How to Jumpstart Your Personal Growth with High Level Leadership | John Maxwell on Impact Theory

I heard Earl Nightingale say on a tape if you had spent one hour a day every day on one subject for five years you could become an expert on that subject so I said wow I want to become an expert in leadership so for the next five years you know I spent an hour every day reading about leadership talking to leaders asking leaders questions practicing leadership and when I started that process I was thinking five years Earl like else I could become an expert in five years okay Wow axe leaves a Bickford hello but something happened to me about halfway through that five year process instead of keeping it asking myself how long will it take how long will it take how long will it take one day I began to realize hi was growing as a leader and the change that was happening within me and I stopped asking the question how long will it take and I started asking the question how far can I go [Music] [Music] thanks for tuning in to this episode of impact theory sponsored by our friends at Skillshare enjoy the episode hey everybody welcome to impact theory today's guest is a multiple time New York Times bestselling author who has written more than 100 books that have collectively sold more than an astonishing 31 million copies one of the world's most famous and respected speakers and coaches he's worked with more than 6 million leaders from literally every single country on earth his works have been translated into 50 languages and he's coached the presidents of Nations and an untold number of business leaders including many Fortune 500 executives he's a recipient of the Horatio Alger award and the mother Theresa Prize for global peace and leadership from the luminary Leadership Network the American Management Association recognized him as the number one leader in business and both inc magazine and Business Insider named him the most influential leadership expert in the world and he's been voted the top leadership professional six years in a row on leadership gurus net additionally he's founded multiple non profit organizations designed to make positive impact through leadership the world over so please help me in welcoming the man that Toastmasters International awarded with their prestigious golden gavel and who Amazon inducted into their authors Hall of Fame the leadership expert John C Maxwell [Applause] welcome welcomewelcome okay with you dude it is so good to have you the first book of yours that I read was sometimes you win and sometimes you learn and that literally changed the direction of how I thought about failures and mistakes and just opened up a whole new world for me and your new book on leadership is really fantastic about how to get the multiplication effect from creating other leaders and I'd love to start with what exactly is leadership well you know Tom leadership's just influenced in fact I say it's really nothing more or it's nothing less you show me a person that influences others and I'll show you a person that leads them so many people think leadership style or position and you may be a leader that has a title position but many people who have great influence really don't have that but I just learned very early that if I could teach a person how to increase their influence then I would help that person become a better leader so we just kind of deal in the leadership influencer world and it works really well what's interesting is reading your books and hearing you talk about your strategies but then seeing you come in today so you say that you're in the people business you tell a really great story about how one of your leaders had walked by a group of people and not said anything and you taught him you know that that was a real missed opportunity and then when you came in today you literally went to each person and introduced yourself what is that power of connection well I think first of all it's valuing people you know you have a incredible incredible work here and every person here in this studio makes it happen and one is too small of a number to achieve greatness and and the moment that you understand that the people that you have around you they're you know they're either your number one asset or to be honest where they could be your number one liability but the moment that you understand that and begin to value people I think that is what creates the connection because the moment that I think we all know don't you Tom think don't you think you know when a person values you and and when a person doesn't you and and so I think that giving value to people and expressing that to them is the common ground that builds relationships and so yeah when I came in the studio I wanted to meet everybody because you've got an incredible successful program and I want to meet the people who help you be who you are I love that look at you is so obsessed with leadership you've been doing this for a long time traveling all over the world right it's pretty extraordinary and to go from starting in a small town as a pastor to what you've accomplished now what is it that drives you well in 1974 I came to conclusion that everything rises and falls on leadership now the reason I did that is because I started off as a pastor and by the time I was 28 I had the tenth largest church in America Wow and so people would come to me they'd say well how did you do this and I came to conclusion that I'd learned leadership I was a good leader and and the day that I became convinced that everything rises and falls on leadership as the day I said that's what I'm going to give my life to because think about it if that is true that in the in the business world in the in the education world in the in the government world in every world if you could just help people lead better you're going to help them be more successful when I wrote the 21 irrefutable laws of leadership that first of all the law of the lid which basically says how well you lead determines how well you succeed I truly believe that and so what better thing can I do then to help people increase their influence learn how to lead better so that they could be more successful in whatever area of life they really want to be successful in so one thing that I love about you is when people ask you if leaders are born or if they can be made that you make it pretty clear that first of all yes they're born of course but that they can be made did you just take to it naturally did you have mentor like how did you I mean at 28 to have the 10th largest church that's pretty extraordinary well I I think first of all I think there are people who would be born with what I would call leadership leanings they would have a a tendency to lean or be gifted in that area just like somebody's gifted and musical or whatever so I think that that that started and I think I have that but then I grew up in a leaders home in fact my father is 98 still living whoa and in fact until two years ago was still working full-time and and was a terrific leader so I grew up in a culture and environment of leadership and so when I look at myself where I am today so much of it was caught from from not only my father but I've had great mentors throughout my life in fact while we're out here in Los Angeles every time I come out here I think of John Wooden who mentored me for the last probably 11 years of his life and in fact when you when you talked about that sometimes you win sometimes you learn he did the forward on that book and he just loved the idea of how to get back up after after you feel so when you look at my home background the leadership experiences that I had because a person learns to lead by practicing leadership and at a very early age I was practicing leadership and so it all comes together and then when I begin to realize everything rises and falls on leadership I became really intentional Tom of developing my leadership skills so I can remember for example I was probably I don't know maybe 26 I heard Earl Nightingale say on a tape that if you had spent one hour a day every day on one subject for five years you could become an expert on that subject so I said wow I want to become an expert in leadership so for the next five years you know I spent an hour every day reading about leadership talking to leaders asking leaders questions practicing leadership but it really was consistent and when I started that process I was thinking five years old I guess I could become an expert in five years okay Wow axe loser Beckford hello and and so I kept you know I was kind of like doing countdown five years four years three years I think I'm Cape Canaveral okay but something happened to me about halfway through that five year process instead of keeping asking myself how long will it take how long take how long will it take one day I began to realize hi was growing as a leader and the change that was happening within me and I stopped asking the question how long will it take and I started asking the question how far can I go and everything changed that day I realized that you could set goals and have five-year goals whatever but but I changed from a goal mindset to a growth mindset and the fact that if I would be in tencel in the areas of growth that would have the return and and would fit who I was that I could really be successful and help a lot of people and and that was a kind of a shift for me and so when I wrote my first leadership book I thought I would write one leadership but could I be done yeah you know I didn't think a hundred books later I'd I had a lady they said you've written more books than I've ever read in my life you know what I mean but I didn't have any intention to write a lot of books I but but growth allows you to continue to expand yourself and your world until there's just you know so much more that you know and so much more that you want to share so you know my journey has been really one of understanding that that if I everyday intensely grow the question is just to help you know how far can I go and I don't know that answer I'm still I'm still growing I'm still I'm still moving towards that finish line you know of that so you talk a lot about how I think you called it the 70-20-10 principle of how we learn so the vast majority of what we learn we learn by actually doing and and I love the way that you detail that in the book so for somebody who wants to become a better leader especially if they're in a company that doesn't necessarily foster that how do they get that practice how do they do those reps well first of all a lot of companies don't foster leadership it they don't have a leadership environment they'll come and say I love your leadership principles but but you know I'm not a leader because I don't have a position in fact I wrote a book several years ago called the 360 degree leader and I wrote it for that person that you know kinda is in the middle how to influence or lead people above you you know beside you in a you know kind of round yet 360 idea helping them understand that that the key to leading people even if you're not on leadership environment is again influence so the question now comes down then how do i influence people and if I do influence people how do I increase that influence and my answer is very simple we increase the influence with people when we intentionally add value to them on a consistent basis because if you think about time think about people in your life that have a high influence on your life they've really added a lot of value to you and so what I share I do a little simple for me that kind of works and that is every day again I'm the you know consistency compound so you put consistency with intentionality and you've got a powerful combination so every day every day I basically do five things every day first of all I value people it begins there because if I don't truly value people I won't add back to them you don't add value to people that you don't value you don't add value to anything you don't value so every day I've valued people that's where it starts but then every day I think of ways that value to people so I mean I'll look at my calendar and I look at my Jeddah today I don't realize I was going to be with you and I think well okay how can I add value to you what can I do for impact theory that'll you know just help because again if you're constantly adding value to people you're going to be of great value to people so okay I value people think of ways that value people then I look for ways to add value people when I'm in the setting I'm looking for okay what can I do what can I say and but we what we what we see is what we look for and so if I'm looking at value guess what I'll see ways to add value to it somebody else might be besides you not add value at all to you but but but I look for ways and then number four I I do things that add value to people and then number five I encourage others add value to people and I've just lived that simple formula I do that every day of my life it's very simple and I try to help other people do that understanding that if they do that wherever they are leadership culture not a leadership culture doesn't really matter they'll begin to influence and began to lead people to begin to make a difference in people's lives and I think that's essential but I think you have to be intentional and I think you had to be consistent consistency compounds I'm 72 and I've been doing leadership for 50 years and so when people say well how'd you become a leadership guru and all these things that you got I tell them it's just consistency so for those people that are learning the 360 degree leadership they're not necessarily somewhere that's making these opportunities readily available for them other than just adding value where can they go to learn what our principles of leadership that they should be taking in in this sort of abstract learning that they can then apply well I think that there are several things first of all for in the beginning I couldn't find anybody to mentor me and leadership I mean they didn't know who I was and so books became my mentors and then I did something that I just encourage everybody to do but I've done this for 40 years is is I began to have what I call learning lunches and I loved in your green room your statement on on on learning I just loved it but but I would go out I would take somebody like you Tom out and and you know I by the lunch I didn't even eat I just had questions and and I would ask you leadership questions and and I would what are some of your go-to leadership questions well the the first question is I always look at somebody and I ask them you know tell me about your greatest failure and the reason I ask that is because I think that the character of a person comes out of their failures not out of their success and I think that the bedrock part of a foundation of leadership is character and you build on it and so I want to know about you know what tell me about a mess up in your life and I've had some a oh I mean when people ask me that question it's kind of like you know which one do I pull out but I really like to talk to people about their losses because it just really tells me a lot about who the person really is I I'm not sure sick I'm not sure success does but I know failure so I asked that I asked I asked one of the questions I asked them is um who do you know that I should know and that's led me to meet some incredible people in my life that somebody else opened the door that I wouldn't had so I just find that in asking questions in fact I wrote a book one time good leaders ask great questions I just find in asking questions that's the way that I can grow and develop myself the best and I tell leaders all the time that before you lead people you got to find them and I think this is a big miss in leadership we just assume people already on our page and so we just start leading and we've never found them and I so I think there's a finding and then these give me a little more detail on that so you're talking about finding what they want what they like finally find out who they are it you know the expression Tom it's lonely at the top that's not a leadership expression although people say it all the time in the context of leadership I in fact I tell people all the time if you're lonely at the top solid leadership issues just the fact you're dysfunctional but if you think about it if you're lonely at the top no one's with you no one's following you I mean that's a hiker not a leader and and I think one of the things that leaders need to do is one of the first things is they need to get off the top yeah that's interesting what do you mean by that well I I think that it's if I'm the leader I don't ask you to come to where I am I go to where you are I get on your ground because people are more secure in the areas that they're comfortable and so I always go to where they live and who they are and and begin a relationship with them and ask questions and and and get to know them just get to know them because you know managers try to lead everybody the same whereas leaders understand that you lead everyone differently you and you lead them according to their temperament you Corder to their passion according to their giftedness I mean they're about a dozen things that you lead them according to that is unique to every individual and so the only way I can lead you correctly tom is to know you so I know what you care about and I know what you value and the moment I do that then I put all my leadership with you in context of who you are not who I am so finding people really means to intentionally value them and show that you value them by learning about them and and and getting to know them and doing then you lead them with their best interest in mind which is a beautiful way to lead people I want to go back to what you're talking about with character are there particular things that you believe every person should have to build a strong or nice from what the right word would be meaningful character I think character mainly is developed out of adversity I know in my life it's been in my failures that that I've discovered myself and it's been in my failures I've discovered things that I really probably do well it's also been in my failure those things that I've discovered about myself that I said just discovery though or is it like can you build your character oh I think you build it off of it but I think you have to discover first I think awareness is always on the front end you can't grow yourself if you don't know yourself so I think awareness is huge you have to be aware of of yourself strengths weaknesses you know the whole deal and once you're aware of yourself then you have to take your giftedness and and and and and maximize your strengths and then you have to make the right choices and but awareness is on the front end and we don't hear a lot about awareness how can you develop awareness well first of all I think you need other people's help III hear people all the time say well I think I'm very self-aware and I always get amused for that because we're not you know we all have blind spots I have blind spots so if there's any self awareness from me it's because I've had somebody speak into my life and one more thing on character okay I was I was having an interview with a major CEO of a large large software company and so I asked him I said talk to about your feathers like I do in my learning lunches this was not an executive circle called where I was on the phone and and other executives were listening so I said talk to me about your failures I said what would you like to go in your life and do over you know get to do over so what's your top do over he said something very interesting to him he said well he said I've made I've had failures and I've had a lot of mistakes made some wrong decisions but I don't think I want to do any of them over I said you're kidding me you mean if you could go back and corrective failure a mistake you wouldn't want to go back correct he said no he said the lessons I learned out of my failures probably are a lot more valuable than I've had had just made a successful decision and moved on he said Who I am today is based upon not having do-overs and learning out of my adversity and difficulty and struggles and darkness and I thought it was a fantastic answer really talked to me a lot and and I thought to myself I think that's a perfect example of leaders building character out of their failure and out of their adversity going back to what you were saying about asking the right questions as part of just being a good leader is the questions that you ask talk to me about a u-turn leader oh yeah I love what you say about how to really get something going in a new direction well I think that the if somebody said John what is that what is the acid test of a great leader I think it's it's a you turn leader and I just use the word you turn Tom and the fact that you take something that's going down in other words the ship sinking and so you you grab a hold of it and you slow that going South down and and finally you kind of bottom it out and so it's no longer losing it's probably not gained it's just trying to hang on and then as a leader you begun to turn it and begin to bring it back up I think that's the greatest indication that you know how to lead in fact I'm not sure anybody proves their leadership until they until they get something that's not doing well and they turn around what role this competency have in leadership like at some point surely you actually have to be good as well you can't just be sort of this facilitator yeah it's kind of like a a surgeon who's just has great relationship skills but hey but they're not competent as a surgery you know I I want I want to get the very best I think's competence and skill set is is what's developed over years of practice and and implementing and applying to your life and and again I think that's those are things that you learn through experience I think those are things that you learn through mentoring and so when I look at my skillset as a leader today compared to when it started it's been incredibly improved but it would not have been been improved if I wouldn't a practice leadership it would not have been improved if I wouldn't have learned from my leadership experiences because I think this is another miss I think you know experience is not the best teacher go on yeah it's not yeah but we heroes i fact I used to say experience the best teacher and then one day I woke up and said that's a stupid statement John if experience was the best teacher Dennis everybody got older everybody get better and yet I know a lot of people they're getting older and they're not getting better yeah and so I stopped us okay it's not the experience that's the best teacher it's evaluating that experience that's interesting it's you know reflection turns experience into insight so how we get good at that well we get good at that by understanding that experience isn't enough the point being is is is is that after ever experience I have to pull away and I have to ask myself okay what did I learn from that because there's something teach you in fact at when my children when we have experiences with our children how it always has come to questions after every experience what did you learn and what did you love and and in for a kid in fact I'd really ask him what did you love what did you learn because kids kind of know me oh I love that daddy this was a lot of fun so that was kind of an easy one but I always didn't wanted to I would say no what did you learn from that - told probably by the time they were 10 after ever experience they just say okay here's what I loved and here's mother well what I taught my children do is evaluate ever experience because if I don't stop and reflect and evaluate out of that experience I will do the same thing next time and and that's not what is where the growth is the growth is always in learning and evaluating and not only evaluating but in you know learning is overrated unless you improve so I mean I you know every is it's more than what did I just learn out of that what what do I do out of that that I improved my life with and I think that that's a I think that's a big miss also mm-hmm that's so interesting so in the book you really go into detail and I'd actually like to dive into this part of it now about how to cultivate other leaders and as I was reading it I was like man there's there's an element of this where it's like you you even say it in the book I was literally like oh please tell me he addresses this where yeah you have the leadership table you're giving people the chance to be a leader but some people don't get invited to the leadership table yeah and so how do you deal with that like how do you keep the organization functional how do you say the hard things you know if somebody has a blind spot at a minimum if they're not effective you can't have them at the leadership saying yeah so like how do you manage that well first of all I think it's fair to say that everybody should have an invitation to the leadership table because it's at the table it's at the table we learn about each other so tell everybody what the leadership table is well the leadership table it's a phrase I use to let everybody sit down and just like you'd come to a table to have a meal or you go to a table to play a game here you come to the table to sit with other leaders and at that table you're going to the discussion is going to be leadership and they're going to be talking about decisions they're having to make they're going to be asking questions about things that they need to do as a leader and so you're in this leadership environment where and and you're gonna participate and you're gonna be able to ask questions and and you're probably going to be given a project you know that's okay now that the tables done today let's go out and do this but what happens is at that leadership table everybody ought to be able to come there but that doesn't mean everybody's going to stay there because there are some people who come to the table and and they just aren't to the capacity yet where they need to be and so that's where you get into what I call the you know the tough conversations and and what I say to people all the time is that is that I care enough for you to be honest with you in our John Maxwell company we do a lot of corporate training with the five levels of leadership and in the five levels of leadership level number two is relationships the connecting factor but level number three is production and anybody that's got to know that it's one thing to be a friend and and it's good to be together it's even good to work together but you know but you do have to produce that we've got to have some results down the road and so that's a big gap for many people to go from a relationship level to a leadership level where now we've got to get you to become effective and fruitful and I think that if I truly value you as a person I'm going to share with you how you can improve and and and and it's one thing to say I don't like what you're doing but it's more important say there's some things you're gonna have to do improve there and I think you ought to always give people a path to improvement and then it's their decision you know the two questions you ask all the time can he or can she or and will he or we will show you know you know can the person is all about confidence and ability will is probably more about about attitude but what we've discovered is that is that it's very important to keep an authenticity and an honesty and I think it's also very important for the leader to share they're difficult he said I was I was with Johnson Johnson one time speaking about a hundred presence of companies it was kind of like an appreciation day by Johnson Johnson so they brought in all the companies they work with and so was it what they call Presidents Day and I was telling the presidents I said now you need to go home or go back to your offices and share with the people your weaknesses and all that room just bowed right up I it was so much fun I mean I mean they were just resist us like me they were a stiff arming me big time so I called a little break and said I'll sign some books and so I had a CEO standing beside me while I'm signing books and he's not happy you know it's it's a raincloud for sure and so finally they all left he said that you know I really disagree with you about telling people about your weaknesses he said that he said you you yeah and then he gave me this kind of old-time leadership talk about you never let him see you flinch you know I mean so he saw I'm gonna let let him kind of go through his processes you know I could be a therapist for a day so when he finished I said I think you're operating your leadership under a misunderstanding what would misunderstand that be I said you think your people don't know your weaknesses word they already know about in fact they're talking about it but I said the reason I want you to go back and share your weaknesses with your people is so that you they know that you know it'll make him just feel a lot but oh thank God he knows you know he knows but I think that there I think that even in being having the difficult conversations with people I think that when you're open with your own areas of that you're working on I think that's really I think that's very I think that's very important and in fact we one of the things that we teach in our companies is have upfront expectations and I learned a long time ago again as all the things I'm teaching now it's because I did them wrong and we get asked it's not like I have this wisdom it's like if you do it wrong you either keep doing it wrong and never build anything or else you change and and when I started off I was very relational so I wouldn't have to have conversation with people I thought how a friendship them through the process and and then I realized that and and and so we just teach our people have upfront expectations and basically we just sit down and say Tom I'm glad you're gonna join the team now we're gonna have some tough conversations down the road that's going to happen don't today it's so kind of like a high-five day but but we'll have days when we just have to sit down look each other and and deal with some issues and I just think that if you tell people up on the front end then when you have them it's not so personal I mean it's personal but at least they knew that it was coming I think leaders leaders prepare their people for not only the good days and and the touchdowns but for the adversity also no doubt about it all right let's get really specific what are some of the keys to fostering the growth of leaders within your organization first of all I think that Tom I think 90% of leaders never develop leaders I think they just have followers and one of the reasons is a lot of leaders don't really want other leaders leaders are hard to lead I mean it's like herding cats you know I mean they just don't they just don't naturally fall in line so so I think that first of all most people don't really develop leaders but but in developing leaders you know there are three things that are just absolutely essential you know in the book the leaders leaders greatest return I wrote the leaders greatest return because I truly believe that the greatest return ever a leader ever gets is developing other leaders because that's when you really begin to compound and I think there are three three essentials always in developing leaders first of all is is your own example people do what people see so if I'm going to develop leaders I have to be a good leader maybe the greatest leadership words ever said was follow me just just follow me watch me because people in what it was time to research says that 89% of what we know we know visually and so I think first of all developing leaders you have to model it the second thing I think in developing leaders is you have to be intentional I think that you have to commit yourself to finding them which I talk about in the book letting them come to the leadership table discerning what kind of capacity they have and then I think you have to intentionally have a program of development for them I think you have to have a process I think of all the money we spend in companies in in marketing and advertising and and you know I was I'm speaking one time this is several years ago for AT&T and what I got was introduced to their maybe top 300 leaders I was gonna spend an afternoon with them the CAC said something very interesting he said to them he said you're our most appreciable asset and of course that's a wonderful statement there there everybody loves that and and I came up behind him and I said it's true it's not true I said you're really only an appreciable asset if somebody intentionally develops you and you intentionally develop yourself we we don't automatically get better and this is a big mess I think that we think well if I just automatically go to work or if I automatic and do my job then I'll just grow and and you know I had a mentor when I was in my 20s just say you know John growth is not automatic you know getting older is automatic but but getting better isn't and and there's a world of difference so I think that you have to be an example and I think you have to be incredibly intentional in saying okay I'm gonna have a leadership culture and what I'm gonna I'm going to develop leaders and the third thing I think that is just overlooked consistently in development is that you you you've got to empower them you you have got to let them run ball because the only way you learn leadership is by practicing leadership so I think what a good leader does is he sets the or she sets the stage for a successful run you want to get some wins under their belts for them and I just think that it's an empowering environment where you release people and and the problem is leaders will stop say well but they don't do it as well as I do it and said that's not the point the only way they can ever do it as well as that you you do it is for them to do it and then for you to coach them and come alongside of it and and and say okay here's how you can do that better and you know we have a kind of like a five-step equipping process I do it I do it you're with me you do it I'm with you you do it and then you're doing someone else's with you and it's a multiplication process there so I think those three things of the example the intentionality and the empowerment that's I think what develops a leadership culture that really establishes the fact that if you want to learn how to lead this is a place where you know where you way can do that I say this in the book by the way that when I would bring people on the team I would share with him that I wanted them to work themselves out of a job yeah and and and and pretty much I would just say okay you've got the job I want you to do it well let me see you do it well but while you're doing it well you find somebody to replace you replace you and and and that's how you boy that's really how you develop are you talking about a farm team of leaders and and if if you can work yourself out of your job I'll give you another job you know mark Cole who he and I are owners at the company now and he's the CEO and president but he started off in in the stockroom 20 years ago well 20 years ago and I was just asking him recently in the conversations how many jobs did you work your way out of to get where you are he said 999 times and I tell people first of all I can't promote you unless you've got somebody replace you so the first part of promotion isn't just getting better till I want to bring you up first promotion is to show me some person that we're not gonna have a big loss if I do bring you up and you know nine times he worked himself out of a job found somebody else it's okay come on up come on up come on up until one day he's where he is not bad that's very impressive all right there's two people I would be remiss if we don't get to before then in this interview one is Claude let me start there to tell me about Claude that was such a great insight in terms of how many different flavors leadership can take and it's ultimately just about being effective and and then of course the person that took over that church after you and how it went south Wow you read the book you read the book lay top you read the book well this is in my first church okay so I have very little leadership experience and my the bylaws be being the pastor the church the bylaws Tom said that I was the chairman the board which I thought meant that I was the leader so I went to my first a little this was a little country church in a place called Hill ham okay nobody's ever heard of Hill have so I'm way out in the country way out just farmers so we have about five people in our little board meeting and I go in to be the chairman of the port you know and and these farmers don't have a clue what the Chairman the board is that which means basically I open the meeting and and so I course I never was instructed on how to have aboard me I mean I just graduated with a degree and they never taught me anything that would be practical and helpful so I thought well why don't you know what do I do so I looked and I said well does anybody have anything they'd like to share well there was one farmer his name was Claude and he say well yeah John he said I I think that we need to paint the front door he said they you have cracks peeling and she said people come up and they see that door I think we need to you know we need to take off the old paint and paint the door and there was a kind of scent right beside named Benny and Benny would second everything that Claude would suggest so bad so Benny would say it Betty her Claude was that Betty would suggest it and everybody said I and I'm just kind of watching him and and then Claude says well there's a second thing we need to be doing and he talked about the two rooms behind the the the platform area and and that we needed some more sunday-school space and we needed to clean him out cos had Junkin so he's and you know Benny seconds and everybody and so anyway I'm I'm watching all this I'm just 20 years old I'm just a kid I'm watching all this finally Ben he looks at me said well he said pastor he said I think we're done tonight it's June close in prayer so you know thank you God and I walked out of that meeting him so you know when I got home Ari I said well how'd it go and I said wow I learned a lot tonight and so what did you learn I said why only need two people she said I need God and Claude you know had just seems like that's the way it works there and saccade was a farmer and so the about a week before the next board meeting I called him I said can I come down and just hang with you I'd do some chores today oh he said I'd love that so I did and I went down to Claude and I'd said you know III would I would make a suggestion of something that would need to be done and cloud would say I like that he said it's a good idea I said would you bring that up to the the board next Tuesday night so I think I'll take care of that take care of that and literally I was there for three years in the Tremont so we went just from a handful of people to over 300 which is big in that community and I never brought a in three years and three months I never brought an item to the to the board I just would open up the me didn't ask if anybody had anything on their heart Claude would say it and Benny would second good board meeting good morning me so was so late yes I did that for three years in three months and it was there by the way that I learned that leadership was influenced not title or musician because I had the title I had the position I just didn't have any influence I'm just a kid those farmers aren't gonna listen to me so I'm gonna go to my second church and and so a guy named Danny that I went to college with me was going to be the pastor so I took him to the villager in restaurant and I said I said look I said this has been a great place to start I mean these people these are farmers they're just simple people if they were good to me and we've grown from three to three hundred it's it's been great I said all right you know it's not you know you're going to have the church not mine but I said oh I just want to give you one just one leadership thought so taught him about Kline and how I worked with God and the more I was talking to him I'll never forget I mean Denny he's sitting up there and I mean he's getting ready he's not very happy boy and and sana-i finally I closed it kind of that too conversation and he looked at me said look he said I'm not gonna do it that way he's I'm the leader of the church not Claude and Claude needs to know his place and I just want you there right that I'm not going down to farming and any sir stone and I remember sitting back in that booth at the villager in and just sila I didn't say to him I'm just looking him and I'm saying to myself you're looking at a stupid man and sure enough he did it his way and he lasted eight months lasted eight months and sadly the church went down some but but but it was a it's a it's a classic leadership story of of again understanding who has the influence and influence the influence area does you know you don't have to you don't have to get all the credit just yet but he never learned he never learned that he went from that tree he I think he went to three within two or three years and burned out he was done he was done but but he just never really learned a very important leadership principle yeah you don't need to get the credit I think that is soon powerful just the result all right where's the best place for them to get more of you and your teaching good at John Maxwell calm they'll find everything I think and then your books are certainly easy to find one last question what's the impact that you want to have on the world first of all I wanna this has kind of been my North Star I I want to add value to leaders who multiply value to others so I have consciously focused on leaders because if every time you impact a leader influence leader it multiplies it compounds but my passion is to help communities and help people be transformed by living and learning great values and so this is a whole different story but I we have you know we we train through our one of our nonprofit organization in nineteen years we trained five million leaders in every country in the world and now we're doing transformation in countries where we have values transformational tables what we called registration table transformation happens one table at a time where we view people six to eight to sit around and and talk about values and learn good values and start to live out those values and we're invited by leaders of the country presence to the country we were in Guatemala Puerto Rico Costa Rica and Paraguay getting ready to go to our fourth country and we have you know we have like 1.3 million people now in roundtables well and and and 135,000 facilitators of these roundtables and we're just really seen communities changed and and when and we have it for we have it we have curriculum for kids but it's all based on just good values learning it here's what we know if you learn good values and you live them out you just become more valuable to yourself and other people it's just that simple so you know my passion is that is to how people experience a transformational life by embracing good values and practice to them where everybody wins and and that's the world I hope for that's the world I give my life for it's amazing guys a hundred books a hundred books this guy really is the expert on leadership you cannot go wrong I read so many of his books every one of them has been incredibly valuable few people have shaped my thinking on leadership more than he has I cannot recommend enough getting involved in all of the stuff that he's doing and speaking of getting involved if you haven't already be sure to subscribe and until next time my friends be legendary take care John thank you so much gotta go thank you Tom everybody I am incredibly excited to tell you about our sponsor Skillshare because as you guys know I am all about constant self-improvement a growth mindset and relentless focus on progress and skill acquisition and no matter what I accomplish I always know that my future must be bigger than my past and the way that I guaranteed that that will always be true is by constantly acquiring new skills I always tell people however far you've gotten that's tapped out your skill set if you want to 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Channel: Tom Bilyeu

Views: 418,430

Rating: 4.9015436 out of 5

Keywords: Tom Bilyeu, Impact Theory, ImpactTheory, TomBilyeu, Inside Quest, InsideQuest, Tom Bilyou, Theory Impact, motivation, inspiration, talk show, interview, motivational speech, John Maxwell, Leadership, Level Up, influence, add value, growth mindset, biblical leadership, Leadershift, Leadership Bible, character, U-turn leader, great questions, good leaders, hard conversations, greatness, failure, success, IT

Id: T9WIWz5PEQk

Length: 48min 12sec (2892 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 04 2020