High Point University Presents: John Maxwell

High Point University presents a conversation with John Maxwell and neato Cobain is a production of unc-tv in association with High Point University ladies and gentlemen welcome to High Point University on this very special day when we honor and introduce to you one of the world's most renowned leadership experts I have been looking for this moment for a long time this is a man that you're gonna hear from this afternoon a man who has written 74 books his companies are the world's largest source for leadership training some 5 million leaders in 185 countries received their leadership education through dr. John Maxwell's companies this is a person that the New York Times The Washington Post Businessweek Wall Street Journal and so many other periodicals but at the very top are the best-selling lists we are in for a treat on the campus of hyper university as we welcome a person who joins a whole host of other experts best-selling authors United States Presidents executives of large corporations scientists and artists and faculty from all kinds of institutions who come here to bring to our students and to our family learning that is pragmatic and practical and insightful and useful so ladies and gentlemen would you please help me welcome dr. John Maxwell well I have been looking for this opportunity for a long time because like you I know this guy and I know of his work and I know of the impact he has had on the lives of literally millions of people perhaps on every continent in this world so John welcome to High Point University so I'm delighted to be here with you my friend and I want you to know something we like you so much that every year here on a campus of High Point University we publish a daily calendar there people put in their homes and every day they peel a page and they're inspired by a thought from this calendar we send it to the parents of our students we use it here internally with family and staff and we give it to our friends we like you so much that we quoted you on January the second it says life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it John Maxwell and if you don't think we like you more on April the 9th we quoted you saying a man must be good enough to admit his mistakes smart enough to profit from them and strong enough to correct them yeah in John I want you to know something we've already written the quotes from you that we're going to use in the calendar next year and one of them says let me read it to you areand by my back notes I have never seen a university quite as extraordinary and a few others like that we're so glad you're here first of all this campus is amazing I mean I just I just had the tour I just had the true and I love leadership and as I looked and it just they talked to me about what has happened here on this campus my friend it is obvious that everything rises and falls on leadership and it's obvious that you are a leader and I would say to you dr. Cobain and I would talk to all of you out here and say isn't it wonderful when an institution has great leadership makes all the difference in the world rather absolutely now you understand why we invited him thank you very much you're very kind and any leader who has any sense arounds himself or herself with the whole host of leaders and I am blessed and gifted on this campus to have stellar faculty outstanding staff support from our board trustees and our other constituencies in your right it is about leadership that's how America was founded with leadership and that's why you're here today we want to learn from you dr. John Maxwell was born in the state of Michigan he is an ordained minister and he was the minister of three large churches across the country living in Florida now yes living in Florida and he and I actually have a lot of friends in common like Zig Ziglar whom we just lost last year and robert schuller and true with Kathy and others you know I've known about your work for such a long time what is it that really drives you oh it's very simple I love to add value to people and when I started speaking and writing I just had really one desire and that is to help people make their lives better and as a very young leader and person I began to find some principles that I thought were helping me and I just decided to try to pass them on and I have never tired I'm 67 now I'm never tired of adding value to people walk into their lives serving them loving them doing everything I possibly can to help them reach their god-given potential that is the most exciting thing that I could do you know it's been said that you know our potential is God's gift to us and what we do with that potential is our gift back to him and I just like to help the gift I just like to help lift that lid and race it as much as I possibly can and I just enjoy very much watching people reach their potential I had a time in my life where my success was really important to me but I passed that and now the success of people that I mentor trained teach right for that gives me more joy than any success I've ever had and that I that that was a great change in my life when I began to say I'm gonna live my life the rest of my life just to add value to people and I'm living the dream I really am and you've done there you've done the adding value but in exemplary ways and we're all better because of it let me quote from some of your work law of navigation anyone can steer the ship it takes a leader to chart the course well you're suggesting that visionary leadership is what makes the world go round and if so what is your definition of visionary leadership well a well a vision is is a picture of tomorrow that creates passion within us today and so when I say what is your picture of tomorrow what do you see for yourself what do you see for for what you're doing it ought to create a passion within you today if yesterday was my best day and if all I can talk about was yesterday I'm in trouble because if we're growing and for developing we appreciate yesterday we don't devalue it but we don't go back to it saying those were my best days let me give you an example I am I wrote the book the 21 irrefutable laws of leadership and at the 10th anniversary of that book our publishers came back to us and said would you kind of revise it for a 10th anniversary edition I said sure and I hadn't read the book for quite a few years that three years the first three years I had literally travel around the world lecturing on it and it's become the best-selling leadership book ever written and so anyway I said sure I'll go back and revise it and I went back and I read it and and I was so depressed I I mean I just I just thought this isn't very good and and I and I went into I'm not a person that goes into a funk but I went into a funk for a couple days and I just kept asking myself why what's wrong with this book and then it hit me it had been written ten years earlier and in ten years I had I had grown and so when I wrote the book I was on the same level of it but but in ten years I'm still growing when you're learning and growing and listening and and and experiencing things like today I mean I could hardly wait to get here like I know we're doing Q&A now but I can hardly wait to get here so I can ask you questions I could because I've admired you and I followed you and I thought I've got a whole bunch of questions I want to ask you and I just learned that if you keep asking questions you keep learning you keep growing and in life is a wonderful wonderful thing so I spew a smell as I said John when you're gonna retire and you know I you know I don't wanna retire I mean hello I mean look at you say well can you I said well yeah I can't I've been I'm okay after I've sold 25 million books I mean do the math I mean no less I can retire trust me I can retire but who wants to retire you know I mean I just love one of you and so in but people keep asking me so I finally found an answer and that is when I die I'm retiring oh my god well I ask God when I when I'm dead I'm not coming back I'm just I'm not coming back to be here with you I'm not gonna write any more books I'm dead you know what I'm saying that I've retired but I love my life and I love helping people and and again you can see I got it from my father and it's just it's just amazing so it's it's I mean I think we hear you you're talking about being in a continuum continuum of learnings of course school is never out for the pro you know we you're on a college campus where faculty certainly gets that they consistently and constantly or in professional development learning writing discovering and we tell our students that that life is living best when you're always learning and growing so here's something you wrote it's called the leaders greatest return is developing people you said what does developing people mean you said I live life to add value to people so what does developing people mean developing people means I value them developing people means I commit time to them developing people means I mentor them developing people means I equip them developing people means I empower them dr. Maxwell is leadership a mindset is it an attitude is it a skill is it something you're born with it is it's something you're born with tendencies to words it is it something you learn something you choose what exactly is it well what first of all leadership simply defined is influence it's that simple your ability to influence people allows you to have the privilege of leading them you can't lead anyone that you can't influence in fact my favorite leadership proverb is he that thinketh he leadeth and half no one following him is only taking a walk yeah hey by the way don't we know a lot of people in leadership positions taking walks you know there they go there they go yeah and when you ask me about our you know our leaders born that's when I do Q&A that's the number one question I mean because I do leadership all the time though people raise their hand they'll say John our leaders born and whatever they asked me that question I I mean I I look at him I say well of course they are think about that question I've never met an unborn leader hey and don't particularly want to either you know what I'm saying I don't have any desire what they're really asking is are there people that are born they've got it you know if you got it you go to the front align your lead if you don't got it I get you good in the back line and follow and obviously obvious there are some people that are born with what I call leadership leanings giftedness that will allow them to excel as the leader if they really work and reach their potential but when you think of leadership being influence anyone can lead and anyone can increase their influence now not everybody can increase their influence to the same level but every person I mean a mother who's in a home and has children has influence there's some leadership already going right there so everybody is a leader the question is not our your leader the question is what kind of a leader are you and are you developing as a leader and and what I have what I have loved in teaching leadership is that one when people begin to understand that it's influence and that they can learn to increase their influence I began to watch people Excel I began to watch them do leadership things that they would never have never thought of doing because they begin to see themselves differently and you know as we see ourselves so we go I mean we uh how I see you is basically determined by how I see myself and when the moment that I see myself correctly and beautifully I began to see other people in a different light also so I think leadership is a of course it's an attitude you can the determination of a leader and a bad leaders as many times determined by their attitude leaders leaders are to motivate people never to manipulate people so I mean when you manipulate people you move them for your personal advantage that's always wrong when you but you got to move people but you move them for mutual advantage and so the attitude of a leader is essential because sometimes that's the line that crosses over between motivating people and and and manipulate him so how my attitude does determine in so many ways my altitude and what I'm going to do as a leader and you know one more thing leaders see more than other see and they see before others see and when you understand that as a leader you're going to see a bigger picture than everyone else and you're going to see that bigger picture but you're also going to see it quicker then now that puts a leader at a very distinct advantage over everyone else so the question is not does a leader have an advantage of course they do the question is how do they use that advantage do they use that advantage to add value to people and bring them along or do they use that advantage to to go before people take off and do all the winning because they're gonna win they're they're going to they're going to finish and leaders every day have the privilege of starting first but great leaders don't take that privilege great leaders say I will wait I will wait til I can gather people around me because when leaders cross the finish line they don't finish first but when they cross the line they bring people with them and that's what makes exceptional leadership leaders who are willing to see the picture before and more than others but the same sense have a discipline in their life and a passion and value for people that they'll take him across the line with them if that makes sense warner books in the year 2003 published one of your books and the title of the book was an is there is no such thing as business ethics really there's no such thing as business ethics there's just ethics and you either have them or you don't and if you have them they work in business oh happy day and if you don't have them they're not gonna work you can't compartmentalize ethics I mean it's can't like okay in my business I'll be I think alone over here in my community I won't by mean you can't I said I can't I can't so I can't write a book on business ethics and that's where the title there's no such thing as business ethics I mean I mean being a marketer II mean it's got the title for the book you know got the night over on the book and he he was very happy and then I went away and I said you got to give me a month to think about it because I thought in a you know in a culture and a society that has no absolutes how do you teach ethics I mean come on if everything's moving nothing's there's no baseline there's no standard there's there's the there's no Northstar how could you teach ethics so I worked on it and I took my writing team for two days to Nashville and we just wrestled with this issue of how could we do this and we had our Eureka moment we decided to build the book and base the book on the golden rule because the gold there the golden rule is in every religion in every culture in the world we did we got our research people on it real quick and and every and so we said okay we'll base it off of the golden rule and and we wrote the book and and it received a lot of kind of awards from organizations that really espoused you know ethical living but but I really enjoyed that book and wherever I when I go into corporate community they're always asking me a lot about that in fact I was the Wall Street Journal interviewed me the other day and they asked me about about ethics and you know a lot of companies now teach it which is a wonderful thing and they said can you teach ethics I said well of course you can and it's a wonderful thing that they're doing that but I said it does not does no good to teach it if you don't live it so you know step number one is not do we have a class on so step number one is do we have a teacher that's ethical you know let's start there you know and and when I go to Beijing University because they use a lot of my leadership there and so when I go there to teach in lecture they're all the number one question the number one these Chinese bright kids in Business School they're never one question that asked me are questions on ethics because they've lived in a culture for so many years that didn't have that and all of a sudden now they're there they're getting exposed to other countries and they're having to do deals and all of a sudden they're realizing there's gonna have to be some kind of a standard there so it's been a it was a fun it was a fun book to to write because I felt that it gave me an opportunity maybe to change a little bit of the soul of America's for and and and I think that it did give me that opportunity but but there is no such thing as business ethics a very important point which we believe in wholeheartedly at hypo university and the point is that who you spend time with this will you become what you choose is what you get and what influences your choice is and and what influences the opportunities of who you spend time with it's the zone in which you live so dr. Maxwell what we've done at High Point University effectively is not simply take students and say here's an opportunity to major in this discipline or this discipline but rather we said this is an opportunity for you to get a holistic education to prepare yourself for the world not as it is not as it was but as it's going to be and to create an environment we tell our parents that we've create an environment in which through which by which students choose to be extraordinary the environment feeds it let me just give you an example our campus is always clean visitors here are baffled by the notion that they don't see people running around cleaning the campus said you have 43 hundred students plus another 15 honored employees how can that be and we said if the environment is clean if you set the standard of excellence at this level what would students do they will attempt to reach it if you said it here they'll attempt to reach that - if the place is clean who is gonna be the first dingaling to throw a piece of paper on the graph absolutely and I think that's your point your point is that ethics works that way that if you choose to live in an environment and with people who are that way it influences the very person that you become and they're caught more than taught and that's so true because they people when they see it when they've you know people do what people see and minoo eighty-nine percent of what we Sanford research says eighty-nine percent of what we know we learned visually and so when you look at a campus like this that is beautiful that it's clean and and you can you can visually you can visually see excellence across your campus what are the students going to do they're gonna go right to that level again that that that visualization that environment creates the behavior no doubt about it in the year 2000 Thomas Nelson published a book by you called failing forward how many of you have failed at least one time let's raise your head okay today and and and my publisher didn't want me to write the book yes they said nobody will buy a book on failure I mean they said they just won't and I said well they'll buy this book because I'm we're talking about failing forward and and and in the ten years since I've written the book or you told you I've had so many more failures so that you know that I see it here the book it sometimes you win sometimes you learn is is my second failure book and but it's on a graduate level I've learned how to fail much better you know what I mean and I might at a much higher level but I've had you know I've had I was in I was in Brazil doing a major conference and signing books and a kid brought up a fairly poor book and hand it to me and he said the book saved my life and I said thank you very much I'm glad to hand it back to him and when I looked at him he just cheers forced Rudolph's face and I stopped for a moment and I said saved your life he said yeah he said it literally saved my life he said I was going to commit suicide so I picked up that book they said my life was so full of failure he said you gave me such hope and of course you know as well as I do you're an author that's why you're right you're right just you never know where that book's gonna go you know you don't know what persons are going to pick up that book and it's just going to be the message that they need to hear at that time their life and I've just I've just been so pleased with the to fill here books they just you know they're there's something that people identify you know if I was gonna talk about my success I need a day but if I'm gonna talk about my failure I need a week and and I think you know i mean i think if you're successful you create what I call a success gap and that basically if a person is just successful if you're a successful life you don't even do it on purpose but you get a gap I mean you're here and average people are here and I mean you've you've seen more places you had more opportunities you've got more money you know I mean and so this gap happens this gap happens I don't think we try to create but it happens and I very early in my life said I'm loaded everything I can to close that gap because I don't want to be anybody's star I don't want to have fans you see if you want to be a star and you want to have fans you create the gap in fact you you try to widen that gap you want to be here and you want everybody to go oh and then amazing what they could do and and I said you know what I don't want to have fans I want to have friends and if I'm gonna have friends I'm gonna walk slowly through the crowd I'm gonna do everything I possibly can and I think one of the ways not the only way but I think other ways to close that gap is to talk very candidly about the things that I've done that I haven't worked out or my failures or or just my humaneness and and and as soon as I start talking about that people just can't you can just sense them come around and say I got you you know what I mean I understand you because you don't help people if if you have a gap if they look at it and they say I can't achieve that I can't get there they're too big they're too fast they're too wonderful whatever that is but but when you close that gap and you walk slowly through the crowd then people begin to say wait a minute I I can I can get there and and if you're successful your desire more than anything else should be to come and close that gap into other people who come around and say I can get there too and I think I think that's what you're doing with the University I think what you're doing is you're you're you're creating an environment of success and excellence and and vision and and potential but I think you're bringing that right down to where those kids are and I think they're letting they're able to live in this environment and they're able to see living visual examples of teachers and staff that that are doing this and I think that's where the change occurs the change occurs not through the difference it change occurs when all of a sudden I look at somebody and I say wow I think I could do that too and there's not a greater compliment than a leader can have than to have people look at that leader and say me too I can do that too and the moment that happens and and so when I wrote the failing forward book I just said I'm gonna close this gap and let everybody understand they weren't difference between you and me as I fail more than you have but it's that attitude of coming back after that failure that really makes all the difference you know this very theater at high point I teach a freshmen class yeah and we have about 650 freshmen per Section so it fills up all three levels you know we say that young people have limited focus limited ability to listen it's not true young people is just like our Plains we only hear about the ones that crash we don't hear about all the ones who get up in the morning and do amazing things like our students investing a 110 thousand hours a year in service for example service-learning but they sit in this class as freshmen and then I teach a senior class and the message that permeates this class is the notion that I can that the for the last four letters and the word American other letters I can that the word impossible doesn't really exist because you put an apostrophe f to the I it becomes I impossible the potential exists and resides in all of us that's why we say on this campus that our number one purpose is to plant seeds of greatness not only in their minds we are an education institution of course in their minds but also in their souls and in their hearts and that's what mentorship is all about and that's what you've done and I want to read how you came about starting one of the most influential to use your word influence leadership by influence how you came about starting equip that you were in fact I'm reading from 21 irrefutable laws of leadership you were in fact in South America and you're giving a speech and you said everything started well the people were very gracious and I was able to connect with them despite the language and cultural barriers but it wasn't long before I could tell that the attendees and I were not on the same page when I when I started to teach about leadership I could tell my comments were not connecting with them they didn't engage in what I was trying to communicate it didn't seem to make an impact and I'll skip a little bit this wasn't the first time I had experienced such frustration I noticed that whenever I traveled to developing countries I faced similar situations I suspect that in nations where there is no strong business interest lecture and where government doesn't allow the citizens much freedom it is difficult for leaders to develop I'll skip again after listening patiently my wife Margot replied maybe you're the one who's supposed to do something about this and then you want to talk about how you began a new organization called equip tell us what that stands for equipped and what does it do and what did it do well it stands for encouraging qualities are developed in people and went when Margaret I was so discouraged after an international trip I said I'm not doing the same or it's just hard and it and besides I love humour and you know you you've done international stuff so much doesn't cross over and transcend and so I just said I I'm gonna stay in the States and and do my stuff here and when she said it maybe I should do something about this it just pierced my heart and I spent a couple of months just wrestling with this issue of doing something about it and an animated decision my brother who's two years older than I am very successful in business he and I had a long conversation and we basically said let's let's start let's start a leadership organization is trained in especially in developing countries and that's that's how started it started with a with the little thought little prayer little did I realize that was 16 years ago that we would become the largest leadership training organization in the world and we're just a few months away from being in every country in the world and and it's been so amazing it's been so satisfying but it hasn't been easy because when you go internationally people think leadership is position and title and authority and I can remember I when the Soviet Union fell it was going to fall but two weeks before it was official they invited me to the Kremlin and I spoke to I was the first non-communist to go in and and ice they asked me to come in and speak on leadership in future and envisioned two to five thousand people and I remember as I looked at their faces they hope and I realized that they had they were in an environment in a culture that that they didn't even have a good picture a healthy picture of what leadership was and so we took on as a challenge and and today it's the most rewarding part of my life we're in Guatemala now we're now into what we believe is is weekend we're going into the seven streams of influence in countries and starting with the top with the presidents of the countries the business leaders of the country the top educators the cabinet's the supreme courts and we're going to top and we're teaching leadership values and this is incredible this is a this is a made we started in in Guatemala last June I have a coaching company I flew a 150 of my coaches it and in a week they train 19,000 leaders in teaching roundtables with values with values and those those those 19,000 leaders all started training and now a hundred and fifty thousand people are going through values-based leadership training and what I learned is this going back to ethics and values something I know you hold very dear that when you teach leadership values when people learn leadership values and start to live those values out there is an automatic lift in their life I mean you don't have to you don't have to go in and pump them up you don't have to go motivate them either they just apps they just they lift themselves because they see think and behave differently and we're seeing that now in Guatemala and and and the countries in Latin America are saying okay we want it we want to be next and and so I just closed was saying that what I'm glad Margit looked at me and said you got to do something about it because I think if she wouldn't have said that I think I would have settled for second best which reminds me again that isn't it true in all of our lives people come into our lives and God uses them to speak truth into us and so many times from them and from what they say or what they've done it's changed me and today equip is an amazing amazing organization but it began out of that conversation on the plane with Margaret and she always lets me know that that while I am today is because of her it is so sickening because because she's right oh I think that so a part of a an effective leaders job responsibilities calling is to mentor to coach yes to be a hero Marla mental absolutely so on a university campus of course here we have we have programs and leadership's in human relations and other areas and we have freshman advisors I think we have some of our students here today and freshmen advisors here yes and so when a freshman comes to this institution they are assigned an advisor a coach who helps them chart their course through the four years of this institution and at some point they then transfer to an a leader who helps them with internships and career services to prepare them for life one of the things that I've struggled with and you wrote about you said the fallacy of leadership and I think lots of leaders struggle with this the fallacy of leadership is thinking that if you can lead in one area you can lead in all areas so how does one recognize and acknowledge that and what does one do about it well I believe that to be very true I think leadership is influence but for example if I have would I have to lead in the area of technology I wouldn't be the leader it's not if it's not an area that I'm any good at I have no skills in that area have very little knowledge and that's why I say great leaders they lead in their strengths but they don't lead in their weaknesses and they follow in their weaknesses and they lead in their strings and what that means is that there are days when I lead and there are days when I follow in fact I'm not sure I would follow that isn't following somebody I'm not sure that I want to follow a leader who believes that he or she has all the answers and always knows the path because I think we could do a tremendous disservice to people when we try to you know fake it till we make it try to somehow act if if as if we have answers and the and the more that I've done leadership and the older I've here's what I've discovered when I was young by was certain about everything I was just good I mean I just knew I just yeah yeah I just I mean I I remember as a pastor before we had children I did some of the most incredible messages on parenting I mean it was it's just I mean I just I just I was good I mean I was really good and then I got humbled it's called kids now I'm a grandparent you know you know grand Paris hello I mean you you know grand children are God's reward for you not killing your children in fact in fact uh you know when you get with you with you I'm going to get off this for my grandparents I can't how many grandparents are here then you understand don't you and and the rest of you don't have a clue but when you have that first grandbaby you know you just that you just know that's the smartest most beautiful baby ever born I'm een you know and nobody has to tell you you just know and then you ask yourself if you hold this grandchild you ask yourself question why did intelligence skip a generation you know just I was at a conference I was at a large convention and and I just was playing with the people and I was and I did that I said that and then all of a sudden I realized my son Joel was to the audience and so when I went back to the green room I mean he was back there he was waiting for me and I said Oh Joel honey I said you know when I was talking about intelligence giving the generation I was kidding I was just having fun hey looked at me said no it's okay dad he said it's okay in fact he said I think you're right and I said you do yeah I said he said I think you're right he said in fact he said just last week grandpa I had that very same discussion but outside of being a grandparent where you have all the answers and all the wisdom for you Rachel I believe that leaders do it I think people people don't want perfect leaders but they do want authentic leaders and I think there is great trust that is engendered when a leader looks at the people and has has honest moments with them and said I haven't been here myself and and I think that I think I should have to give the leadership baton someone else here I would like them to lead me and and and when I wrote the 21 laws of leadership it became very evident I mean I wrote the book that you you can't be good each one of those laws I mean you just can't and yet they are leadership laws and in fact I wrote the book and there are five of them that I'm average or less than average now that's disgusting in fact I kept trying to look at those five and say they can't be laws because I'm not any good at them you know what I mean so what does that mean that means that if I own the law of navigation when you read that one that it'd take a leader that it takes a leader to chart the course I I'm a big picture person I'm not as good as a chart at the horse version but I have people around me that do that and so that I don't lead every day lot of times my team leads and I follow and I gladly follow and I think that when we come to grips with who we are and what we can do but also what we can't do and and and begin to acknowledge that there are people that can compliment us you know I want my team not to compete with me I want them to complete me and I find that that that statement on leaders that once you recognize that you're you can't lead in every area you shouldn't lead every area then you become a follower and some of my best moments really have been have been when I followed somebody I I value those moments I value the following as much as I value the leading and I think that if you don't value both I think you're an incomplete leader series of questions and give me short answers okay can you give me a short answer the only time was just then when I said okay that's it shortness is over you know what I'm saying I've done my best the role of faith in leadership versus the role of courage in leadership well I to me they connect my faith gives me courage my faith allows me to believe further deeper than what I think people that lack faith believe so it's it's not either/or to me my faith gives me the courage to leave so here I say that High Point University transformed itself in the last nine years because we collectively have faithful courage yeah I think we're saying the same thing we are I said it a little better than you say that's the same it in fact hey hey in fact in my next book I'll quote you in fact yeah but but I'll not only quote you the next but I'll give you credit you know I mean I'll put it but now I won't give you royalties but I will give you credit the role of entrepreneurial spirit in leadership is is the entrepreneurial spirit a cornerstone for being an effective and productive leader I let me say this I've known entrepreneurs that I did not think we're great leaders so that's so they're just creative and they are driven and they are good at doing something but that doesn't mean that they are necessarily good at leading something but all leaders that are great have an entrepreneurial spirit so that there's a difference and and what I mean by that is when they have this vision the more they walk toward that vision the more entrepreneurial they become because the the walk is the discovery of the vision when you start you don't see the whole picture and as you move the picture begins to be much more clearly and that's where the creativity of a leader and the Entrepreneurship of a leader comes into that vision so what I always tell is leaders is very simple you start off with a vision but it's not the same as you start walking you become entrepreneurial and you begin to see opportunity and you begin to see open doors and you begin to walk in it that way so here's a statistic that's pretty astonishing recent research suggests that college graduates today's college graduates will change jobs between 40 and 50 times in their lifetime let's take they they don't change jobs because they're lazy and get fired they don't change jobs because they're necessarily just get bored they change jobs because jobs become irrelevant because technology may take over the job because we'll find new innovative ways to do what what the human hand could do faster better and more more efficiently so if that is true then we in higher education ought to be focusing diligently and thoughtfully on instilling this entrepreneurial spirit in every one of our students because how do you change that many jobs if you're not innovative if you don't have an entrepreneurial spirit if you're not flexible and nimble no question and and the in the whole fact is I would look at my life there are probably six times I've reinvented myself and and not change my values but I've reinvented myself to fit the time and and what the needs were and and and have been able to slide right over there and and just continue to build on my life so I I create that completely there are John one thing we do on this campus to create the zone you're talking about mentorship leadership a continuum of learning is if you walk across this campus you see sculptures oh they're not sculptures of you know just whimsical matter there are sculptures of men and women the great thought leaders of all of history if you walk outside this theater you hear classical music at first people thought horizontally and said what's that all about this isn't exactly you know just a concert hall it's a campus and we said no students should graduate from college having not been exposed to the finest arts of all of history dance poetry literature and music because they influence the person in a very meaningful way it's the whole argument today about liberal arts you know as a liberal arts is that really important you know parents are saying it's cost so much to go to college therefore I want my child to graduate with a skill where he or she can immediately get a job we argue that's important of course but of equal importance is developing and evolving the whole personal absolutely and that's what liberal arts do for a person's to hear we create these environments to ensure that the students understand no longer competing on a continental stage they are competing on a global stage it's gonna be tougher and more demanding in fact in in your book that you referred to a moment ago sometimes you win sometimes you lose and over the word loses the word learn you say you say I defined each ability as possessing the intentional attitude and behavior to keep learning and growing throughout life that's what we try to do in this campus that's what you've preached for years we agree with you on that you also say you also say everyone has something to teach me speaking of herself every day I have something to learn every time I learned something I benefit how does one create in the human soul the desire to learn especially in the midst of a cluttered world where the infusion of data comes at us through technology through media through an abundance of informational sources some imprint and some otherwise when I was starting off in my ministry I really had a passion to build a great church but I didn't know how to now I was a theologian EDA gree and I understood ecology but I didn't know how to build a great Church right the good news is I I could explain God to somebody the bad news is I didn't have anybody to explain God to because I I didn't have any leadership courses I didn't have any courses that would help me know how to build a congregation and cyber I remember seeing the list of the ten largest churches in America and I took down those names and of the pastor's in the churches and over a three-month period I would call them on the phone and and I'd say you don't know me I'm just have a little country church but I'd like to build a great Church but I don't know how and I know you're very busy and so I'll give if if you'd give me 30 minutes of your time I'll come to where you are and I'll give you $100 for 30 minutes of your time and $100 was a lot of money to me because I was making forty two hundred dollars a year in my first little country church and eight of those requests were denied but two a.22 said yes so I'll never forget you know going to their places and going into the going into the office and I had a you know that you know back then 1970-71 a big old tape recorder you know and and got it on my briefcase and I pushed it and I had five pages legal pages or questions or yet because I only had 30 minutes and I didn't I really had to get with it and so i mean i sat down immediately and pushed that tape recorder and and i only probably got through my first page halfway down and my time was up and I you know clicked off the recorder stuck everything my briefcase got up reaching them 100 dollar check and hand it to him shook their hand son I want to thank you very much for adding value to me and in both of those situations they smiled and they gave me the hundred dollar check right back so I don't want your money you're you're a young kid full of passion you really want to learn and in both those cases it had been a late morning appointment they both times than either pastor knew I was talking to them they asked me to go to lunch and I'm sitting now for lunch with my hero and I don't know you know when you're with your here I mean I mean I'm really just I'm just enamored that I'm with them and and I so the food you know when you eat with your hero it doesn't go down you know I'm saying it just goes about here so you know so you just I just shuffled food around and when I finished we went back to my to their office and in both cases those men prayed for me and I walked out and I went into I can still remember going back into my car throw my briefcase in the backseat closing the door and lay my head on the steering wheel and bawling like a baby and I said God if you could do that for them you can do that for me and I started my career off by asking questions and it just I everything I know is because of a question i asked and I know I'm known for leadership and leaders are known for answers but I can tell you I don't major in answers I major in questions and to this day I still ask questions I just I just wrote a book that'll come out in October because entitled good leaders ask great questions and in the whole book is about questions and what I learned is a very young leader is that if I ask good questions and if I'm in proximity to great people and and I was very fortunate my father oh my my dad when we got into the seventh grade he set us down and he paid us to read books now we didn't get we didn't get paid to do chores in fact I wanted to because all my friends got paid do chores I went to my dad when I was a kid and said all my friends get paid to do chores dad sounds like a good idea to me what do you think it's a terrible idea I won't pay to do chores he said you do chores because you're part of the family and I don't pay you to be part of the family thank you so let me explain it this way by the time you were born you owed your mother for nine months of room and board so shut up and take out the garbage you already made and why would I why would I pay you why would I pay you to take out the garbage unless I want to be you grow up to be a garbage man I I put my money where my values are so my brother is two years to three months older my sister's seven years younger at all three of us we got the seventh grade he started we were required to read 30 minutes a day and he paid us whatever we paid for the book is what he paid us to read that book and then our dinner conversations was around what we're reading changed my life by the time I graduated from high school I was so far ahead of my peers not because I packed the mini up more smarter than I but I'm so far ahead of because I was reading books on success and and and if I started you know how to win friends influence people the power of positive thinking I mean you know think and grow rich I mean - hello-hello the books that all of you know the books that you know the books that you and I in fact I was going to I was going to Latin America a few years ago on a plane and I got success magazine out and said here are the top 25 books on success to read in your lifetime and so I read the article was a good article and then I went back and counted I had read 19 of those 25 books by the time I graduated from high school in no reason I hadn't read the other six cuz they hadn't been written yet you know yeah I'm when I said when I was in the ninth grade my father talked took me to meet Norman Vincent Peale who was a mentor his and when I was a sophomore he took me to meet East Hanley Jones and here's what I'm saying all this again when I came on your campus and I also saw on the bench these figures of great people and I'm reminded of going when I was in Guatemala and I was we were doing our research before we went into that country and one of the questions I asked these leaders there are these the the top people is who are your heroes in Guatemala and they had met no heroes and I thought no wonder the country's in trouble and then I thought as I by and saw these bronze bi I said look what you're doing you are visually again putting in front of these kids men and women who they can look to and study and and look up to and it changed my life and between the seventh and high school and and and reading the books and then starting off my career and going to those two pastors by the way those two pastors I asked him to do something for me I said would you do you know any of these other eight and and they just would you call them and would you tell me you met me and I'm on fire Minh of the questions I always ask when I do learning luncheon I've done learning lunches since 1972 every month I do a learning lunch I would take a person out i buy the lunch I don't even eat lunch and all I do is ask questions or quicker or smarter faster better than I am in something and so I'm I'm gonna I'm going and one of the questions I always ask him is who do you know that I should know that has led me to more people to meet and to know and and it's opened up some of the most wonderful incredible relationships in my life so when you talk about learning and the appetite to grow and that whole process I understand it and and I know the value of questions it I am today because of the questions I've asked not by the answers I've given and I learned a long time ago that the one I'm talking I'm not learning anything but when I'm asking questions and when I'm listening that's when the learning begins and I just have a huge appetite to keep asking questions and keep learning and that's the value of universities that the university that focuses on the student is the university that establishes your own absolutely environment for asking questions and discovering answers by the way normal Vincent Peale you just said Norman Vincent Peale who passed away some years ago when he was 96 he accepted my invitation to come and speak here in the city of High Point and when I wrote my first book in 1983 he hadn't heard of me you know me from Adam I asked him to write the introduction of my book and he did and he did that's him and I didn't appreciate fully yeah the value of what he was the gift he was giving me sure until later in life I realized what a what a risk he took sure what an investment he made you know and that's what you've done throughout your career and that's why Indiana Wesleyan University has the Maxwell Center for business and leadership and that's why you you have been such a hero model and mentor to so many now dr. John Maxwell I got to say something to you we are better today because we invested this time with you and we are better today because we are reminded of the many writings that you have made what makes you so special is the era down-to-earth humble leader who's grateful to God for all the goodness has come your way and do you have understood thoughtfully and fully that to whom much is given much is required and you've reached beyond yourself and beyond your needs to feed the needs of others and to answer their prayers for good things that would come across their path I'm a better person because I've spent this time with you and this University will proudly put your picture along the hall of some 30 or 40 of some of the world's most famous people have come here United States presidents and others to speak to our students and we will do it with pride and with joy because you are a man of influence thank you very much for being with High Point University presents a conversation with John Maxwell and neato Cobain is a production of unc-tv in association with High Point University

Channel: High Point University

Views: 52,020

Keywords: High Point University (College/University), John Maxwell, Leadership, values, Nido R Qubein, extraordinary education

Id: Pyy8QS8ltVk

Length: 57min 17sec (3437 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 15 2014