John Maxwell teaches three factors that determine if you are living life usefully. After John’s lesson, Chris Goede joins Mark Cole to talk about helpful ways you can apply this lesson to your life and leadership.
Our BONUS resource for this episode is the “Living Life Usefully Worksheet,” which includes fill-in-the-blank notes from John’s teaching. You can download the worksheet by clicking “Download the Bonus Resource” below.
Mark Cole:
Hey. Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Podcast. This is the podcast that is committed to adding value to you, a leader who will multiply value to others. My name is Mark Cole, and today John Maxwell is going to teach you three factors that determine if you’re living life usefully. We know you’re living life, but we want that usefully to be there. After John’s lesson, Chris Goede is going to join me in studio and we’re going to talk about helpful ways that we can apply this lesson to life and leadership. If you’d like to watch this episode on YouTube, please go to maxwellpodcast.com/YouTube. If you’d like to download the free worksheet that accompanies John’s lesson, visit maxwellpodcast.com/living and click the bonus resource button. Now that’s it. Get ready to put more purpose into your life. Here is John Maxwell.
John Maxwell:
Ben Franklin once wrote, I would rather have it said he lived usefully than he died rich. Instead of seeing the world in terms of how much money he could make, franklin saw the world in terms of how many people he could help. To Benjamin Franklin, being useful was its own reward. Isn’t that a great statement to be said about a man? And that’s why I’m titling this lesson, living life usefully. You see, I find a lot of people, when I talk about living life usefully, that they just keep postponing life and they just think that somehow, some way, somewhere, at some time, life will get better for them. I read this the other day. It’s not in your notes. First I was dying to finish high school and start college, and then I was dying to finish college and start working. And then I was dying to marry and have children. And then I was dying for my children to grow old enough so I could return to work. Then I was dying to retire, and now I’m dying and suddenly I forgot how to live. Dwight Thompson, in your note, said that you can spend your life any way you want to, but you can only spend it once. Isabelle Moore said, life is a one way street. No matter how many detours you take, none of them leads back. And once you know and accept that, life becomes much simpler. And it is true. Life is a one way street. For when I had a heart attack, all of a sudden I understood that the only day you have is today. And I can still remember in my very young 50s thinking that perhaps I was dying, understanding all of a sudden that the door could be closed before the day was over. Now, what I’m saying is not in a morbid way. I’m just wanting to say that we have to have an understanding that it is a one way street. We don’t get to go back. It’s not a dress rehearsal. So we need to give a lot of thought into living life usefully. So I’ve been asking myself this question in preparation for this lesson what does it mean to live a useful life? I think it means three things. Number one a useful life is determined, number one, by the relationships that I form. I think that if you’re going to really have a useful life you have to look at the relationships that you are forming in your notes. Relationships help us to define who we are and what we can become. This is an incredible statement. You need to underline this statement in your notes. Most people can trace their failures or successes to pivotal relationships. If somebody would come to me and say to me my life has either been good or my life has been bad it’s been up or it’s been down it’s been successful or it’s been a failure what do you think was the catalyst for my life being what it should be? I would tell that person the pivotal relationships that you’ve had in your life have done more to determine what kind of a life that you’re going to lead than anything else. Our relationship with others fall into four categories. Number one, addition. We have some relationships that add to us. Is that not true? Number two is subtraction. Are there not some relationships that take a little bit out of you? Number three is multiplication. Now, there’s an ideal relationship. We begin to multiply because we’re around them. And the fourth is division. All relationships are doing one of those four things. They’re either adding, subtracting, multiplying or dividing. In fact, just for a moment in this room and for our again, subscribers just for a moment think about people who fall into those four categories within your life. It wouldn’t take you long at all to put names beside each one of those four. Some that add, some that subtract, some that multiply, some that divide. Now, let me give you some relationship rules. Just some simple ones. Number one get along with yourself. You say, john, what do you mean by that? What I mean by that is get along with yourself. Now, do I need to explain anymore? Listen to me. Friends hurting people hurt people. And let me tell you something else. Hurting people are hurt by people. So get along with yourself. Get your act together. Because can I tell you something? If your act’s not together, you’re going to have relationship problems all your life. I have watched this and I have observed this. People who can’t get along with themselves can’t get along with anyone else either. So learn to get along with yourself. Learn to like yourself. Think about it this way. You spend more time with yourself than with anyone else. There’s a deep thought. So don’t you think the number one relationship you ought to work on is you? I’ve often said people who don’t have their own act together they’ll change jobs, they’ll move to different places, they’ll do everything they possibly can and they’re never going to solve the problem. The only way they could ever solve their problems if they could get away from themselves. So learn to get along with yourself. That’s relationship rule number one. Number two value people. The second Relationship Rule is just very simple. Value people. Valuing people will keep you from manipulating them. In fact, look at your notes. You could not make another person feel important if you secretly feel that he is a nobody. Just have to value people. Number three make the effort to form relationships. Again, we’re talking about energy. And relationships take a lot of energy. And a lot of times people don’t have any relationships because they don’t initiate energy. In your notes, the result of a person who has never served others, I can give it to you in one word loneliness. You show me a person who has never learned to serve others and I will show you a walking lonely person. Number four understand the reciprocity rule. And I wrote that in for you because I thought that was just do a real favor for everybody. So they’d have to spell Reciprocity. Let me give you what the Reciprocity Rule is. Over time, people come to share reciprocally similar attitudes toward each other. In other words, what I’m saying to you is very simple. If you have a good attitude toward people and you can maintain that good attitude toward people, eventually they’ll have a good attitude towards you. If you have a bad attitude toward people and you continue to maintain that bad and there is reciprocally, it’ll come back to you just in the form that you put it out. And number five follow the golden rule. Isn’t that simple. Just do unto others as you’d have them to do unto you. Okay? My fulfillment in life is determined, number one, by the relationships that I form. We talked about that. Number two my fulfillment in life is determined, number two, by the decisions that I make. The decisions that I make are going to be a great determinant of how useful my life is. So I put a couple of my favorite quotes on no decisions, such as yogi bearers. You’ve heard this one when you come to a fork in the road, take it or I love this one. Give me ambiguity or give me something else. The other day I read one I didn’t put in your notes. It says, the highway of life is full of flat squirrels that simply couldn’t make a decision. So every time you see a flat squirrel on the road, think of this lesson. The great coach of UCLA, when it talks about decision making, said, make every day your masterpiece. There are two ingredients necessary to accomplish this. One is decisions and two is discipline. So let’s talk about them for a moment. Decisions is goal setting. Discipline is goal getting. And never confuse the two. There are a lot of people that set goals but can’t get goals. See, decision making will take care of goal setting, but only discipline will take care of goal getting. And they can’t be separated because one is worthless without the other. I say that because good decisions minus daily discipline equals a plan without a payoff. And daily discipline minus good decisions equals regimentation without reward. Only when we have good decisions plus daily discipline do we have a masterpiece of potential. So review quickly. My fulfillment in life is determined, number one, by my relationships that I form, number two, by the decisions that I make, and number three, to live a useful life. I think it’s determined by the experiences that I encounter. Joseph Campbell said, people say that we are seeking the meaning of life. I think that what we are really seeking is an experience of being alive. An experience has four realms. Since the experiences that we encounter determine a lot about our fulfillment of life, let’s break it down. An experience has four realms. Number one is entertainment. People absorb their experience through the senses. Number two is educational. This is where we have the participation of a person’s mind or body, sometimes both. The third kind of experience is what I call the escapist. This completely involves the person. It’s like going to a theme park all day and just completely involved in it. And number four is the aesthetic. It’s where you’re immersed in an environment, but you have no effect on it, such as going to an art gallery or seeing the Grand Canyon. You’re immersed and affected by it, but you do nothing to absolutely contribute to it. Now, people who participate in an entertainment experience want to sense. People who participate in an educational experience want to learn. People who participate in an escapist experience want to do. People who participate in an aesthetic experience want to be there. And Jim Gilmore is right when he said the richest and most compelling human experiences draw from all four realms. I’m here to tell you, if you’re a leader and you’re a communicator, spend a lot of time on this. This should be a lesson in itself. Just trying to help leaders understand how those four experiences work in the lives of people. Because if we are influenced, which we truly are, by our experiences, then to be able to provide those four kind of experiences to people in a setting has huge potential. Okay, let’s review the lesson. My fulfillment in life is determined by three things the relationships that I form, the decisions that I make, and the experiences that I encounter. Final thoughts. If you’re not doing something with your life, it doesn’t matter how long it is. If you’re doing something with your life, it doesn’t matter how long it is, because life does not consist of years lived, but of its usefulness. If you are giving, loving, serving, helping, encouraging, and adding value to others, you have a useful life. So let’s go about living a life of usefulness to others.
Maxwell Leadership Growth Plan:
Leaders, you know better than anyone that growth is essential if you want to make tomorrow better than today. But fitting growth into your calendar takes intentionality and self discipline. So let Maxwell Leadership help make your growth achievable. You’re invited to join thousands of worldwide leaders in using the Maxwell Leadership Growth Plan. The Maxwell Leadership Growth Plan provides you with convenient and easy to implement leadership resources, including video lessons from John Maxwell, all at your fingertips. Available in our Maxwell Leadership app or online, you’ll be coached by many well-known leadership experts that will help you achieve your growth goals. You can even listen to this podcast right there in the app. Check it out for free today at growth.maxwellleadership.com. That’s growth.maxwellleadership.com.
Mark Cole [00:14:38]:
Hey, welcome back. Chris Goede and I were talking, and one of the things I love about this lesson is how intentional John Maxwell is in this idea of significance. I can tell you this, and being on his team for more than 23 years now, that if anybody lives their life usefully better than John Maxwell, chris, I want to meet him. I want to know him, because not only is it useful and he’s seen and accomplished more than most, it’s also intentional. It’s as if there has been a roadmap since the beginning of time in John Maxwell’s life that says, I am going to go focus. And he gives us a roadmap of that in the book today that I brought to studio with me. It’s a book called Intentional Living. This book we thought was going to blow the world up. And to be honest with you, the book still has legs and still has this ability to help you in this. This was the first book, john also did this in Change of World, but this was the first book that he broke down. I want to make a difference. Doing something that makes a difference with people that want to make a difference at a time that makes a difference. In fact, you can already get cut to the chase and you can go take advantage of this. We’ll put it in the show notes and you can click on that link there and we’ll give you a 15% discount when you use the keyword podcast. But in this book, I brought it up because John finishes the book with the 10th chapter that says this be urgent about seizing significance opportunities. Be urgent about sensing and seizing significance opportunities. And I told Chris, I said, Chris, I really want to talk about that first, because often on this podcast, we talk about meeting with presidents, prime ministers, we talk about what we’re doing with young people around the globe. We share a lot of our story, not in a braggadocios way, but just really in a mind blowing way. We can’t believe what we get to do, but yet there is a method to the madness, and that is understanding that our life is well spent when it is lived out for the benefit of others. Our life is better when we put significance in it. I love what Jeff Henderson helps us with around here with Maxwell leadership. Chris, your division, your organization that you run, we want to help companies be the best company for the world, not just the best company in the world. In other words, I want to have lived my life for the benefit of others. And so as we begin to work through this, talking about relationships, talking about decisions, talking about what John’s talking about today, I want us to keep in mind that this really is not just about living life with purpose or living life with success. This is really talking about living life usefully. And that’s the frame of reference. And again, I can’t overstate enough, Chris, what you and I both observe all the time. John is intentional in pursuing significance in every area of his life.
Chris Goede:
As you were talking about that, it’s interesting to watch John as a leader. He’s always been this way, and I think as he has gotten older, I think he’s even getting more structured around the usefulness, if that’s the right way to say it, of his time and what he does, of his relationships, of his decisions, of his experiences. I think I’ve heard him say this. You would probably clean this up a little bit for me where he says, I am now more certain of the things that I’m certain of than I ever was before. And boy, I don’t know if you’re listening or you’re watching, if you truly understand how powerful that statement is, because the last time I checked, father Time is undefeated, and John is at that 75 plus and getting up there, 76, and he’s saying these statements. And so he’s now more useful than ever. So much so that it frustrates us sometimes because he says no to some things that we want to do or we well, this is a great idea. No, it’s not a great idea. It’s not the best use of my time. And so we’ve seen him live this out, and you have had the opportunity to be mentored and coached by him, and you’re now leading. And I want to talk a little bit about this from your perspective, your lens as a leader. I want to set the stage by saying this. I think no, I know that as leaders and as we grow and we’re on this growth journey, the people that we hang around with, the decisions that we make, the experiences we need to be a part of, and that you encounter, they’re going to change, they’re going to grow. And I love you starting off with intentionality, because we got to be intentional about every year looking at that, maybe even more than that, maybe every quarter, maybe it’s every month. And I know you’re very intentional about this on an annual basis. But as your leadership has grown, your responsibilities have grown both personally and professionally. This applies to anybody in any sector, not just the CEO of Maxwell Leadership. I want to look at each one of these, and I want to say, okay, the relationships that you form now are much different than the relationships you had to form 24 months ago, five years ago, ten years ago. You would agree with that. I would talk about the intentionality let’s stay on relationships for just a minute, because John says, man, this is number one. If you’re going to live usefully, we better unpack this and figure it out. Talk a little bit about your approach to that now in your season of leadership. Maybe not so much as how it’s changed, maybe what it looks like now, maybe kind of talk a little bit about both, because I think that’s a huge part of making sure that we’re being intentional about being useful with our leadership.
Mark Cole:
You know, five years ago or so, maybe six, but John introduced this concept of an inner circle and an outer circle.
Mark Cole:
I was thinking about that, and I challenged him, Chris, I said, Tell me the difference, John. And we worked through it. It took us a while to work through this. John tells the story about Linda coming up to John and saying, john, am I not enough? And he looked at her and said, no, none of us are enough. All of John’s kind of quote unquote inner circle people that had been with him for years, like Goede and I have been. We tried to figure this inner circle, outer circle. The best way we could articulate it is an inner circle knows who you are and keeps you grounded in who you are and who you were meant to be. An outer circle knows your potential in what you could be and stretches you to reach for that. And I think if we don’t have a constant commitment to up leveling the people around us, I think we have a tendency to stay the same by not challenging ourself and those around us first to grow, but also to challenge us to look for relationships that can serve what we’re trying to accomplish in the particular season that we’re in. I do something every year, Chris. I talk about my year in review. I do a relationship inventory every year. Who did I spend time with? What did I get from that relationship? Are they A plus, A minus? Do they take me up? Do they take me down? Do they add? Do they subtract? Do they multiply? Do they divide? Like John talks about here?
Chris Goede:
Great.
Mark Cole:
What are they doing? How much time did I spend with them? And am I ready to go another year with them? Now, that sounds very callous. I know I’m a recovering people pleaser, we’ve talked about that. But I’m a relational guy. But I have found that in the area of relationships, that our success and our progress is directly connected, as John teaches today, on the relationships we surround ourselves with. If it’s that important, and if everybody that says anything about this subject says your relationships around you are important, why don’t you and I have a discipline on doing an inventory of our relationships? Why don’t we have a discipline of determine if they’re addition, subtraction and multiplication or a division in our life and when we grow through that discipline? I have found that for me, the people that are leading me right now, Chris, the people that are speaking into me right now, have been at a level of leadership, a level of difficulty, a level of ups and downs that every business person has. And I need them to have that well-rounded perspective so that they can help me lead in the current season that I’m in.
Chris Goede:
Yeah. And I want everybody to hear that it’s okay to go through that process like you said. Callous right. It’s like, oh, that’s a little bit. This is your life. This is the life that you are living. And I love John talks about in the sub points here where he says, hey, we need to make sure that we are adding value to people. And by the way, let’s just have a self check right here. Our own flesh will not desire to add value to people if they’re subtracting from your life, if they’re our relationship. And so why would you take away the honor and the privilege of serving other people that are adding to your life, that are multiplying? What you do, and what I want you to hear Mark say is that that is going to change for him. He gave us an example of an annual basis. It may be more than that, it may be less than that, I don’t know. But you have to do an inventory of that in order for your leadership to be extremely useful.
Mark Cole:
Again, the subject matter is not live life normally, consistently live life the way you’ve always lived it. It’s about living it from a useful perspective. And, you know, from a generosity standpoint, from a give back standpoint, from a serving a community standpoint, often we grow in our success, but we continue to do the significant things at a level that was before our success. We don’t challenge ourselves, so we’ve no longer become useful and we’ve just become redundant. We have all this success. We’ve accomplished all these things. You’re listening to the Maxwell Leadership Podcast. You’re getting John Maxwell. Every single week. There should be an accelerated growth in your significance. There should be a significant growth in your usefulness to those around you.
Chris Goede:
Yeah. All right, so we need to get off that one, because Mark and I are both we are both level two, which is the relationship level five levels, and we are recovering people pleasers. We’re working on that. So we could stay here for the whole episode. Yes. Let’s move to the second one that he talks about. Again, your growth as a leader and the decisions that you have to make and are making continue to grow. And I would say that as a listener and podcast follower, it’s going to be the same thing for you at different levels personally and professionally. I love what he talked about where he says, hey, decisions are about setting goals. The discipline is actually about achieving that goal or getting that goal. Just talk a little bit here about the decisions you’ve had to make and how that grows and how that changed. And in order for you to be useful now, you’re making decisions now that you didn’t have to make last year or in in the years past. Talk to us a little bit about that.
Mark Cole:
When you were asking me, I was thinking about decisions that I’ve made, personnel decisions, hiring decisions, and I thought about the discipline that I used when I was leading the sales team or when I was leading customer service, the different functions of leadership that I have served in John’s organization. And then I thought today about the role and responsibility of stewarding, this vision of transforming a world, of creating great, meaningful leadership because everyone deserves to be led well. And I think about the scrutiny and the decision making process going back to relationships, obviously, but in decision making of who’s going to own what and what level of expectation you’re going to have on them. When you Get Really Clear, Chris, on the vision of the team that you leader, the organization health of the organization that you’re a part of, are the decisions you as a team leader or as a leader in your home needs to have there comes with that a responsibility that the effectiveness of the decisions we make needs to have greater gravitas. There needs to be greater significance. Great example of this. Great example. I mean, think about John. For those of you that’s watching YouTube, I’m holding up John’s book that I mentioned at the top of the show. John has had 36 million pair of hands hold a book like this in his life. He’s done okay. He speaks to several million people a year through webinars and different things like that. He’s doing okay. He’s had a successful life from a financial and from an accomplishment standpoint, he’s doing okay. What would drive him to make a decision to get into the songwriting arena now? Seriously?
Mark Cole:
What what would make John Maxwell no songwriting ability, no performing musical talent ability. What would make him get into the songwriting world with his books? The belief that he can reach an audience that he’s never been able to reach before. Which, by the way, is the same reason he started writing books, which, by the way, is why he stopped being a pastor. So he could get into the business community, which, by the way, is why we go and respond to these presidents and prime ministers in over 23 countries saying, Come help us. It’s because there is a passion to make his life useful. And so right now, wherever you listen to music, there is a John C period. Don’t forget the period. John c period. Maxwell streaming channel, wherever you download music, whether that’s Apple, iTunes, whether that’s Spotify, YouTube. We have now gotten into the music business. Why? Because we think we’re going to make any money. No, we’re spending money on it. Why? Because we think John Maxwell is going to go on concert tour. No, it’s not even him singing, but it’s him writing books, writing songs from books like Intentional Living, so that he can impact a new arena to make his life useful. The decision was not easy for me. I was like, oh, my goodness, I got to learn a new industry. I got to learn a new thing. For John, it was extremely easy, Chris, because it was a way to make his life useful. It was a decision to make. So go online, because there’s two songs we’ve already released. We’re getting ready to release a third Day by Day and a song set telling you to get over yourself. Okay, so there’s the two songs I want you to listen to. You’re going to love it. We’ve had tens of thousands, tens of thousands of downloads already. They’ve just come out, get to that music. But again, going back, Chris, you know why he intentionally set up a long time ago? I want to do something that makes a difference. Doing something that makes a difference with people, that make a difference at a time that makes a difference. Going back to this book, it was an intentional decision. You know what? He made that decision to get into the songwriting business 50 years ago.
Chris Goede:
Yeah.
Mark Cole:
Because he determines when an opportunity presents itself, and it allows me to impact more people to make my life more useful. I’m going to go to Nashville and write some songs.
Chris Goede:
So here’s our challenge to you. Listen to a song, get you pumped up before you listen to the podcast. Listen to the podcast, then close. It’s almost kind of like a service. Then close with your song on the back end and it’ll be a complete.
Mark Cole:
Jake, we need to do some bumper music.
Chris Goede:
Bumper music. Let me just stay here for just a minute because there’s two things I want to unpack. In our notes, John talks about good decisions plus daily disciplines, which he has very disciplined equals. A masterpiece of potential. It’s amazing when John talks about living a useful life, the potential that he sees in decisions that he makes, and his boring daily disciplines that he lives out on a daily basis because of the potential. There’s not another. Guy you and I would know that sees more potential in people that’s probably gotten all of us in trouble. Things, opportunities to be useful. He sees the potential where I would see that and go to your point, we got to learn another industry. What are we doing? But he’s going, no, this can be extremely useful to people that we have not reached before. And there’s a lot of potential there. So I wanted to make sure I brought your attention to that. It’s in your notes there on potential. Now, before I come off of this, the decisions that you make, your transition as a leader went from consulting with John, letting him hear what’s going on, the grassroots of the organization, you guys making a decision, ultimately John finalizing it, and then you coming over and implementing it. That was a decision making process as we talked about. This is growth. It’s going to happen. It’s going to be different every season of your life. Now that decision making process has flipped. You’re consulting with John, really, John’s consulting back to you. But ultimately now you’re making the decision and now you are carrying the weight, as I’ve heard you mention in this podcast and others, of in order for us as an organization to be useful, to carry the potential of John’s legacy. Now that’s on you. That’s a shift in a growth. Talk a little bit just about that process that now you feel that weight, but also from a growth standpoint of now going, hey, in order for me to be useful, the decisions I’m making now are different than they were before. And it’s okay. It’s just different.
Mark Cole:
Yeah. First, I would say this, the temptation when we mature, we mature as leaders. We mature in winning, we mature in effectiveness, we’re in greater demand. The tendency is for us to redefine the things that need no redefinition and to keep dormant the things that need to be redefined. John Maxwell says that there’s two areas in his life only that he has not redefined himself in. Everything else has been up to redefinition after redefinition after redefinition. My question to you and I is, number one, do you know your two things? Five things. Three things. One thing. Do you know the areas that must be what you want your life to be about? The bedrock when you have those? I found that decisions that need to be made to make us better, to make us more effective, are easier to make when we don’t feel like we’re violating the things because we know what is our irreducible minimum.
Chris Goede:
Yes, it’s good.
Mark Cole:
And most of the time I talk with leaders, they don’t know their irreducible minimum. For me, I’m a passionate person. If I can’t get excited about it, even in a difficult meeting, I find myself just saying, guys, I’m sorry. I know we got some challenging things out of us. I just got to tell you what I just experienced, there’s this passion. You know why? Because that’s an irreducible minimum for me. I’ve got to have that enthusiasm in my life. So my question is, Chris, to our podcast listeners, our podcast viewers is what are the decisions that you’re delaying because you don’t know your irreducible minimums, the things in your life that will be the bedrock of your influence? Because for you to be useful, you’ve got to have a level of dependability. But for you to be useful, you’ve got to have a propensity for change. And the only way I know how to embrace those decisions that require change is to know what is unchangeable in my life.
Chris Goede:
I love what you’re talking about because it allows you to make consistent decisions if you have that foundation. And as John talks about consistency, compounds and so I love that ad. Okay, as we wrap up, let’s talk about this last one here that John brings to our attention, where the experiences that I encounter and I love how he kind of wraps up the message where he says, hey, people who participate in an entertainment experience, and he goes through each one. Well, that’s something they want to sense, and they want to feel educational. They want to learn. I want to stop right here on this one and I’m going to throw it to you and let you kind of talk a little about this and kind of wrap up for today’s session. With this transition of leadership and the season that you’re in right now, what experiences are you immersing yourself in to learn, to grow, to be challenged, whether that’s locally, whether it’s on the road, whether it’s different countries. What are the experiences that you’re forcing yourself to be a part of personally or professionally that is just taking your growth as a leader to the next level so that you can be extremely useful?
Mark Cole:
I watched John do this through difficult times in his leadership. I can remember him selling the company or selling assets off from financial reasons, from focus reasons through the years. I watched him let some people go. I’ve watched John through the years. And I’m learning from that now, Chris. Because when I have found that when a visionary leader, the leader that is most responsible for the vision and the direction of the organization, when difficult times or particularly challenging times or redefinition times or restructuring times happen, I’ve watched them lose their way in what the purpose of all of those changes really are anyway. In other words, they don’t experience their product. They don’t get out and see the end result. And I would challenge every one of you. I don’t care if you’re leading and selling tacos at your favorite taco place or whether you are maybe you’re leading a team that has to do some menial task. My challenge to all of us is get out and talk to the consumer of the final product. Get out and see the work of your daily hands, because when you’ll do that, whether, again, it’s something that feels very insignificant, if you’ll get out and see the people interface with what you do, that experience will send you back to the drawing table and be very focused in making the decisions necessary. And often what I have found myself doing is getting so insulated in the difficulty of the environment or the decision and forgetting to go out and realize the significance that happens when I make that decision, when I develop that relationship, when I begin to create that experience, then I realize, whoa. There is a reason for this challenge. There is an opportunity at the end of this meeting to make a big difference. And isn’t that what we’re all about?
Chris Goede:
Wow.
Mark Cole:
It really is. Hey, we love your comments. Thank you. Hey, if you have not sent us a comment about the podcast, please do so. The other day I was in the Nashville airport. It’s in the Nashville airport, and a friend came up to me I’d never met before. He and his wife listened to the podcast, and Chrissy came up and thanked me for the work that we do. And whether that’s you, whether that’s somebody like Lisa that listened to the life Lessons from the Little Red Wagon. By the way, that’s a book that Maxwell Leadership published by Ron Simmons. You will put that in the show notes for you to pick up too. But Lisa said from that podcast, I love the stories in this podcast. There are nuggets and truth and wisdom in each of the stories, Lisa. That’s why we do what we do. That’s why we want to add value to you so that you’ll go multiply value to others. And until next week, go create powerful, positive change, because everyone deserves to be led well.
