how to embrace those decisions that require change is to know what is unchangeable in my life. I love what you're talking about because it allows you to make consistent decisions if you have that foundation. And as John talks about, consistency compounds. And so I love that ad.
John, you talked about this one, the law of the change-up, the sameness is the depth of communication. And I know you talk a lot about, I mean, varying speed, tone, all this kind of stuff. One of the ways I teach our communicators this is I'll tell them that the hat you wear determines the emotion they feel.
You can put on a pastor's hat, or you can say, hey, as one parent to another parent, you put on a parent hat. You can say, you can put on a friend hat. Hey, I know what you're going through, and as a friend, I would tell you this.
You can put on the boss hat. You know, you can put on the coach hat. There's all these different hats. You said something earlier, you'll sit down sometimes because you're more conversational. These are all different approaches to help us connect and move us to action.
I would like for you, if you wouldn't mind, to put on whatever hat you would choose, and you can tell us what hat that is. I want you to talk directly to... our audience, and I want you to feel what they feel right now.
We've got a stay-at-home mom who's starting a business and feels overwhelmed as she's starting to communicate with her team, recruit volunteers, recruit teams, members, whatever. You've got a seasoned youth pastor who feels ineffective connecting with teenagers. You've got a salesperson that doesn't feel very effective in communicating. You've got someone who needs to lead up to a boss and wants to communicate.
put on some hat and talk to us and tell us we can get better. The most you-centered message. I want them to feel it right now.
They're driving, they're working out. I want them to feel from one of the best communicators on the planet just how possible it is for them to become great. Well, I put on my friend hats, what I put on. You gave me several scenarios, but all the scenarios had something in common, and that it was life was not going well for them.
It was getting a little difficult. The hill was a little higher than what they thought they'd have to climb. So for you, my friend, what I would say, first of all, is I've been there.
When I say I've been there, I've had a lot more losses than I've had wins. I've had a lot more misses than I've had hits. And I can feel for where you are.
Because there were times when I looked at myself and I thought, wow, is there hope and how the heck am I going to get some help? And they weren't the same. I wanted to have hope that tomorrow would get better, but I hadn't had it.
somebody to come along and help me to make it better because I didn't know what step to take that would be next. So the first thing I want you to know is I've been there. The second thing I want you to know is that there is hope and help. Hope is in you. you help is from others probably hope is in you having a sense to believe if you're a person of faith that god's going to help you and going to give you that strength but hope is also within yourself it is allowing yourself to believe that you can do better and be better have more than you have today and and and the self-belief is pretty important but the but the but the feeder of self-belief is hope so i just want you to know that you have a reason to hope because there have been people in worse situations than yours that have climbed out of that pit and they've done very well there is help there's help for you but you do not get help by hoping for it you get help by going looking for this is where you have to take action help doesn't always find you help doesn't always come to you sometimes you have to be uh you Willing to ask for help.
You have to be willing to... Go to where people are and tell them what you need and have a sense of swallowing pride and say, I just feel that if you could just give me a couple thoughts or ideas or a helping hand for a very short time, I could make it. But you need help. So I would also want you to know very, very much that I, myself personally, have discovered that the moment... I want to be different.
God sends me people to make a difference. And situations that make a difference. And ideas that make a difference. And opportunities that make a difference.
But that is only taken by action. In fact, I have... a little lesson called action attraction. And the lesson just very simply says, the moment I know what I want to accomplish and I start moving, then all of a sudden the things that I'm looking for begin to appear.
But they don't appear while I sit. They appear while I move. And this is the big miss.
Because when we're discouraged and depressed, there's a tendency for us to hold and not do anything. And that's not going to get it. Action creates the attraction.
When I move, then the resources move. But I have to move first. And some people say, well, I would move, but I don't see any resources. I say you don't see any resources because you don't see any resources.
you don't move. And so the action begins to attract the right people to you. And when they come, become a student and start trying, start trying, start trying, and begin to make those attempts.
You know, trying is good as long as it's not an excuse to stop. I think I've tried a lot of things to find out what I needed to do so that I could then train for it. But, but. So I would just say start trying, attempt, do some of the things that people suggest that you do to get yourself out of that situation. And, of course, I would encourage you greatly to, if you're not a person of faith, honestly, Craig, I… I sometimes wonder how people who don't have a relationship with God, it's just hard for me to understand how they ever can get to where they really want to go because of all the assets that come with Christian living and the blessings that come with it, that it gets to be pretty good.
So I would hope that you also begin to trust God to help you with some of those resources that you need in your life. In my book, Change Your World, I open it up with this statement that hope has two daughters, anger and courage. Anger at the way things are and courage to go make a difference. The reason I opened the book Change Your World with those words is because that's exactly how you and I change our world. We have to be angry, angry about the injustices of the world.
the things that are just not right or fair, the things that shouldn't be, the things that not only shouldn't be, but probably won't change unless we get angry enough to do something about it. So there's a negative energy that kind of maybe sometimes gets us going and a change in your world. But if you're really going to do that, you have to have courage to, you have to have courage to stand up. You have to have courage to.
to declare that you're going to make a difference and you're going to do something about it. And so the book Change Your World is about all about how do you and I make a difference in our world. And here's the key.
Before I change my world, before you change your world, I have to change myself. You see, transformation doesn't begin with others. Transformation begins with me.
It begins with you. But the moment that I make good decisions, embrace good values, decide to do my part to make a difference, then all of a sudden I'm able to help other people make a difference also. Remember this, the change in me is the motivation that makes me want to help you have that same kind of a change. If I'm changed and my life is better, I want to help you change your life and make it better. So in this book, you're going to find chapters that will help you step by step make the personal change.
that will allow you to have credibility, authenticity, to help other people change their life. In my book, Change Your World, I have a chapter entitled, Transformation Happens One Table at a Time. Wow.
We found that to be true. We do transformation in countries around the world. In fact, we've been in countries where in our small groups, in our table, we have over 10. percent of the entire population talking learning discussing sharing practicing good values but what we found is this it has to be in a small group now what's the magic of the table the magic of the table is that you discover three things when you sit around with a half a dozen people on any specific subject in this world that i'm talking about it's on the subject of value Here's what you discover in a small group. You discover the people that truly care for you. In a small world, in a small group, pretty soon you begin to see and sense that there are some people who really want to add value to your life.
They really care for you. You also find in a small group, people that can really help you because perhaps they've had an experience that you're going through right now and they can kind of... They know the way so they can show you the way.
So you find people that can help you, find people that can care for you. And over time, thirdly, you find people that you can trust. I mean, they're really here with your best interest at the very front of their mind. That's what happens in a small group.
I want to encourage you to start a small group. I want you to have the book change your world. And I want you to start reading it.
And in it, I will teach you how to develop a small group. And I'll teach you everything you need to know to begin to change your world. But remember, we do it one table at a time. Start with yourself, a few of your friends that you really care about, and start to make a difference. It will become contagious.
It will grow. Lives will be changed. And you. will be fulfilled. Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Executive Podcast, where our goal is to help you increase your reputation as a leader, increase your ability to influence others, and increase your ability to fully engage your team to deliver remarkable results.