- So when they ask where a
leader is born, I know it, they're not really asking are they born? What they're really asking
is are there some people when they're born they got it. Getting started is
absolutely the key to life. Dreams are free but the journey isn't. - Hello Believe Nation,
I'm Evan Carmichael. My one word is believe and
I believe that entrepreneurs are going to solve all of
the world's major problems. So to help you on your journey, today we're going to learn from
leadership guru, John Maxwell and my take on his top 10
rules for success, volume two. Rule number five is my
personal favorite and I'd love to know which one you guys like the best. And as always, as you're
listening, if something really resonates with
you, there's a message that really holds true to
you, please leave it down the comments below and put it in quotes so that other people can be inspired and when you write it
down, it's much more likely to stick with yourself as well. Enjoy. (envelope whooshing) (upbeat music) - If I could just slowly
come off the stage and I can get real close to
you and we'll have kind of like a one on one conversation. There are two questions
that I would ask you and the two questions I'm
about to ask you will really determine how successful you're
going to be in this business without any question. These are the two questions. It's not like there's
three or there's four or there's seven. There's two, okay? Just trust me on this. I'm an old man, I know this. I've been around the block
a few times and there are two questions that if you're
going to answer in a positive way about yourself you're
going to be very successful. And if you really cannot
answer that in a positive way, to be honest with you, you're
not going to be near successful as you would like to be. The first question is very
simple, what are you doing to develop yourself? And if you say, by gosh
John, I tell ya right now, I'm doing a lot to develop myself. I've got a personal growth plan
and I'm intentional in this and I'm doing this on a daily
deal, if you could say that to me then I'd say, hey,
we're in good shape here. We're in good shape
because that's the key. What are you doing to develop yourself and by the way, the reason
that's first is not because you want to be selfish,
it's kind of like almost a selfish question. A person says, well, why
do I start with myself? The reason you start
with yourself is because you cannot give what you
do not have so you better with yourself. Because if you're leading
others and have nothing to give them, nothing to share with them, nothing to teach them,
then I can promise you you'll never be what you
want to be as a leader and I could promise you that
after 40 years of personal growth, the secret of any
success if I've had any success at all, the secret
of that success has been personal growth of my life
and growth has literally placed me where I am. So what are you doing to develop yourself? It's a huge question. And, the 15 laws of personal
growth, basically these laws are all about developing
yourself and developing the second question, what are
you doing to develop others? You see, on the first
question, you're foundational for your future. The second question is all about
compounding multiplication. That's where you build a huge business, when you know how to develop other people. Passion often is linked with purpose. What I love to do is
often what I should do. We have been created
within us the capacity to have things that we enjoy
greatly and a lot of times there's a definite relationship between what I am in love with and
what I should be doing. We are created and wired in such a way that passion and purpose
many times come together and passion is the great energizer. Once you have passion, you have energy. Once you find your passion,
you find your purpose. There is something energetic about it. You have never known a
person who was passionate that lacked energy. We talk about high energy
people, we talk about low energy people, there's no such thing
as like low energy people. Or high energy. If you have high energy, you have passion. If you have low energy,
you don't have any passion. Some people, they're already dead. They haven't made it official yet. (audience laughing) You just look at 'em, I
just want to walk around and do the committal,
let 'em watch and observe the whole process. But passion gives us a
great amount of energy and when we have that passion,
there's something about how we love what we're doing
and we enjoy what we're doing and passion energizes us. A person with passion always stands out. The world is so full of apathy. It's so full of average. It's so full of whatever. But once you have passion
and once you have a sense of energy in your life,
it just sets you apart. It distinguishes you. It already gives you what
I would call a head start in success of life. So when they ask where are leaders born? I know it, they're not
really asking are they born? What they're really asking
is are there some people when they're born, they got it? And some people when they're
born they don't got it. If you got it, you go to
the front of the line. If you don't got it, you
go to the back of the line. That's what they're asking. And I've got great news for you. And I do believe, I have
no question about it, that there are some people
that are born with what I call leadership leanings, no doubt about that. Just like some people are born with kind of a musical leaning. No doubt. But the great news is, because
I've done this for so long and I've done this with so
many over such a long period of time in every country of the world, what I know is you can learn to lead. You can learn to lead. You can learn to be a better
leader than you are right now. You can grow as a leader. And if I'm a five as a leader,
that means my organization will be what? Talk to me. (audience chattering) A four. Okay. Here we go. Because the lid, the
leadership lid won't allow it to go higher. So, how do I grow my organization? This is very simple folks. I've got to raise my lid, don't I? I've got to get this lid
up and because I can become a better leader, I can raise my lid. True? So I can go from a five to a six. To a seven. To an eight. To a nine. Now, this organization is a
four, when that leadership lid starts going up, that
organization goes from a four to a five to a six to a seven to an eight. You see, you're organization
will grow to the size of your leadership ability. Now if I were where you
are and I was listening to what I just said,
and I was taking notes, somewhere on my notes,
or somewhere on my iPad, I'd be putting a star right here. I'd be putting a rocket ship. I'd be putting a sign that
says, do not miss this. Because you're ability
to lead will determine how successful you'll be in
this house without any question. The best leaders will
build the biggest business. The whole concept, the whole
idea that you can learn to lead and if you learn to lead
and the better you learn to lead, the more
successful you can become and the greater your business. This is an absolute fact. It's not a theory, it's not
a thought, it's not an idea, it's not a principal, it's a fact. And the law of the lid says,
the better you learn to lead, the higher you lift that lid,
the greater your business can become. Now, that's the law of the lid. I brought something with me
today that's very special. It's a kit and I'm just
so pleased to have this because this kit is very important to me. Now, it cost $799 and I got this kit, I got this kit back in the 1970's, okay. And, this was my first
personal growth kit. It's Dynamics of Personal
Goal Setting by Paul Meyer, personal success planner
and I was so excited. It cost $799. Now, you have to understand,
I made about $800 a month. So get the picture. It took me six months to buy this kit. I saved up, we didn't have
credit cards back then and I just saved up and
worked hard and it took me six months before I had
enough cash to buy this kit and I was so excited when I got it. And, I mean, I opened it all
up and this was just amazing. It had, I mean, you'll
just see some things here that will just crack you up. It had, for some of you
young people who've never seen this before. (audience laughing) They're called cassette tapes. And I remember taking the
first cassette tape out, put it on my little cassette
player, opening this up, oh my gosh, this was so wonderful. That wasn't. (audience laughing) They had, I mean, they
had page by page plans. And I mean, I went through
the plans and listened to the tapes, and go
through the plans and listen to the tapes and go through
the plans, listen to the tape. This was my first growth experience. And the ROI on this $799 kit, it's worth millions of dollars to me. Yeah, you heard me right. Millions of dollars. And experiences and a lifetime of growth and what interesting is, now, here's what I want you to hear, the value of this kit,
the content was good, but that wasn't the value. The content was good but
as I looked back now, I said, what made this so special? What made this so special is very simple. This is the kit that got me started. Hear me out. The value of what you do
for people is not so much what you give to them as
much as it challenges them to get started. Getting started is
absolutely the key to life. And, by the time I finished
going through this personal growth kit, by the time
that was all finished, I had six months of day in,
day out personal growth. And what it did is it
developed a habit in my life and by the time I finished with that kit, now I'm used to spending time
every day in personal growth. It got me started. I mean, this is worth this
whole lesson if you could just get this. The reason why I'm so
passionate about personal growth is personal growth keeps me prepared. In other words, if I'm continuing growing and I'm continually developing myself and I'm continually
learning, and I'm continually doing new things and going
to another step higher, can I tell you what that is? That constant growth is the
preparation for the opportunity so when the opportunity
comes, here's the way, you don't go into an opportunity, you grow into an opportunity. And so, I'm passionate
about personal growth because for that person who
says, wow, I had an opportunity. I wasn't ready. If you're growing you're
always ready because after I intentionally started
growing, I made a commitment to grow as a leader. I started writing, I became and author. I developed growth
resources for other people. I founded my first company. I began training conferences. Everything I could think
of that has ever been good in my life was a result
of the fact that I started personal growth in my life. I got started and guess what? When I got started, let me
tell you what I didn't have. I didn't have experience. I didn't have knowledge. I did not have a motto. I did not have a mentor. I did not have a plan. I did not have a fellow traveler. I did not have resources. I did not have money. I did not have a growth environment. But, I got started. You don't stop or not start
because of what you don't have. You don't start because
you don't realize yet that the fruit of everything good in life begins with a challenge. There's nothing easy in
life worthwhile in life. Everything is a pill that's worthwhile. And it's not going to come to
you and it's not going to fall in your lap and it's not
going to be something that, oh my God, it just was so simple. It's always going to be difficult. The rule of five is the
most life changing concept for focusing on success
that I have ever taught, that I have ever lived so I'm
just going to drop it on you just enough to help you
understand the five concept, to help you understand the
five things you need to do to lift your leadership lid. The rule of five just simply
says, if you have a tree in your background that
you want to cut down and you have an ax, if
everyday you pick up that ax and you go to that tree
and you swing five times with that ax to hit that
tree, put the ax down. The next day you go out, pick up the ax, swing five times at the
tree, put the ax down. The next day you go out, pick up the ax and five more times
you swing at that tree, five times, everyday, you pick up the ax and only five. Not 50, not 15, not 500. If you swing five times a day at that tree with that ax everyday,
let me ask you a question, what eventually is going
to happen to that tree? That tree is going to? - [Audience] Fall. - Now, there's no question about that. Is there? There isn't any doubt. You don't have to sit around the table and kind of say, do you think it will? (audience laughing) Hmm, let's hold hands and
sing kumbaya and hope. (audience laughing) If you swing five times a
day at that tree everyday, that tree will fall in the story. Now, if it's a big tree,
it may take a couple years. If it's a little tree in
your backyard, I don't know, maybe in a month you could
knock that baby down. See, now the size of
the tree will determine how long it takes for it to fall. But that's not what we're debating here. What we're teaching here
is if you swing five times a day at that tree, every
day, the tree will fall. Now, that's the rule of five. The rule of five says find your tree. What's your goal in life? What's your purpose? What do you want to accomplish? What do you want to knock down? Where's your ax? What are your tools? What is it that you're
going to use to effectively go after that goal five times a day? What are you? What is it because whatever that is, whatever that is, if you
use it five times a day every day, you'll be highly successful. For example, I write books. So let me just put that
in writing for a moment. I've written 73 books. Jason, that was a nice
introduction it's 22 million, not 19. (audience laughing) But, what's two or three million? (audience laughing) Give a little, take a little,
little here, little there. People say, John, how
have you written 73 books? Oh, thank you for asking. (audience laughing) The rule of five. You see, there are five
things I do everyday that allows me to write that many books. It's not magic. It's not that I'm brilliant. It's just that I know the rule of five. The rule of five. You see, everyday I read. Every day I file. Every day I think. Every day I ask questions
and every day I write. Every day. I do those five things every day. Every day I read, every day
I file, every day I think, every day I ask questions,
every day I write, every day I read, every day
I think, every day I file, every day I ask questions,
every day I write, every day I think, every day I read, every day I ask questions,
every day I file, every day I write, every day I write, every day I read, every day
I think, every day I file, every day I ask questions. Yes, I can do it in different
orders but every day. Doesn't matter whether you
swing the ax left handed or right handed, you
just got to hit the tree. Every day I read, file,
think, ask questions, write, read, think, file, ask
questions, write, read, think, file, ask questions, write. You say now John, what
do you mean by every day? (audience laughing) This is where it gets a
little long sometimes. (audience laughing) What I mean by every day is every day. Now you say, now when you say every day do you mean that you do that on Sunday? Every Sunday I read, think,
file, ask questions, write. Do you do that on your
birthday every birthday? Guess what, every birthday
I read, think, file, ask questions, write. Do you do that on Christmas? Guess what I do every Christmas? Every Christmas I read, think,
file, ask questions, write. Do you do this when you're feeling well? Can I tell you when I'm not feeling well, even if I'm not feeling well
guess what I do every day? When I'm not feeling well I
think, write, ask questions, do all those things, every day. You say, every day? At the age of 17, I started filing. I've never missed a day. I don't have 100 quotes. I don't have 1,000 quotes. I have tens of thousands of quotes. I don't have 100 stories. I don't have a 1,000 stories. I have 10,000 stories. Where did you get all those stories? Where'd you get all those quotes? Well, let me tell you something. Guess what I do every day? (audience laughing) See, we overestimate
what we can do in a day and we underestimate what
we can do in several days. And you got to understand,
you got to understand, the secret of success is
not the fact that hey, I didn't say, hey, some
days I get up and I write for 12 hours. No, no, no, no, no. I didn't say I write all day. I didn't say I read all day. I didn't say I think all day. I didn't say I ask questions all day. I just said every day, every day. You see, doing a little
bit every day is a lot more important than doing a lot some day. And most people live in some day. Well I tell ya what, I
think I'll get to that. You know what, I think I'll try that. You know what, I believe I (mumbles). Now, now here's the key. You got to figure out what the five are. It took me seven years to
find my five for writing. John, you're slow. (audience laughing) I am. It won't take you seven years but it'll take you a long period of time. I can get the first two
quickly but the third, the fourth, the fifth,
it took me four years to get the last one. I can remember as a
parent as my children got to a certain age and where they
looked to me for influence. I can remember very well
when I saw them beginning to go to their friends. And that's where the influence
began and that's where their influence began to increase. As a parent that got a little scary for me because I could see I was
having a little less influence and the friends were
having a little bit more. But my parents were very wise. My parents understood
that who my friends were would determine who I was going to become. Birds of a feather flock together. And in their wisdom they
decided that they wanted to know my friends and they
wanted to see my friends. So therefore, they provided
a lot of wonderful things at our home so we would have
our friends at our house so that my parents could
observe and watch the kind of kids I ran around with
and what I learned as a kid growing up is very simple. There are some friends
that were positive for me. There were some friends
that were negative for me and my determination of which
friends I was going to let influence me basically
determined whether I was going to have a positive
or a negative life. Fortunately, because of good
parental advice and guidance, I chose good friends which
really did make a difference because, you see, friends are wonderful. They give us support,
they give us strength. They're either though a
real asset or real liability so I would just want to encourage you, choose your friends wisely. You don't need a lot but
you need some good ones. Every leader I have
ever known had a dream, had a vision. In fact, I would say to
you if you're not seeing what could be and what
you would like to have, I would say you probably are not a leader. But what I've discovered
about dreams is this, dreams are free but the journey isn't. And so, leaders go beyond
just having a dream. They go beyond having a
wish list, sitting around a table and kind of hoping
something might come to pass. They understand that if they have a dream, if they're a dreamer,
they have to pursue that. They have to take the journey. The dream's free, the journey isn't. And what leaders find is
that when they go forth toward that dream, they
continually have to pay that price. They continually have to
realize that they make down payments on the dream they have. But there's one thing
else I would like to say, all leaders realize that
whatever they pay, it's worth the price because dreams,
for them, do come true. I was sitting at a round
table with executives one day and a person that is highly
successful I could tell was a little discouraged. He said, John, I've hit
every goal in my life and now I basically have lost
my motivation and my passion. And I looked at him, I called him by name. I'll say Don. That wasn't his name. I said, Don, the problem is
you've been goal oriented instead of growth oriented. You see, if you and
are just goal oriented, when we hit our goals
it's kind of like, eureka, we've arrived. We celebrate, have a party
but then all of a sudden there's an emptiness
like okay, I've hit it. But if you're growth
oriented and establish goals within your growth oriented
journey, you'll hit those goals but you'll at it and say hey,
this is just another step towards my total growth and
I've never known a person who said, John, I've grown
as big as I could ever grow and I know as much as I could
ever know and so therefore I have nothing to accomplish. You see, if you're goal
oriented, you'll hit your goal and then be a little empty
but if you're growth oriented, you'll never hit that goal. Just keep growing. You and I both know that God's
gift to us if our potential and our gift back to him is
what we do with our potential. Perhaps the greatest insult
that we could ever give to our creator is to be a slacker. To somehow have these gifts
and have these opportunities and have this potential
and do nothing with it. I would suggest today that
you believe in yourself as much as God believes in you. He created you for greatness. Now, that's how he created you. You determine how great you become. He has already given you the
potential and he's already given you the opportunity. Your response, either
seize the moment in the day and become all that you possibly can be or slack in the moment and
basically rest and just let things come to you. I encourage you on Minute with Maxwell, take the potential that you
have been given as a gift and the way to say thanks to that gift is by giving your life your very best. And the word that came
to my heart this year that I think God wants
me to focus on in 2015 is the word intentional. He wants me to be intentional. He wants me to, maybe more
than ever before in my life really focus on some
things that are important and live a life everyday
not a day that kind of where I try to accept my day but
a day where I lead my day. A day where I focus on
making sure I really, really put my intentionality
where it needs to be. We all heard the expression,
all is well that ends well. I'm hear to tell you all
is well that begins well. And this is the first of
the year and for many of you this is your chance. This is your shot. This is your moment. This is your time. This is your opportunity. All of you that are watching
online, the different campuses, Day Star, this is your opportunity. This is your time. This is your moment. This is your place for you to really begin to
live an intentional life. - Thank you guys so much for watching. I really hope you enjoyed this video. If there's someone you'd
like to profile in the next top 10, check out the
link in the description and go and cast your note. I'd also love to know what
was your favorite message from this video? What did you learn from
this video that you're going to immediately
apply somehow in your life or in your business, please leave it down in the comments below. I'm really curious to find out. I also wanted to give a quick
shout out to Jane Cassell. Jane, thank you so much for
picking up a copy of my book, Your One Word, and posting
that awesome tweet. I really appreciate the
support and I'm so glad that you're enjoying the read. So thank you guys again for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love, I'll see you soon. (dramatic music) - People that are
knowledgeable about habits say that it takes 30 days for
a habit to become a habit. In other words, you and I
can't, in one or two days, develop a habit. It takes a long time. In fact, I am prone to think
it takes a little longer than 30 days. Now, habits can be good
and habits can be bad and so over a period of time you can either be developing
habits that are going to help you or you're going to be
developing habits that are going to hurt you. People that grow develop
habits that help them. The great value of a good
habit is you don't have to think about it,
that's why it's a habit. In other words, once you
begin to over days and times and periods, begin to practice
something that's good, after a while it becomes automatic to you. It becomes who you are. In fact, I always tell
people, practice a good habit long enough to make it
yours and once it's yours now it's automatic, everyday,
you'll do what you should do. I heard a story this week
about a lady who bought a parrot at the store and
she was kind of lonely so she wanted the parrot to
kind of take home to talk to her. So she took the parrot home
and sat there and you know, the parrot in the cage, the
parrot didn't say a word. The next day she went to
the store and she said, the parrot doesn't talk. Well, the manager at the
store said, well, you know, maybe you need to get
a ladder for the cage because parrots like to
climb and get exercise. And so she got a ladder
and put it in the cage and sat there and watched the parrot. Didn't talk so the next day
she went back into the store and she said, I got the
ladder, parrot doesn't talk. He said, you probably need a swing. Parrots like to swing and
just kind of go back and forth a little bit, puts 'em in a good mood. So she got a swing, put it
in the cage, went back home and sat there and watched the parrot. The parrot didn't talk. Went back to the store
the next day (mumbles). Got the swing, got the
ladder, and the parrot still doesn't talk. He said, you need a mirror. (audience laughing) A parrot likes to look at himself. Get a mirror in there and that'll help. So she went and got a
mirror, put it in there and the parrot just look at
itself and swing and climb. (audience laughing) She came back to the manager
the next day and she said, the parrot died. (audience laughing) She said the parrot died. Oh how terrible. He said, did the parrot say
anything before he died? (audience laughing) Yeah, said the parrot said,
don't they sell food down there? (audience laughing) I'm hungry. I'm hungry. I know all kinds of people
in their spiritual life. They got ladders, they got
mirrors, they got swings. They got stuff. And they don't understand,
they don't understand that less is more, that what you got to do is go for the simple, go for
the true, go for the food for your own soul.
