Redefine the Problem
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Hey, podcast family. Welcome back to the Maxwell Leadership Podcast. Our podcast is committed to adding value to you, a leader, because we want you to multiply value to others. My name is Mark Cole, and today, John Maxwell is sharing a lesson on problems. I know, don't pause, don't pause. John's going to explain what a problem is and how you can know what it is.

Not only what they look like, but how you can change the perspective you have toward problems. If I know anything after leading for 25 years in one of the most noted, recognized leadership brands in the world, it is this one thing. Leaders always have problems.

In fact, it's our dear friend Carly Fiorina that says, leadership is problem solving, nothing more, nothing less. So today, if you've got a problem, you're a great candidate for a change of perspective that John will give you in this lesson.

After John's lesson, I'll be sitting down with my friend and co-host Tracy Morrow to talk about some of our favorite takeaways and we'll give practical ways to apply these laws, these ideas to your life and to your leadership. Now,

If this podcast is impacting you, if you're enjoying this podcast, wherever you listen to it, go give us a rating. We'd like a five-star rating, but give us heads up. Give us feedback on how we're doing. We read that. We listen to that. We'll come back and mention it. We love hearing from you, making sure that we're helping you. If you would like to watch this podcast on YouTube,

or you would like to download the bonus resource for this episode, go to maxwellpodcast.com forward slash problem. Let's go. Here is John Maxwell. Today, I'm going to talk to you about problems because during difficult times, people have a lot of problems. And what I've discovered is that most people are problem avoiders.

The moment they see there's a problem, they say, oh my gosh, you got to get out of here. I don't want to know about it. And they just kind of, they leave the scene kind of. Now, what I'm going to teach you today is the fact that problems are essential to your success. You know, if opportunities were so open and blatant,

We'd all seize every opportunity, but most opportunities, they come disguised as a problem. And so I want to talk to you about, you know, what is a problem? And back in 1979, I wrote my first book, okay? And it was called Think on These Things.

And one of my chapter titles was, What is a Problem? And I'm going to tell you, I'm going to read to you what I wrote in that little chapter that day about what a problem is and what does it look like. So I said, first of all, in English, the letter P that starts with the problems, it stands for the fact that they are predictors. Problems move us.

The question is not when crisis comes, are we moved? The question is, where did we move to? Did we swim upstream and better ourselves or did we drift to an undesired location?

But problems move us. They move you, they move me, they get us out of our comfort zone. Problems don't—the reason people don't like problems is problems don't let you stay the same. They require you to make a decision. They require you and I to do something with whatever problem it is. So when you think of a problem, it's a predictor. The second thing that I want you to know about a problem is that it's a reminder.

And what it reminds you and me is the fact that life is difficult, that life is not easy, that you're going to have to work to achieve what you want to work, that there's no such thing as coasting your way to success. You know, if you saw a person on the top of the mountain of success and you asked them how they got there, they wouldn't look at you and say, I have no clue. They'd say, wow, it took a long time. It was a lot of hard work.

Well, problems are reminders to all of us that leadership's not easy. Leading people isn't always easy. Every one of us have people in our organization that they have problems and they sometimes become problems. They're just good, healthy reminders that leadership is tough and so is life. But the letter O in the word problems means that there are opportunities. And that is huge. I don't want you to miss this.

Almost every opportunity that I've ever had in my life that has been a big one came to me as a problem. And what are you going to do about that? And how are you going to change that? When I started my international leadership program, I did so because when I would travel internationally, I would see that people didn't understand leadership.

So I finally one day said, well, I think I've got to go travel and help people understand that. And it opened up an amazing, amazing work until we've trained leaders in every country in the world. And oh my gosh, it's been phenomenal what we've received as far as return. But it began as a problem. Now it was an opportunity. The letter B in problems means that letters are blessings. And what I mean by that is very simple.

They're kind of wake-up calls for us. There's a tendency for us just to, I don't know, coast, just kind of, you know, be an automatic. You know, automatic is just not good, but people love automatic. I mean, in automatic, you don't have to think. You can let your habits kind of take control, and, you know, you don't have to be creative, and you're, you know, we do this the same way, and we go to the same place. People love automatic, right?

And one of the beautiful things about problems is they get us out of automatic. They kick us over the fence to a territory that we, you know, we didn't even want to go. But once we get there, we realize, you know, the blessings that they are going to be in our life. The letter L in problems stands for the fact that they're lessons. Every problem has a lesson to teach us. In fact, when I interview successful people and I ask them, you know, what's the greatest lesson you've ever learned? Almost every time, not every time.

But almost every time they'll talk about a failure in their life. They'll talk about a very difficult, dark period. And they'll say, it was in that time that I became a person of character. It was in that time where I began to make the changes that I need to make. So problems are lessons. The letter E in the word problems is problems are everywhere.

I always I'm always amazed at when people say, well, you know, if I could just leave this company, you know, go over there. It's this grass is greener on the other side type of thinking. And I just want you to know that problems are everywhere. You can't escape them. In fact, there's an expression I love that says no matter where you are, there you are.

And I watch people sometimes, they even try to get away from their self. Just understand, I've got problems, you've got problems, all God's children. We've got problems. Everybody has problems. So it's not like something I can do or someplace I can go that will help me have less problems. It's just, it's life.

The letter M in problem stands for messages. They're messages. It's like the dashboard of a car. The red light comes on. Okay, we've got an oil problem. It's sending us a signal that we need to kind of be aware of. It's saying, John, pay attention to this. And problems do that to us. They're messages. They're messages to us that are kind of forerunners that be ready, be prepared, anticipate difficulty.

And then the last letter in the word problems is letter S, and that means they're solvable. And I love that. I love that very much. I don't know what problem you have right now, but let me just say this to you. There's always an answer. I'm always amazed at people who say, well, you know, there's just no answer. Well, there's always an answer. Now, maybe you haven't found it, but there's always an answer. And when you have the mindset that there's always an answer, what do you do? You stay in the game.

Because you're looking for the answer. In fact, let me tell you this. There's not only always an answer. There's usually more than one answer. In other words, whatever I'm doing, to be honest with you, there's probably even a better way of doing what I'm doing. So I never stay satisfied. I just say, there's an answer. I'm going to find it out. And there's probably even a better answer.

And that allows me to really lead well. I just close with this thought. You know, you can't moan and lead at the same time. You really can't. And when you moan as a leader, people don't. I mean, who wants to be on a moaning leaders team? So next time you look at problems, look at it from the perspective I gave you and look at it and kind of say, hey, I'm ready to tackle that problem. It'll make you a better person. It'll make you more successful.

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Hey, welcome back, everyone. Tracy and I are sitting here. We're talking about, man, we're a leader because we are in problems right now. So maybe some of the talk today will be helping us get better, right? Hey, I was reminded while John was teaching about the Richard Paul Evans quote that said this, everyone has problems. It's how you choose to deal with them.

Some people choose to be winners. Some choose to be whiners. Some choose to be victims while others choose to be victors. One of the things I love, Tracy, about doing podcasts with you, you're such a product of the product, John Maxwell being the product. But man, I've walked with you. I've been able to watch you take on problems and

And literally, that's exactly what we're going to do today. We're going to take problems that each of our podcast family have, people out there that are listening with great problems, and we're going to not let you whine about it. We're going to let you win with it. We're not going to let you become a victim. We're going to help you be a victor. And so, Tracy,

That's what you do. That's what I do. That's what we're supposed to do as leaders is make problems into opportunities. That's what John's teaching us today. With John, doesn't it just feel like salve to your soul? Like sometimes his words are just a reminder to us that I think we feel when a problem hits, like, oh no, something went wrong. And to remind us that problems are essential to our success.

And that kicking it right off with that line to me right there on your on your bonus resource. I hope you've printed that out. Follow along with us. Highlight that star that cut it out and hang it up on your laptop or your on your phone. Remember that. But Mark, for so many leaders, I feel like we I'll put myself in that sometimes we can't even go there sometimes.

Because we either go inward or we go outward, blaming ourselves for the problem. We look at what could we have done. We have so much regret that we go inward with it. Or maybe it's pointing outward at the team, wanting to place or assign blame to somebody or failure that we don't remind ourselves and to look for that this is essential to our success.

And so I'm just curious, like, I would love your insight into this of how do you think that as a leader embracing just the idea, how it flips your mindset that embracing the idea that problems are essential to our success can benefit a leader and their team? I think the way that we think.

identify a problem in our life or even what we do in solving that problem, how we learn, how we embrace it. All of those are what I hear you saying and what I've heard others teach in saying problems can be your greatest friend. Because I can't state it enough. I've already stated it in the preamble introducing John. I stated as soon as I came back by quoting Richard Paul Evans.

It is an undeniable fact that if you're leading for very long, you're going to have problems. There's going to be challenges that come your way. Your response to...

And your engagement in the problem is the indicator of your leadership, not whether you're problem free or not. Not even if you solve the last problem really good. It's how you step into and posture yourself when you have a problem. That's why John's using problem as an acrostic today is absolutely helpful because every problem that we have

has a different perspective, a different vantage point if we will look for it. And it's in that different vantage point that we learn

about ourselves, we learn about our team's elasticity to help step into the problem, and we learn about our development, how we can grow or learn from a problem that we have. That's why I think it is. Your problem is more about your perspective of the problem than the idiosyncrasies of your unique situation.

That's why, Tracy, I can look at you going through challenges. I can look at myself and challenges that I go through and go, wow, if I can step into this problem and look for it as an opportunity to get me to the next level of success, I will be better for this problem. So bring on the problems.

Now, careful how I say that, Tracy, because I'm right now, I can think about as a son, my 95-year-old mother, what I've been doing all week as I was recording this podcast. I can think about my four grandkids and I can think about situations I've never faced before that are problems in my life and go, Mark,

Are you really seeing each of these challenges from a correct perspective? Because that vantage point will most of the time give you the path forward, not trying to get away from the problem altogether. And I've watched too many people treat problems wrong, and then I'll be done and we can go into some of John's handles that he gives us. If you are a leader that pretends you do not have a problem,

or a leader that pretends you don't have problems. You are out of sync with your leadership and even more important, you're out of influence with your team. You cannot lead a team by putting your head in the sand and pretending you don't have a problem. You've got to hit the problem head on. Secondly,

If you get paralyzed, it's not that you don't admit that there's a problem. You'd realize that you got a problem, but you are not actively doing something to find a workaround, changing your perspective. If you find yourself paralyzed, trust me, you're moving backward. You don't even know it. You're losing ground. You're losing success. You're losing credibility when you let a problem be ignored or a problem paralyze you.

We're talking about something today that is so counterintuitive to human nature. I don't care what age you are. Everything inside of a human being

tries at all times, every day from morning till night, to make us comfortable, to make things settled and comfortable again. And if something's off, we're trying to make it right again so that we feel comfortable again. And what we're talking about today is anticipating and even embracing the idea that problems make us better and to try to kick our own selves out of

the comfort zone to anticipate this and understand that this is the only way we grow. You know, one of the things we're going to get to is the O of problem in John's acrostic and is that the word opportunity. And John often says that when opportunity knocks, it's too late to prepare. And I like to think of this as when problems knock,

It's too late to prepare. And so I think there is nothing like a problem to reveal the inner work that a person has done or not done in preparation for a problem. And so how can a leader mature in this area, Mark, if they are, whether they're in a problem or anticipating a problem, or they're kind of coasting along right now, speak to our leaders and,

to help them mature in this area and to be ready for a problem. Yeah, it starts with the very first P, the predictor. A problem presented is a best friend if acknowledged. A problem presented...

I hate finding problems when they're already too far into the organization that it is creating havoc. I love the problem when it's in a predictive place. Here's what I mean. I think problems indicate needs in an organization or in a team or in a person. When I have a problem, I think that problem is indicating, it's predicting there is a need.

Maybe the need is attention, something that you have not been given attention to. You put it on autopilot. You put it out of sight, out of mind. And now because it was left unattended, now it's coming up and creating challenges for you. So sometimes a problem is indicating it needs attention. Sometimes problems is indicating that a situation, a person in your organization needs time.

It could be that it needs resources. You forgot to put oil in your car. Your car starts knocking. You got an older car. You got a hoopty. You're driving around and that thing starts clicking and you hadn't checked the oil in about three years. Your problem is indicating that it needs attention. And then a lot of times I've found that problems in our fast-paced organization is that we need creativity.

problems that are left, things that are left unattended will eventually come around and present a problem because you've not continued to feed that with creativity. So for me, you bring a problem to me. There's a problem in the organization. I'm having a problem with a particular team member. The first thing I ask myself is what is this problem predicting to me? What's it indicating to me?

Where are the things that with just a little bit of discipline, a little bit of intentionality, I can begin to fix the problem so that it doesn't become epic in its impact in the organization? And if you'll just take a problem very quickly and assess on what is predicting to you, many times you can solve the problem before it escalates.

That's right. And so you're in the middle of the problem. OK, and the predictors are there like you just discussed. And John talks about finding opportunity and blessing in the middle of it. And I think that is a brand new thought for a lot of leaders or it's just very abstract and

And so what do you think that leaders misunderstand most about that thought of looking for opportunity? You know, because you've got everything happening. Things are collapsing. People are upset. People are wanting to know what happened. Some people are pointing fingers. Some people are taking all the shouldering, all the blame. Some people are, you know, decisions need to be made. You're trying to decide when what what decisions need to be made immediately. What can be put off?

There's a lot of things happening all at once a lot of times when a problem happens. And so what do you think leaders misunderstand about looking for opportunity and blessing in the middle of the problem? Because I think it sounds almost silly or detached to say it. And so help a leader kind of navigate what that looks like to find opportunity and blessing in a problem. Here's what I love about John's teaching.

all the time. And it's even in this lesson right here. Many times in life, things happen to us. In other words, we feel like we're a pawn in someone else's chess game. For those of you that don't play chess, it feels like you're the most insignificant piece in the puzzle and that you're moved along at will by somebody that don't check with you before they move you. You're just a pawn on someone else's chess game.

And what John does, because we believe leadership is your influence, what John has done with predictors, reminders and opportunities and now blessings is he's putting the control of the problem back into your hands, not the person who you think created the problem. Too often, even leaders say,

have a problem, but they abdicate that it's their problem by looking at who caused it, who did it, who wouldn't respond to it, and making the problem somebody else's. If there's a problem in your area, in your vicinity, just get over it. It's your problem. If you didn't cause it, get over it. It's your problem.

If you don't have all the levers to solve it, get over it. It's your problem. Because once you get it down to, I have a problem and from my seat at the table, from my place in the ecosphere, I'm going to start moving the ball forward and solving this problem. Now you can start seeing opportunities and now you can see the blessings of the problem.

Not until you own the problem will you find opportunities and blessings. Never. I can give you in my life, completely, completely made terrible mistakes, my own making. I didn't choose that I was going to end up all alone and not have any family or any support system. That wasn't my choice. My decisions made it easy for people in my life to turn their back on me. But at the end of the day,

I had made a lot of bad mistakes and the response to those mistakes was beyond my control. But here's the bottom line. When I quit looking and saying, well, nobody likes me anymore. Nobody did this right here. And quit saying, well, man, I deserve this. Everybody should turn their back on me. Both of those were not helpful.

And neither of those felt like a blessing, nor did I see an opportunity. But when I quit looking at all of that and saying, okay, I'm at rock bottom. I'm broke financially. I'm broke relationally. I'm broke spiritually. I'm broke all the way across. Now I have no distractions to really get, for me, a relationship with God. Now I had for me to truly go and start a job without...

having to have a referral because somebody knew me and then having to live up to their expectations. I was able to truly craft my own way. And I learned the power of blessings and opportunities when I was at the lowest place of my life because I ultimately began to take control of I have a problem.

Nobody will refer me and give me a good recommendation. Nobody's going to come see me when I'm feeling lonely. Nobody's going to check up on me. If it's going to happen, it's going to be because I began to move. And from that point, it's been 25 years now. From that point to this, I can see blessings and opportunities with the snap of a finger, even in the greatest of problems.

Because when you're in control, you're able to do it. I want to say one more thing, Tracy. I think this will apply to you and some of the stuff we talked about before. Oftentimes, we get surprised when our world gets turned upside down.

But then after two or three weeks of that surprise, we began to look. We're able to go back and see that the people that made the decisions that turned our world upside down, they had all the earmarkings of doing that for many, many years. They've done that with this person. They've done that with that person. They've done that back there. We just didn't think it was going to happen to us.

When it first happens, we can't see the predictors. But when we kind of back off of it and start seeing the blessings and the opportunities, we go, oh, well, that was just a matter of time. Oh, they've done that before. Wow, that character trait was already there. That's not a surprise. Wow, thank God I got out of that one. Let's see, what's the next opportunity? That's when the blessings and the opportunities start happening.

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And it doesn't have to shape the way that we respond. Someone else's choices, someone else's decisions don't have to alter the way that we respond, which leads us into lessons. I like to touch on this briefly because after you move through opportunities and blessings, I think that some people in his extracting the lessons, the lessons only come when

If you are brave enough and humble enough to really take an honest look at your, your part in it and what you'll do differently moving forward, because some people overcorrect and out of fear or wound or trauma are like, well, I will never let someone that close to me again. I will never let somebody have that much access to my heart and my trust and my faith. It's an overcorrection based on injury. And,

And then somebody else on the broad opposite end of the spectrum might be like, ah, that was not me. I did my part. Everybody else dropped the ball. Take no responsibility at all. Talk briefly because I know our time is short and I do want to leave them with like just a what is the first step? Talk about extracting the lessons from a humble space, Mark.

So I'm so glad you're going to give us just a little bit of time to unpack this lesson part, because I don't believe we should ever miss an opportunity for a good lesson ever, whether it's failing, whether it's a mistake, whether it is we just hit a grand slam in the World Series. Never miss a moment.

and the less than that moment can give you. That's so true in problems. I'm right now to the point of nausea with some of our support staff. We had a complete failure yesterday of John's time, a client time. In 35 minutes, we could not get technology to cooperate with a committed time that John and I had for mentoring about 180 people. Long story, won't get into it.

But the colossal mistake was not that we were not ready and we never were able to do the phone call because we couldn't get technology to service. That happens sometimes. The colossal mistake is, is that we have missed a discipline three different times with the same results. So we didn't make the mistake not once, not twice, but three times by missing one of the key ingredients to make sure that we were prepared before we ever got there.

I have, for the point of nausea, I've got three more hours because John says that you can celebrate for 24 hours and you can learn for 24 hours and then you move on. And it was such a mistake that it happened at 2 o'clock yesterday. And while I'm recording right now, it's 1102. I have two hours and 58 minutes to still kick the cat about how frustrated I am about what happened yesterday. And I'm counting every minute of it. Here's my point in saying that right there.

You can't really get a good lesson if you don't have your emotions in check. Too many people try right after their world is turned upside down to ask themselves, what am I learning here? You're not learning anything. You need to lament. You need to be frustrated. You need to let emotion out. You need to go have a mental health day. You need to go create some space. You need to go do something because if you try to learn a lesson and you're emotionally distraught, you're learning the wrong lesson.

That's why you've got to go in. You're not ready to truly learn what went wrong until you start seeing it from an opportunistic mindset and from a blessing in your life. When you see it from an opportunity, what does this give me a chance to do? Oh my, I've got all these changes now. I have an opportunity to do stuff. What all could I be doing?

Now you're starting to change your perspective. And then secondly, when you start going, boy, this is a nice little break. Well, I'm glad I don't have to do that anymore. I'm glad that broke so I can get me a new one. Don't know how I'm going to pay for it yet, but I'm glad that broke. When you can start seeing the blessing in the problem, now you're ready to start learning the lesson. So just remember this, blessing before lesson, blessing before lesson.

Don't try to get a lesson out of a bad situation when your mindset is bad. It'll turn you angry. It'll turn you bitter. Most of the time, the lesson is about somebody else's shortcomings and not yours. You are not ready to learn until you see the blessing from the problem. Now you're ready to learn.

It's a little bit of Southern in there. That is blessing and lesson. And I want to say to our friends, our international friends, kick the cat is not an actual kicking the cat. That's just an American saying. He will not kick an animal. I just have to tell our friends that so we don't get messages from friends like, please don't kick a sweet cat.

Okay. So let's just end. Yeah. Send us a picture of your cat on Spotify or wherever you live. Our little sweet cat, William. He would never kick on the model. So let's just end. John ends with solvable. There's always an answer. Just give a word of encouragement to our leaders who are perhaps seeing that a problem is on the horizon or that they are in the middle of what feels like the biggest problem of their leadership journey. And,

John ends with S in problems, that it is solvable, that there is, he encourages us with that there is always an answer. Just end with a word of encouragement to our leaders. Yeah, yeah. Your real problem is if you are paralyzed or you are pretending there are no problems in your life. When you actually have a problem, you now have to understand that

you've taken the first step, you're going to embrace it, you're going to fix it, you're going to solve it, you're going to improve from it. To be able to do that, you've got to begin with the end in mind. So as I end, I want to go back to the beginning. Don't ignore a problem. Don't deny a problem. But I also want to tell you, you need to start with your problem by going, there is a solution to this problem. It is solvable. In fact, John would say there's not only an answer, there's a bunch of answers.

There's not only one solution, there's multiple solutions. I would challenge you in your life as you have problems. Maybe there's some family problems. Hey, by the way, get ready. Thanksgiving is coming. All the fun in family dysfunction is getting ready to come around. And so you may have a problem. It may be at the familial level. It may be at the professional level. It may be at the personal level.

You can solve that problem. All hope is not lost. All of the solutions are not dead ends. Keep moving. Keep believing there is a solution and you'll find that solvable problem. It comes back, gang. It does. What Tracy and I and John have been sharing today, it comes back to your mindset. How do you see yourself? The thing I want to challenge you to do today to carry this lesson forward is I want to challenge you to bet on yourself.

To believe in yourself. We have a product called the 15 Laws of Growth. It's an online course. It is designed to give you a better platform to believe in yourself that within you, you have what it takes. It'll take you through all 15 laws. It's John teaching. We have some takeout sheets that will help you go deep and a lot of takeaways to help you get higher.

intentional and becoming better. So that's typically $499. We've got it on sale for you for $99. The link is in the show notes and it'll make you better. Hey, we had a podcast listener that listened to how to develop an abundance mindset, Jules.

Jules says there is opportunity in any situation. Gratitude makes you focus on abundance. Jules, that's so good. I might have you replace John in one of our upcoming podcasts. That's good stuff, Jules. Hey, thank you for listening. Thanks all of you for giving us comments, giving us ratings. We appreciate you and we'll see you again next episode. Are you ready to elevate your leadership to new heights?

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