John Maxwell - Liberty University Convocation

I want to introduce a wonderful friend John Maxwell he's at number number number one New York Times best seller he sold over 30 million books and 50 languages he ranked the number one leader in business and most influential leadership expert in the world by Business Insider and ink magazine he's founder the John Maxwell company John Maxwell team equipped EQIP and the John Maxwell Leadership Foundation he speaks to Fortune 500 companies into Presidents of nations world's top business leaders every year he's been a donor here to Liberty in recent years he and Elmer towns have been best friends for how long this 1974 and so of course Elmer's our co-founder give him a hand too please if you would [Applause] [Music] Ellmers constantly sending me email messages just to encourage me appreciate that anyway welcome to Liberty John Maxwell thank you very much Jerry good morning let's sit down just get acquainted for a moment and then I'm gonna teach away my name is John on the count of three give me your name one two three nice to meet you I'm very excited to have this opportunity to share with you because you're young people with incredible potential and a future that can be incredibly bright in your life and I would like to just talk to you today about how you can make a difference because I think all of us dream of making a difference in your young and you have your life before you and and you have dreams in your life and I would like to just take one passage of Scripture just for a moment as it's in the passage of Daniel and it's about Daniel who was young and and the difference that he was making it's in Daniel chapter 6 verse 1 through 3 Darius divided his kingdom into a hundred and twenty states and placed a governor in charge of each one in order to make sure that his government was run properly Darius put three other officials in charge of the governors one of these officials was Daniel and he did his work so much better than the other governors and officials that the king decided to let him govern the whole kingdom Daniel set himself apart from all the other young men that were to rule over this country he as Jack Welch in the business world would say he got out of the pile there were a lot of people there and he not only made a difference but he became a difference maker I can still remember in college my freshman year hearing the speakers say to us that there are three questions he said that you need to ask yourself throughout your life and if you didn't answer these three questions I promise you he said your life will be full of passion and full of purpose I want to give you those three questions because for almost 50 years now those questions have stayed with me the three questions are this what do you sing about in other words what makes you happy what do you cry about what is it that saddens you wouldn't you think about it and thirdly what do you dream about as I began to ask myself those questions throughout college and then the following years I discovered that that they began to bring passion out of my life what may be happy what may be sad what did I want to become what did I desire to be what was right dreams in life and then when I was 25 for Christmas I received from my assistant a Christmas gift it was a book and when I opened it the cover of the book said the greatest story ever told I thought my gosh I love to read the greatest story ever told I can hardly wait to read this book and I opened it up and when I opened up the book much to my surprise the pages were blank and I looked at her and I said I don't get this the greatest story ever told you know the pages are blank and she said turn to the first page and I did and she had written this note to me on the first page John your life is before you you fill these pages with your dreams with your hopes with matters of your heart you write on these pages your story and make it the greatest story ever told I took that book home and the next morning I started writing on those blank pages I've written a lot of books in my life but this book is the most important book I ever wrote it was never sold it's just my book because it has my story it has my dream and the first morning as I begin to ask myself what am I going to write on this blank page I put the first words on the top page I want to make a difference now I didn't know what all that meant but I knew how I felt when I wrote those words I want to make a difference and I began to write over the next few weeks on those pages until I filled the entire book out and I began to write my story I began to put down in words my dream a few years ago I wrote a book called put your dream to the test and basically it's a book that helps people ask 10 questions to see if their dream is a valid dream if they have the potential the possibility of reaching that dream and the first question on that in that book the first question that you ask that yourself is a very simple question it's the ownership question is my dream really my dream because you see it's possible for its even probable for for young people to have someone else's dream when I was young I had my parents dream I mean I could still remember when I have a 7 years old they came to me and they thought that I was musically talented and so they said we want to give you piano lessons and for the next step 7 years I took piano lessons and it it was not my dream and it was not my giftedness I still remember going to my first piano recital and I played my piece and I thought it was pretty good and then Elaine Mosley got up behind me and she played the piece and she had been and piano as long as Isis and hearse was like three times better and harder than mine and I could still remember saying to myself this is not my gift and my parents were so thrilled they we're clapping and cheering for me and for seven years I was I was living their dream and one day I you know I had a you know but a kind of a like a come-to-jesus meeting with my mom and dad and Jesus really wasn't there to be honest with you and I just said that you know this isn't this isn't Who I am this isn't my dream and and they were wonderful they said hey okay they'll go find your dream but it's possible it's possible to have you know it's possible but to be David with Saul's armor it's possible to to have someone else's dream but here's what I believe about every one of you here today I believe every one of you regardless of where your dream is going to take you and what your dream is I believe every one of you would truly like to make a positive difference in your life you would like to make your life count and I want you to look at your neighbor the one you're sitting beside right now and say to them even you can make a positive difference go ahead and tell them that would you okay okay it's obvious to me it's it's obvious to me that you not only looks at the birds you're sitting beside and say oh you know even you can make a positive difference it's obvious to me that you are trying to help them to know what they needed to do to make a positive difference and I would like that I would like to share with you how you can become a difference maker in your life three simple thoughts and and these three simple thoughts will get you on the way to get into your dream and make it a positive difference in society and the first one is very simple stay close to people who are making a difference if you really want to make a positive difference you got to hang around other people that are making a positive difference in 1974 Charles trijet tremendous Jones said to me John he said who you are what you're going to become in the next five years ago to depend on the people you spend time with in the books that you read Jim Collins calls this who luck he says we all want luck in our life but the most important luck that you and I can have is food luck who were hanging around with who we meet and he said if you've got good who luck then it's gonna greatly empower and benefit benefit your life mark Cole who's the CEO of my companies he calls this the proximity principle it's a principle that he says basically he kind of takes it from Elijah and Elijah you just got to get around people that are making a difference and let that mantle let that spirit let that environment began to envelop you until you begin to make a difference in your life also when I teach in the business community I teach a networking question which is maybe the most important question I teach and that is who do you know that I should know and I tell them anytime that you're talking to somebody that that has influence or that's done something wonderful ask them who do you know that that I should know and that brings me to today where I am Liberty University it brings me to Elmer towns who has mentored me since 1974 he wrote a book when I was just a young pastor called the 10 largest churches in America I was in a little Church in southern Indiana called Hill ham you've never been to ham you've never heard of Hill ham you don't want to go to hell ham I mean he'll ham is what had like 11 houses a garage in a country store the first Sunday that Margaret and I were there we have only had three people in church and two of them were Margaret and me that's the old lady who lived right beside the church but I had a dream I had a desire to make a difference and so we started building that little church and we were running in about 30 or 40 and I read his book on the largest churches in America now these churches were huge I had a little tiny country Church and I got the names of those 10 pastors and I got the idea that I would call them and I would ask him ask him for an interview that I so I could ask them some questions about how they built their church and so I worked hard got the numbers called these pastors they're all nice to me and I know they did not who I was and so I'm a kid and I'm saying how can I get their attention so in my question of would you would you see me for 30 minutes I offered to give him a hundred dollars now a hundred dollars that was back in that was back in nineteen in 1970-71 and I was making about five thousand dollars a year so a hundred bucks was a lot of money to me and but but I wanted so desperately to have a 30-minute interview would you just see me and two of the ten said they would and so those two that said they would I I went to them on the appointed time and I had not get it I get thirty minutes of time with them and I have five legal pages of questions and and get my tape recorder and I turn it on and and I start asking the questions and I'm only maybe a ten five or six questions thirty minutes are up and I stop and reach in get my check to give them the hundred dollars and and the two that saw me neither one of them would took my money and in fact both of them it happened to be Ronald once they said do you want to go to lunch with me and I said yes and I don't know if you have ever eaten lunch with your hero but if you do when you when you put the food in your mouth it doesn't go down and so I just shipped the food around a little bit more and asked them some more questions and both of those pastors after lunch took me back to their office and they laid hands on me and they prayed over me and I went out to my little Volkswagen car in the parking lot threw my briefcase in the backseat and said in the driver's seat and put my head against the steering wheel and bawled like a baby and I said God if you could do that for them could you do that for me I had just been close to a great man of God I just been close to somebody who was making a difference and I could feel that spirit begin to come over me as it would pray for me one of those two pastors that was willing to see me was your founder here at Liberty Jerry Falwell he was one of the two that said John I would I would be glad to see you he didn't know me he didn't know me from Adam but he gave me that time and he prayed over me and he said something to me that day that changed my life I'm just a kid but I'm around someone who has the spirit of greatness and God on them and he looked at me and he said these words John he said do so something so big with your life that people who know you will say I know John Maxwell he's not that good only God could do that in his life [Applause] [Music] and that day and that day dr. Falwell sowed in me the seed of what I now talk about and teach all over the world the god room seed I'll come back to that in a little bit later in my lesson but he's the one who planted the seed for that being in my life to be sure that I had God room and every time I would get around one of these leaders well any time I get around somebody that was doing something big or special if they were a person of faith I would I would just say would you mind just laying your hands on me and and praying over me because my my father who is still living almost 97 years of age as a very young man he had said son he said make sure that great men lay hands on you and pray over you so that you can get some of their spirits some of that mantle it's the proximity principle I'm talking about and if you really want to make a difference in your life you just got to get around those kind of people and and you can't meet them all I started by reading their books I started by any way that I possibly could to get close enough to them to be able to catch the success principles and and and the spirit of those great people that it could begin to change my life so that's that's number one just just get close to people that are already making a difference and it will help you to make a big difference in your life number two be intentional in making a difference I want to challenge you today to be very intentional in in making a difference and there's a reason for that and I want to just take a moment and I want to give you a visual so that so that we make sure that we have this today in the assembly so just take a moment and look at me because I want you to see something and then I want to just talk about it for just for I just just for a moment everything worthwhile is uphill it's the greatest life lesson I could teach you everything everything that's going to be worthwhile in your life it's all uphill your dreams they're all uphill if you ever have a great relationship it's all uphill getting to Liberty University it's all uphill everything everything worthwhile everything worthwhile is uphill and that's why you and I need to be intentional because you only go uphill if you're intentional you see most people they don't lead their life most people accept their life and everything that you want the dreams the hopes the make a difference part of your life everything it's all a pill that no one has ever spoken no successful person has ever spoken or written a book on accidental accomplishments it's all intentional if you interview a successful person who's on the top of their game and they're on the top of their mountain and they and you ask him how did you get there never has anybody want to ask how did you get on top of your Mountain no one has ever been asked that question and kind of looked kind of quizzically and say I have no idea gosh I just woke up you see the dream is free but the journey isn't it's all uphill and the reason we need to be intentional in making a difference is making a difference is not easy doesn't come quickly you see here's our challenge we have uphill hopes and downhill habits and you can't go uphill with downhill habits and the only way that you and I can ever achieve the potential that we have the god-given potential you see your potential is God's gift to you what you do with that potential is your gift back to God none of us can achieve that unless we're intentional and I want you to be intentional in three areas let me give them to you quickly the three areas that I want you to be intentional in is in your personal development and growth my life was totally changed totally changed in my young 20s when the Kirk camp Meyer was having breakfast with me and he asked me after I graduated from college my foot with my first degree he asked me he said John what is your what what is your personal growth plan well I didn't have one I didn't know I supposed to have one no one ever told me I had a personal growth plan like I graduate from college I was in my first year of ministry and I was just working hard I didn't know I supposed to have a personal growth plan and when I told him I really didn't have one he said these words that just changed my life he said John growth is not an automatic process you don't grow automatically if you grow you've got to grow on purpose I went to my friends I went around oh I bet probably for the next six months I said do you have a growth plan no no no 300 friends no one no one had a personal growth plan and I kept thinking of those words it's not an action you've got to be intentional it's all uphill you've got to have a Brooklyn I developed a growth plan I've developed a growth plan back in my 20s and I have a growth plan that I've used throughout my life I'm at 71 I still have a personal growth plan that that you see the only guarantee that tomorrow is going to get better is that you're growing today it's the only guarantee so when I was young and I got on my growth plan I heard Earl Nightingale say that if you spend one hour a day every day on a certain subject for five years you'll become an expert on the subject and leadership was my love as a very young man I thought I would love to be an expert on leadership and Earl night Gail says if I spend one hour a day every day on the subject of leadership in five years I can become an expert and so I began that that journey that five-year journey and so I talked to leaders I read what I could on leadership I practiced leadership I did every every day leadership leadership leadership and every day I would ask me ask myself this question how long will it take how long will it take how long will it take well Earl Nightingale said five years so when I finished the first year I got four years now and now I've got three years and I'm doing a countdown and I'm thinking I'm Cape Canaveral how long will it take how long will it take at about halfway into my five-year journey one day I stopped asking the question how long will it take because something happened within me I began to internally be transformed and changed from the growth that I was getting in my life and I can still remember the day I quit asking how long will it take and I started asking how far can I go how far can I go the reason I'm so excited about being here in convocation with you today is because I look at you with students and I just look at you and I asked myself how far how far can they go that student is you're sitting beside right now you have no idea that god-given potential with them how far can you go all I'm trying to do today has put some seeds of success within you deposit those in your life so that you can go as far as you possibly can you want to be intentional in your growth you want to be intentional in your giftedness when you find your strengths you want to stay in that zone and work it and cultivate it and you want to be intentional in your significance I wrote a book three years ago called intentional living somebody says John what is the book that I you think can make the most impact on people I think probably that's the one an intentional living is all about how to live a life of significance so let me give you the difference between success and significance success is all you it's about your career what you do taking care of your family your homes what your salary and success is all about stuff that that you can put at you kind of under your name and and success is all about you and significance is all about others significance is all about what you do for others how you make a difference in their life that truly makes a difference and again it's all uphill everything is uphill because I'm talking now about adding value to people and it's not natural for us to add value to people we basically want people to add value to us we want everyday people to make our day and it's all about intentionally adding value to other people and we always have to go uphill because we're all naturally selfish I'm selfish you're selfish we're all selfish if you don't think you really are sometimes will that get with Christians I got to help kind of break the glass for them because they all feel a little bit more spiritual than they really are if you don't think yourself it's just that sound they ask a question when you're in a group picture see let's rain to come in when you're in a group pictured you look at it for the first time just let me ask you a very simple question who is the first person that you look for and if you look good if you look good what do you do you say great picture great picture send it to me and if you're not good come on do it again do it again another picture that'll picture rather the great picture all depends on how you look I would encourage you to be intentional in your growth in your giftedness and then significance and that's how you'll make a difference because it's uphill all the way okay we've done - I got one more get close to people the proximity principle get around people that are making a difference birds of a feather flock together number two without any question you you you you want to be intentional because this is not going to be a quick route a shortcut it's all uphill and the third thing I want to share with you is this have a vision gap I'll explain vision gap in a moment have a vision gap that stretches you to make a difference a vision gap is the space between what you are doing now and what you could be doing a friend Chris Hodges taught me that a vision gap is the space between what I'm doing now and what I could be doing and it's in this vision gap that as you begin to close that gap that you really begin to do significant things that really make a difference in the lives of people and let me just suggest with you two ways to kind of close that vision gap in your life number one ask God to connect you with the right people we've kind of talked about that that's that proximity principle again but ask God to connect you with but the people want to make a difference in 1983 when I began to see that vision gap was pretty big in my life I began to ask God to help me and bring people into my life that would make a difference and he began to bring people into my life that would make it that have helped me and together we've done some pretty amazing things I can still remember when I started equip and I had this dream of training a million leaders worldwide and I sat down with about 500 real great key leaders and I asked him if they would help me and they said yes and over the next 19 years these 500 people took 4,500 trips around the world spent went 36 million miles taught a hundred and eighty million leadership lessons and we didn't train 1 million we trained five million people and it's all because I asked people to help me and I got people that really wanted to make a difference to come on the team the second thing though to close that vision gap is to ask God to do for you what you cannot do for yourself this is back to dr. Falwell planting the seed in my life when I was in my 20s John he said do something so big that when people see it they'll say I know you max well you're not that good only God could do that I want to challenge each one of you to ask God to truly do something for you that you can't do for yourself you see I call that God room God room is the space between what you can do and what only God can do and the fissions chapter 3 verse 20 is the passage God can do anything far more than you can ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams he does it not by pushing us around but by working within us his spirit deeply and gently within us you see God's room like Gus he can do anything it's it's staggering it's unlimited but it's personal so eight years ago after we trained five million leaders in every country of the world I asked God for a bigger thing I said God I would like to see a country transformed in my lifetime and so we began to strategically look around the word old and and asked where we go and we determined we would only go by the invitation of the president of a country and we started with Guatemala we went next to Paraguay we went to Costa Rica where we're working now with those three countries we have 22 presidents of countries now asking us come in and do transformation we teach leadership values and roundtables in Guatemala alone now we have over a half a million people going through roundtables on leadership values and when people learn values and live values they become more valuable everything begins to change on Easter weekend this year I was invited by the keen to go to Saudi Arabia and I spent time with the royal family because they're wanting to do transformation in that country and I was able to spend three days with them I'll go in a few days to Kenya to be with the president of Kenya and and we're finding countries are really wanting to have change they're wanting to have transformation and it's becoming amazing in fact I'll go to Guatemala in about another month and I'll speak it at that time to 36,000 leaders now I live in a secular world you have to understand 90% of where I am it's not in an arena like this 90 percent of the time I'm in in the business community and so we have these facilitators we have a hundred thousand facilitators that facilitate roundtables in Guatemala and so we'll go down and we'll train 36 thousand new ones and we'll spend the time training them how to lead people into expressing and learning these good values and then when I'm done with the training I share with them that that I have one more thing to share but but but it has nothing to do with the program it just has something to do with my personal faith and I tell them I would like to talk to him about my relationship with God but I want it to be voluntary so I I dismiss them and say in 15 minutes if you want to you can come back and I'll teach you the four pictures of God it'd only take me 10 minutes but I'll teach you how to connect with God 90 percent of the people that I dismiss come back to here the four pictures of God so it when we go to when we go to Guatemala and I speak to 36,000 leaders 32,000 of those leaders will come back to hear me talk about the four pictures of God and of the 32,000 that will come back I mean we've now been doing this for years half of those people 16 thousand of those people mace is basically out of the business community very little church affiliation at all half of them 16 thousand people will receive Christ as Savior [Music] it's the most amazing experience to see these people just once they see how they can have a relationship with God so rather they want to have that and I'm going to just just give you a little challenge here for a moment because when I go down we always give a leadership Bible to them because again many of them don't come from a church at all so those would come forward so we'll get about 16,000 leadership Bibles and they're going to put something on the you know they said Liberty we could do this if you can help us out with this vision for five dollars you could buy a Bible that we could give away in Guatemala in about literally in about six weeks and I would when we give them away I would be glad to say you know that the students at Liberty are providing this Bible for you today and I don't know what they're going to put it on the screen for you of how that you can do this but but I want you to be able to to be a part of it what do we do we have it on the screen or what No ease it up Oh it'll be there okay the this this is people space waiting for the it to be there okay that's okay yes this adds to the drama the fact this is amazing because now you're getting your phone's ready because you can five dollars in fact while you're waiting for it to come up there look at your neighbor and say you should give five bucks to somebody that needs Jesus go ahead and tell them that right now you should give five bucks or so okay are you going to do that okay and what you were telling the person they should get five bucks to help somebody that just finds Jesus did you ask them to loan you five so you could do it also okay oh here we go all right Thank You Jerry see thank you if we wouldn't have had this time for it not the number not to get up there I probably wouldn't gotten 20 bucks from him you want him saying take your time maybe I can get a hundred from him go ahead anyway I'm get you're gonna have to talk to me for a moment are they going to get the number okay they were okay yeah okay I would like to do one more thing and then I'm done and this is the most important thing if you would allow me first of all I want to thank you for being so beautifully receptive to the teaching and you're just a an incredible group of people and you're a phenomenal school that I greatly support my son went here my granddaughter Hannah will be coming next year here and Liberty University is is the school I love you I love what Jerry jr. Becky and all of them are doing in leadership and I just I really want you to know that this is such a good place when you go to heaven you're going to want to come home on the weekends some of you here's what I want to do in closing today I'd like to pray over you if you just bow your heads with me for a moment this morning as I was just kind of getting ready to share with you as you were doing that I I sensed that I should pray over you and ask God to give you a spiritual gift of leadership I shared with you that I have had great men laid their hands on me and it's made a significant impact and difference in my life and you are just beautiful kids and you want to make a difference and you got a heart for God if you would like for me to just ask God to give you a spiritual gift of leadership so that you could influence many for the kingdom this isn't Simon Says not everybody has to stand don't feel any no the only people I want to stand are the kids who say I want this leadership gift in my life so that I can make an impact forgot your founder would constantly say at this University he wanted to raise up champions for Christ if you're going to be a champion for Christ that's a leadership thing and I would just love I'd be honored to pray with you so if you would like to receive today beep right over to receive the gift of leadership if you'll just raise your hand just stand up that's right just stand father want to thank you today for the students who are standing right now in your presence it your heart has to be glad because you're always looking for a man or woman to stand in the gap and here there are thousands of kids who are just standing up and saying I would like to receive a spiritual leadership gift from You Father so that I could make a difference and make my life really count for the things that are eternal and Jesus you said that if our earthly father knows how to give good gifts to us how much more well our heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask we ask we come very humbly but we come with anticipation that today in the lives of many of these young students you're going to plant this gift within them and they're going to sense they're not the same as they once were that they're going to have a passion a mission a purpose a commitment to make a difference so I reached my hand out to them I reach my hand out to them in your name father and I asked just now in the quietness at this moment you would visit them and that you would give them a spiritual gift of leadership not for themselves but for thy kingdom your kingdom come your will be done take 30 more seconds would you please and lay hands upon the person right beside you and just pray a blessing over them would you do that just just pray a blessing right over them right now ask God to help them ask God to help them make a difference in their life just pray right over them right now ask God to help them make a difference in their life in Jesus name and everybody said hey I love you

Channel: Liberty University

Views: 18,045

Rating: 4.858521 out of 5

Keywords: Liberty University, LibertyU, Liberty, Jerry Falwell

Id: AERUkUyYtM4

Length: 40min 16sec (2416 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 04 2018