The Key to Improving Your Life
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Hey, Mark Cole here, and I want to welcome you back to another episode of the Maxwell Leadership Podcast. I've got a question for you before I go on. Why are you listening today? Why are you viewing today?

I would guarantee if I polled every one of you, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people that's listening to this podcast, it would go around something like this. It would come around to, I want to improve myself. I want to be better. I need to be a better parent. I need to be a better business leader.

Because after all, isn't podcasts such as this one all about improving one's self? This is the podcast that is committed to adding value to you so that you will multiply value to others. In today's episode, we're going to hear a lesson from John Maxwell on keys that will improve your life, your influence, and your leadership.

After he teaches this lesson, I'm going to be back with my co-host, Chris Robinson. We're going to talk about this lesson, how it has impacted us, and to be honest with you, how we've seen it impact literally tens of thousands of people through our everyday life.

We're going to give you a few practical ways that can help you apply it to your life, to your leadership, and make a difference for those around you. Now, if you want to view this podcast, if you'd like to download the bonus resource, you can go to maxwellpodcast.com forward slash improving. We'll see you on YouTube. We'll see you right after John's done teaching. Here is John Maxwell. John Maxwell

If you want to do well, if you want to have a legacy, leave a legacy, have legs to your legacy, I want you to live an intentional life. That's the key. You see, most people, they don't live intentionally. They don't live on purpose. You know, most people, you know, they don't lead their life. They accept their life. And because of that, they never reach their potential.

And I would encourage you to intentionally live your life for several reasons. And I'll give you just a couple very quickly. Number one is the fact that the best way to improve your life is to live an intentional life. And the reason for that is, it's very simple. Intentional living moves you from good intentions to good actions. And good intentions probably is the most overrated two words in the English language. No one has ever had any...

with just good intentions. Nobody's ever had their lives changed with good intentions. You've never added value to people with just good intentions. Good intentions has no action in it. We want to go from good intentions to good actions.

You see, the great dividing line in life between people who do well and people who don't do well is they cross that bridge. They go from I intend to do something to I did something. They cross that intentional living bridge. My mentor, John Wooden, for so many years would look at his basketball players. He was a great coach at UCLA, and he would say to them, don't tell me what you're going to do.

Show me what you're going to do. And what he was saying is you could talk all day about what you want to do to improve your world, but it doesn't improve your world. You've got to do something that improves your world. You see, one of the greatest gaps in life is the gap between sounding good and doing good.

And intentional living improves your life because the moment you intentionally live, now you are doing good. It moves you from my desire to my action. It moves you from someday to today. It takes you from being passive to becoming active. It takes you from occasional to continual. And I'll tell you what it does. It takes you from dreaming to doing. So it's the greatest way to improve your life. And I can tell you also, it teaches you and me to be

to have what I call front end thinking. If I'm going to have an intentional life, that means I have to have some intentional thinking on the front end. An intentional life is not something that just, quote, happens. It's not something you just wake up and say, wow, okay, I'm living. No, no, no. You see, what precedes intentional living is intentional thinking. I wrote a book on how successful people think.

And in that book, I talked about the differences between successful and unsuccessful people. And successful people, one of the things they do is they think up front. And one of the things I love about Uplift is that it is thinking big picture. It's thinking up front. It's saying if we're going to really change our world, we're going to have to go into kids' lives and get to the younger generation. Intentional living causes me to make every day count.

It doesn't allow me to skip a day. Oops, what happened? You know, sometimes life just sneaks up on people. But the moment that I'm intentional, I realize that,

That I want to make every day my masterpiece. And I want to do every day. I want to make every day count. And it keeps me from procrastinating. And again, what's the great gap? It's the great gap between knowing and doing. And knowing never gets us anywhere. Doing gets us everywhere. And then, you know, intentional living. It allows us to make our changes one step at a time.

We can't change everything. We're not even supposed to try to change everything at once. But when I become intentional, I look and say, okay, what can I change? And what's the most important thing for me to work on right now in my life? What is it that I can do that can really start improving my life? And so what I want to do for the remainder of this small teaching that I'm giving is to share with you

how you can begin to improve your life, how you can begin to be intentional. I mean, what steps do I take right now, since we're leaving intentions and going to actions, what steps can I take right now that just begins to uplift my life? How do I do that? Well, get ready, because I'm going to give it to you right now. I want to encourage you, first of all, to be intentional in your growth. I am so thankful because when I was young, in my 20s,

I had a mentor walk into my life and just basically asked me if I had a growth plan. I did not. And he said to me these words that changed my life. He said, growth is not automatic. You don't become automatically better.

If you're going to really personally grow and develop yourself, you have to be intentional. And then he explained to me, he said, John, we automatically become older, but we don't automatically become better. Wow, that's a life change, isn't it? And so as I'm automatically getting older, I want to be intentional about getting better in that process. And I'm just going to say to you that

that I would encourage you to develop a personal growth plan for your life. And what I mean very simply is every day have growth experiences, every day read growth material, every day practice growth things, and you'll begin to understand that the only guarantee, the only guarantee that the future is going to be better than today is that you're growing today.

I would encourage you not only to be intentional in your growth, I encourage you to be intentional in your attitude. I just want you to know that your attitude that you have right now is a choice. That's why I never feel sorry for people who have a bad attitude, because they chose it.

Which means if you chose a bad attitude, you could un-choose, if that's a word, the bad attitude and choose a good one. And a good, great, positive attitude, an attitude of adding value to people, an attitude of significance, all that stuff is just going to increase and improve your

who you are and the legacy that you create. I would encourage you to be intentional in your relationships. Your relationships are so key to your success. In fact, if you took your five closest friends and looked at them, pretty much where they're going is where you're going. You got to ask yourself, is that where I want to go? I would encourage you to be intentional in your leadership.

Because everything rises and falls on leadership. And I just love the fact that you can learn to lead at a very young age. I would encourage you. I would encourage you. I wrote a book called Developing the Leader Within You 2.0. And that book has 10 things that you want to work on, to learn, to grow in.

to be a good leader. It's kind of like the practical leadership book that you just begin to read it and you begin to say, okay, I can do this. And you begin to learn and you begin to grow in your leadership itself. And then I would encourage you to be intentional in your significance.

This is probably my favorite part of the entire lesson because I want you to be successful, but there's a difference between being successful and being significant. A successful life, which I hope you're successful also,

It's all about adding value to yourself. But what you want to do is you want to make sure that you live a significant life. You want to make sure that you are constantly adding value to others. And one of the things I learned is the fact that selfishness and significance, they're not compatible at all. If I'm a selfish person, I'm going to ask people to add value to me. If I'm a significant person, I'm going to every day ask, who can I add value to?

I pray for, wish for, dream for, hope for you to keep living lives of significance and adding value to people.

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Hey, welcome back. Chris and I sit here and just get overwhelmed with what we get to do. We say that often. John Maxwell's impact is far and wide. And it all started with John in the decision to improve his life. Then he made the decision to write books. Then he made a decision to leave his nonprofit leadership and go build a business. And then he decided to

develop a coaching certification company, then you came along. I mean, all of these decisions that we all celebrate starts now.

at some point in a real small way to have the significance that he has. I mean, you have an example today of John's significance and the significance of what we get to do. And I'd love to just start it with that, Chris. And I'm so glad you're here. Glad you came up today. Yeah, always glad to be here in Atlanta. You know, I like to come in on warmer days. This is a cold one. But, you know, I'm here. I'm here. I'm here for the team. I'm here for the team. You know, we talk about John Maxwell's reach far and wide. I mean, he has probably one of the furthest, widest, deepest,

influence that I've seen in my life, to have that close proximity to someone, whether we're on the other side of the planet, meeting with the prime minister who slides a book from underneath his leg to have John sign as we first meet him, or it could be a person that you wouldn't think has been impacted by John. You know, this morning as I came into the airport in Atlanta, you know, I go up to the counter, my name wasn't on the board, and I'm going, I

Not on the board. I got to go wait in line, but I'm going to do it with a good attitude. And I go into the line and I get up there. And because of my profile, it says John Maxwell. It says Maxwell Leadership on there. The guy looks at me and says, the John Maxwell? I said, the John Maxwell. He goes, man. He goes, the 21 laws absolutely changed my life. He said, it would be my honor and privilege to upgrade your car today. Come on. And I mean, come on. I said, hey, I'll take that. Yeah.

Isn't that amazing? But just amazing. You never know who you're going to impact when you make that choice to be intentional about your significance every single day. And John started that years ago. We're reaping the benefits of that. But more importantly, it's being modeled for us to be able to do that. And I love to get to do that every single day. Boy, it's true. And we'll get back in the lesson. But I love how you started us at the end. And that's the significant piece.

I think that's really important in John's journey and podcast family. I hope it's true in your life. I hope there is a reason beyond yourself that you're building a business. I hope there's a reason beyond yourself that you're running for political office. I hope there's a reason beyond yourself that you are working hard every single day. I hope it's about what's going to flow through you to impact others. John started his life out working.

with the significance piece, but it all started because he wanted to be significant and then some of these successful things came. And so that's a product of that because he wrote books. Why, Chris? He wrote books so that he could have influence with somebody that he would never meet. He didn't write books so that somebody would buy it. He wrote it so that he could influence a ticket counter rep at a rental car, and it did that, and you got the results of an upgraded car. That's correct. Yeah.

I love it. The seed never dies. It doesn't go away. That's right. He talks about growing every single day. And I think that every day is key. I think a lot of people want to grow every once in a while or when they absolutely need to. And he also talks to us about you're automatically older, but you're not automatically better. And I love that statement because, again, the old cliche is I've

Been in this role or in this position for 10 years, but realistically, it's one year repeated 10 times because once you get it down and you get into that automatic cycle, you stop growing. So talk to us about being intentional in your growth. He's given us five different things to be intentional in. The first is growth.

Talk to me about developing personal growth plan. You've talked about this briefly on a podcast we did a few months ago. But talk to me about the growth plan and just give us a simple layout there. Well, and let me say two things, Chris, kind of leading into talking about intentionality around growth. This lesson could be one on intentionality.

And we talk a lot about intentionality. In fact, I'm going to encourage you. I don't always do this, but I'm going to encourage you before the end of the year. It's the middle of November. Before the end of the year, I'm going to challenge you to come back and listen to this podcast again, specifically the first four to six minutes of John's content. And the reason I want you to do that is because intentionality matters.

It's not about creativity. The first time that we're intentional, I do a life plan every year. The first time, boy, it was creative. It really was. The magic of my intentionality is not the creativity of my intentionality. It is the commitment of my intentionality. It is the discipline of my intentionality. When I find something that works, I work it.

And intentionality too often is, boy, I'm intentional to do something. And we consider that creative. Intentionality really becomes magical when it is consistently lived out day in, day out, day in and day out. And so as John talks about these five categories of be intentional, they may be five brand new categories for you. And you go, wow, this is creative. This is really good. It may be you've been doing these five things for years.

It may be that these are bad five and you've got your own five. Here's the point. Being intentional really could be replaced with be consistent. Be consistent in your growth. Be consistent in your attitude. Be consistent in your relationships. Be consistent in your leadership. Be consistent in your significance. And that intentionality is what John's talked about in the first part of this. So let's do go to growth. I'm huge on this. I'm passionate about growth because the consistency of it

Gave me a family that I didn't think I was going to have anymore. It gave me a leadership opportunity that I did not think I was going to have anymore. It's given me a company. All the things that I have been blessed with has come from an intentionality on growth. An intentionality that says every year I'm going to get a different vantage point of what could be possible in my life. Because last year's growth, Chris...

puts me on a different plateau to see what the next year's growth can be. And too often we wait till we can see it before we start putting a plan around it. I'll say put a plan around it and you'll start seeing it. That intentionality of growing. So I am very intentional. My challenge to you listeners would be take the next two to three weeks of this year and begin thinking about the success of 2024

And what can be possible because of the success and the challenges of 2024 in your 2025 year plan. That is going to make a difference in your life more than anything else. Yeah, I love the consistency piece of that. You know, if I had to say there's a secret to success, the secret is boring. The secret is consistency. Yeah.

And when I think about this personal growth plan, for me, it was really simple. I think it's not consistency, but simplicity that is also key to the growth in this area. So what I would do is I used to carry a little index card. Now I've got this integrated into my day, but I used to carry index card every single day with four by six card. And it would simply have five things on it that I would do every single day. It would have, what do I need to read today?

What do I need to watch today? What do I need to listen today? Who do I need to call today? And what do I need to do today? And what that did was that allowed for me to line up my growth with where I wanted to go in a layered learning format. So everything I was listening to, reading and watching and doing was in alignment. So then that way I wasn't one of these, you know, schizophrenic growth people.

Yeah.

And I would always find myself only really doing well and maybe one, two, on a good month, good year, three of them when I decided, man, I've got to simplify this thing, get this thing down and go, how can I simplify this growth plan to move in the direction I want to go? I love that. But you've got to be intentional. You do have to be intentional. You've got to be intentional with simplicity and consistency. Yeah.

You know, the second one is being intentional about your attitude. We talked about this one in death. The bottom line to that is that attitude is a choice. It is. You know, so talk to me a little bit about attitudes and choice, and then we'll move on to relationships. You know, it is the key to improving your life. So if you need a little improvement this week, which is all of us, then we're hitting two of them right now. It's how you're growing, how you're intentional with that, and it's your choices, your attitude. Yeah.

Stephanie and I have a great opportunity to really shape the lives of our four grandchildren. They're with us 100% of the time right now. And I spent a lot of time raising Macy, who's now in college, our baby daughter. I spent a lot of time celebrating her gifts. She's very gifted. She's very talented. She's smart. And I spent a lot of time celebrating her, and she naturally made good decisions, good choices. Right.

What I'm finding with our grandchildren that has different skills and abilities than Macy, I'm finding that I need to be much more intentional in celebrating their choices than their gifts. And so they don't have the same giftings as Macy. They're not going to get the top grade in every subject, but they can make great choices. We had a teacher-parent conference this week.

And one of our grandchildren was given just an incredible group of comments from three different teachers that's teaching him. And they said, of all the kids that I've ever taught, the ability to bring people together around different things and rally them to see the good in a different project. Right.

is an amazing gift that your grandchild has. And they're struggling a little bit in this class. They're struggling a little bit in this class. We're going to get them to a tolerable grade. But please continue to encourage them to be a unifier of people because the world don't have enough of what your grandchild possesses. Wow.

When I got him home two nights ago and I sat him down for dinner, I said, let me tell you what your teacher just told me. And I began to show him his choices. And by the way, I also showed him where he doesn't make the same choices with his two brothers. He's pretty brutal on them. He's not bringing them together. He's separating them. So we used it to coach him to be a little bit better at home as he is so good at school. Here's my point. In the area of your attitude, it is a choice. Yeah.

And too many people allow external circumstances to affect their attitude and not an internal resolve and an internal intentionality to shape their attitude. Yeah, I love that. Love that. Let's keep rocking. Intentional with your relationships. You know, your relationships are key to success. I mean, I can...

Through and through at the end of the day, no matter what business that you're trying to build, no matter what you're trying to do on this planet, it comes down to relationships. And so that's got to be on the forefront of everything that you do. This philosophy of step on people to get what you want or knock people off the ladder. That's not one that's going to get you very far. And, you know, is in direct opposition of what we believe and what we feel. Talk to me about intentionality relationships and how that's been a key to your success. My last experience.

example was the children in my life. So when a relational, let me go a leadership standpoint on this, because it's obvious we tell our kids, you are who you hang out with. I don't like that kid. Don't be hanging out with that kid. No, he can't come. No, you're not going to their house. We do that at the point of nausea, but guess what? We stopped doing that in business. And we only ask ourself one thing. Do I benefit from this relationship? Can they put more money in my pocket? We need to be as intentional in who we partner with in business and as intentional

in who we let our kids go home with at night to play. Yeah.

And we don't do it. We fall asleep on the relationship side in business. And we ask one question, can we get a maximum bang for our buck with this? For me, just recently, I was looking at some significant partnerships in our business, just a true need for partnership. And I'll never forget, I was asking all the right questions. I was doing all the right things to what would happen with this kind of a partnership. And one night, middle of the night, I woke up and went, whoa,

I can't have that level of partnership with that level of a personality that

Because it would be violating the very thing that I'm standing for. And I'm so glad I did that. I think at times we give ourselves a hall pass on the relationships that we partner with in business because we see business as very sterile. It's very monetized. It's very bottom line. All of those things are true about business, but there's a relational aspect to business as well. It reminds me, John wrote a book several years ago called There's No Such Thing as Business Ethics. It's a great book.

They asked him to come in and write a book about business ethics. There's no such thing as business ethics. And they wanted him to write a book talking about business ethics. And John said, I can't write a book on business ethics. And they said, what? He said, I can't. This was right after Enron and all that. He said, why can't you? He said, because there's no such thing as business ethics. Hence the name of the book. He said, there's only ethics ethics.

You either have them or you don't. If you have them, they work in business. That's a great, great thing. If you don't have them at home, they're not going to work in business. Well, you can be intentional in relationships at work. You can be intentional relationships at home. But if you're not going to be intentional in your relationships at work, you're not intentional with your relationships, period. Wow.

Because it'll work even in business when you become intentional in your relationships. Wow. Love that. Let's keep moving. Being intentional about your leadership. Now, he mentions developing a leader within 2.0, which is a book that's dedicated to you. This was a book that if you open that thing up and in the front pages of it says this book's dedicated to you. What's one thing you would say that would really impact people from that book today?

that's dedicated to you. Well, thank you for saying that. And of all the leadership accolades or comments or introductions that I've got, the day that John gave me that first book, first copy, which is what he does with his book, whoever he dedicates it to, he gives the first copy. The day he gave that to me would be without a doubt in the top two, top three leadership moments of my life. And here's why.

I read that book the first time, and it gave me a pathway to be a great leader. But I applied everything that I read to the perception of people around me to my leadership rather than the extraction of the perception I have of myself within me. Wow. And so I spent 13 years after reading that book the first time growing my influence outside. Mm-hmm.

And I accomplished things nobody else in my age had accomplished. I got voted in. I won popularity contests. I turned organizations around. I increased 100% money, budgets, and all of that. Phenomenal. But boy, I was empty, I was weak, and I was a wreck on the inside. The biggest thing that I would tell anybody reading that book is...

Apply every bit of that to the inside of what you are as a leader more than the outside. So when it talks about priorities, if you don't get your priorities set on the inside, then the outside will drive those. For instance.

I read that book and I love my family. I love my family. If you looked at my travel itinerary, you would challenge that every day of the week. I travel all the time with all of my girls upbringing. Now with our grandkids being in our home, I travel all the time. I get questioned about that all the time.

If I had not answered on the inside what my priorities was, what was required of me, what gave me a great reward, what I needed to accomplish in the area of priorities, chapter number two.

I would be a complete basket case and loss with the demands of my job, of my calling in competition with the demands of my family. But that book helps you settle the battle on the inside and then live from that space and that place. So that's the biggest thing for me, Chris. You've got to be intentional with your leadership.

I am not here because I'm the smartest guy on our team. You're a lot smarter than me. I'm not here because I'm the most likable guy on my team. I got a hard side to me.

I'm here as leadership of this organization because I was so intentional in developing my leadership every step of the way. Yeah, I mean, you are, and that shows. I remember my very first time meeting with you. You probably don't remember this, but I remember my very first time meeting you, and you said some words to me that have stuck with me and carried me for over a decade now. Yeah.

I was part of the very first, what we call President's Advisory Council inside the Maxwell Certified Team. And I had a chance to have a

a lunch that we got invited to with you and John. And I remember sitting down next to you and asking you the question. This is the question that I asked you was, you know, how do you feel when you're inside these rooms with presidents, with these CEOs of multi-billion dollars companies? And I remember these words. He said this to me. He says, Chris, he goes, I'm inside that room, but here's what I know. I'm unqualified.

I'm undeserving, but I'm fully confident I belong in the room. And man, I can tell you from that moment forward, when I find myself inside the room with John and with the prime minister, with a CEO of multi-billion dollar companies, I sit there and I look and feel that same way. I'm unqualified. I'm undeserving, but yet fully confident I belong in the room.

Isn't that something? And that's because of the work that you do on the inside. Thanks for sharing that with me. Yeah, man. Thank you. Absolute difference maker for me. That's awesome. I'm glad to hear that. I would say that same thing right now. And so I'm so glad that you said that. I would. Outstanding. Well, hey, that gets us through this episode. Man, thank you for having me. Always love being here with you. Looking forward to the next one. Man, likewise. Thank you for jumping up here. Thanks for getting up. Hey, maybe you'll stay in Atlanta longer because you got an upgraded car. I don't know.

Hey, let me give you two things to think about here. One is we talked a lot about intentionality today. One of the best digital online courses that we created for everyday purpose-driven intentionality is a program called Everyday with Purpose. It's an online digital course. We normally offer that for $199. We're going to give it to you today.

for $49. And so you can find that in the show notes. There's a helpful quote here that I've heard John say often that I just kind of want to leave us with today before I talk about a comment from Joyce. Here's what John says. An unintentional life accepts everything and does nothing. Unintentional life embraces only the things that will add to the mission of significance.

And I think that's what the lesson today was all about. That's what we want to do. Joyce gave us a comment from how to develop an abundance mindset. We'll put that in the show notes as well. That's a podcast we did. She said, mindset is contagious. You've got to limit the time you spend with scarcity people. Be intentional in your relationships is what Joyce is saying. Hey, thank you so much for listening to the podcast. We'll see you again next episode. Go do something powerful, positive, because everyone deserves to be led well.

Are you ready to elevate your leadership to new heights? Join the movement towards high road leadership with John C. Maxwell's latest book. In High Road Leadership, John explores the power of valuing all people, doing the right things for the right reasons, and placing others above personal agendas. Learn how to inspire positive change and bring people together in a world that divides.

Order now and receive exclusive bonuses, including a keynote on High Road Leadership by John Maxwell himself and a sneak peek into three impactful chapters. Take the first step towards becoming a High Road Leader. Visit highroadleadershipbook.com to order your copy today.