3 Questions to Become a Better Leader

Summary

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Maxwell Leadership Podcast: “3 Questions to Become a Better Leader”

Host: John Maxwell
Co-hosts: Mark Cole & Chris Robinson
Date: January 15, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into three formative questions that have guided John Maxwell’s lifelong journey as a transformational leader. First encountered as a freshman in college, these questions are designed to help leaders at any stage unlock their purpose, passion, and growth trajectory. Mark Cole and Chris Robinson join John to reflect on how these questions anchor their leadership—for themselves and within their organization—and offer real-world tips for personal and organizational application.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Origin and Power of the Three Leadership Questions

• [03:41] John Maxwell shares a pivotal moment as a college freshman, receiving three questions from a guest lecturer in a Psych 101 class.
• For 50+ years, John’s returned to these questions to guide his leadership.

The Three Questions:

1. What do you cry about?
2. What do you sing about?
3. What do you dream about?

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2. Question One: What Do You Cry About?

Theme: What breaks your heart and compels you to make things right?

• John admits, as a young man, his answers were trivial (“the girl wouldn’t go on a date”). Maturity brings clarity to deeper pains.

• Mature Reflection:
  “What do I cry about today? Oh, it’s very simple. In my life, I cry about poor leadership. Because if we’ve ever needed good leadership in our world, it’s right now.”
  — John Maxwell [05:08]

• John urges reframing:
  “What’s not right—and you would like to make it right?”
  — John Maxwell [06:22]

• Chris Robinson’s Perspective:
  Chris confesses he doesn’t have a single overwhelming cause but acknowledges emotional responses to stories of overlooked potential.
  “At 45 years old now, I still do not have that one thing that just pierces my heart... I still struggle with this.” — Chris Robinson [14:07]

• Mark Cole on Organizational Emotion:
  “What makes us cry is bad leadership. We are sad with bad leadership, with bad models of leadership. That’s what makes us cry.”
  — Mark Cole [18:41]

Memorable Story:

Mark shares an intimate grandparent moment, moved to tears by his grandkids mirroring his positive influence:
“Paul, everything you do, I want to do better when I’m older…these little kids that need a voice in their life that makes them believe in their value, in their potential, is what they’re longing for right now…I literally went to bed last night weeping...”
— Mark Cole [22:15]

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3. Question Two: What Do You Sing About?

Theme: What fills you with joy and fulfillment in your work?

• John’s revelation: It’s the discovery that people can learn to lead—leadership isn’t innate, it’s developed.
• Transformative book reference: “Developing the Leader Within You,” which reframed leadership as a skill to be built.

“Adding value to people, teaching, training leaders. That’s what makes me sing.”
— John Maxwell [08:18]

Co-host Reflections:

• Mark Cole:
  “For me, I sing about people overcoming great obstacles and experiencing a life they never dreamt. When I get in a movie and people have these high aspirations and they go through crazy difficulty and overcome the difficulty and then achieve...much greater than their dream—man, I become a musical performer."
  — Mark Cole [23:17]

• Chris Robinson:
  “What makes me happy...very early on...as a sales manager at a call center, I fell in love with leadership development...what if I can make a living just adding value to people, help develop leaders?”
  — Chris Robinson [25:08]

Notable Quote:
“Unhappiness is not knowing what you want and killing yourself to get it.”
— John Maxwell, quoted by Chris Robinson [25:04]

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4. Question Three: What Do You Dream About?

Theme: The vision that drives your ambition and contribution

• John’s dream matured into making a difference through teaching leadership, based on his belief that “everything rises and falls on leadership.”

• 30-Day Challenge:
  “For the next 30 days, ask those three questions. What do you cry about? What do you sing about? What do you dream about?...I will promise you those three questions will make you a better leader.”
  — John Maxwell [10:53]

Personal & Organizational Applications:

• Chris: Dream is seeing people they help live out their dreams and then help others, creating a ripple effect of impact.
  — Chris Robinson [27:53]

• Mark’s Childhood Reflection:
  Describes dreams as a five-year-old “captain” bringing precious cargo to those in need—now realized in awakening and scaling others’ potential as a leader.
  “In my little world, what I was dreaming is what still I dream about right now: scaling my influence to awaken the potential in millions of people.”
  — Mark Cole [28:54]

• Organizational Dream:
  Creating an environment where dreams of every team member and coach are awakened and realized.

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Practical Takeaways

• Reflection Assignment: Spend 30 days regularly contemplating the three questions for personal clarity and growth.
• Organizational Reflection: Challenge your team to answer these questions collectively to uncover your organization’s core drivers—what you collectively “cry, sing, and dream” about.
• Use these questions to align both individual and group actions to values and vision.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Fifty years ago, I heard them in a classroom. They still have brought improvement in my life.” — John Maxwell [11:31]
• “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing with passion.” — Mark Cole, quoting his father [15:49]
• “Are you dreaming and are you awakening the dream in others?...Let’s begin to pursue that in 2025.” — Mark Cole [32:57]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [03:41] — John Maxwell introduces the three leadership questions.
• [05:08] — John discusses “What do you cry about?”
• [08:18] — John shares “What do you sing about?”
• [09:32] — John examines “What do you dream about?”
• [14:07] — Chris Robinson shares his struggle with “cry about.”
• [18:41] — Mark and Chris discuss what makes the organization “cry.”
• [22:15] — Mark’s emotional story about his grandchildren and influence.
• [23:17] — Mark on “sing about”—joy in helping others overcome.
• [25:08] — Chris on personal joy in developing leaders.
• [27:53] — Chris on dreaming and the impact on others.
• [28:54] — Mark’s childhood dreams foreshadowing his leadership journey.
• [32:57] — Organizational dreaming and awakening dreams in others.

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Conclusion

By returning to these foundational questions—what you cry about, sing about, and dream about—you can unlock deeper self-awareness and more effective, passionate leadership. Both individually and organizationally, these questions serve as guideposts for living and leading on purpose. As John urges, take the 30-day challenge to sit with these questions and see how they can transform your leadership journey in 2025.

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Transcript

[Mark Cole]

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[John Maxwell]

If you're a leader, these are three questions you need to be asking yourself on a periodic and let me give you the background of what I'm about to teach you. When I was a freshman in college, we had a guest teacher come into our psychology class. It was just a Psych 101 class. And that guest lecturer, that guest teacher, looked at us that day and said, I would like to talk to you about three questions that you really need to ask yourself as young leaders. And so I'm in the class and I write these three questions down and I thought, boy, those were good. Never did I realize 50 years later, those three questions I would still be asking myself as a leader. These three questions will make you a better leader. It'll help you to lead people better. So let me give them to you. They were given to me as a freshman in a Psych 101 class. Let me give them to you today, and let's see if that doesn't help lift your leadership lid. Question number one, that Prof. That day looked at us and asked, what do you cry about? Wow. Now you have to understand, I'm a freshman in college. And when he asked me what I cried about, I didn't have a grasp, a leadership gravitas to understand where that question could really lead me and help me as a leader. You know, honestly, as a freshman in college, what I was crying about is the girl that I asked out for a date last week said no. And so that's the biggest thing in a college kid's life. Oh my gosh, she didn't go out with me. Well, when he asked the question, what do you cry about as a young leader, I didn't have a good answer. And many of you, by the way, are very young leaders and you just haven't grown and matured enough to perhaps, maybe even answer these questions to really help you reach your potential. So I'm going to ask you the question and then I'm going to give you my mature answer after not as a freshman in college, but after several years of leading, I can answer these questions really well today. Of course I can. I've had experience and I'm Passing them on to you honestly, so you could do the very, so you can do the very same thing. Okay, so you know, what do I cry about today? Oh, it's very simple. In my life, I cry about poor leadership. Because if we've ever needed good leadership in our world, it's right now. Because we're having a lot of troubles. And yet I've not seen good leaders step forth. I'm not seeing leaders step up and say, hey, let me help you, let me serve you, let me take you to another level. I suppose the expression that I have in my heart that best describes where I am today as a leader is honestly, I'm a little leadership sad. I just think, wow, we have such a grand moment to lead people well, and we seem to be in it for ourselves. We seem to have leaders that are very self serving, very immature in their lives. And so, you know, I ask myself the question all the time, you know, what makes me sad? Well, just leadership. It hasn't reached its potential. So when you ask yourself what do I cry about? Form the question like this, what's not right? And you would like to make it right. I mean, what do you look about in life and say, oh, that's not the way it should be. And I would like to do something about it. That's a terrific question for a young leader. You know, what do you cry about? Question number two is what do you sing about? In other words, the first question is what makes you sad? Well, this one is kind of what makes you glad? What thrills you as a young leader? What makes you happy? Now that's an easy question for me. In fact, very young, in my 20s, I got that answer. I got that answer quicker than what do I cry about When I ask myself what do I sing about? What really makes me happy is that I discovered in my 20s that people could learn to lead. And the moment I realized that people had capacity to learn to lead. In other words, you didn't have to be a born leader. I mean, think about it. If you were a born leader or you were born not a leader, you wouldn't need to train or develop any leaders. Think about it for a moment. I mean, you know, they either had it or they didn't have it. But my, it was a positive breakthrough moment for me when all of a sudden I understood that the people can learn to lead. And then it became even a happier moment for me. I mean, talk about singing. When I realized that not only I could learn to lead, but I could teach them how to Lead. When I wrote the book Developing the Leader within youn, that was a life changing book for people because that was the first book that basically said you can develop yourself as a leader. Up until that time, again, people thought leaders were born. And so there wasn't a lot of books written on leadership. And all of a sudden I said, no, no, you can develop yourself as a leader and more people. Of all the books I've written, when people come up and say the book that changed my life, the most, the most life changing book that I've written from the people's viewpoint is Developing the Leader within youn, what did I do? I began to show people how they can learn to lead, how they can develop as a leader, how they can grow as a leader. It became absolutely, absolutely beautiful. So just ask yourself the question, you know, what makes me sing? What is it that really, really brings fulfillment and joy? To me, it's a great question. Adding value to people, teaching, training, leaders. That's what makes me sing. So what do you cry about? What is it that you need to change because you're sad and you can make a change? What do you sing about? What is it that you're doing that really work? And then the third question that Prof. Gave us that day is what do you dream about? And that one was life changing for me because, you know, as I began to mature, I began to dream about making a difference. And so I became very intentional. The fact that I'm going to make a difference in people's lives and how am I going to make that difference? I one day settled the fact that probably the best difference I could make is in the area of leadership. Because I grew up believing everything rises and falls on leadership. And so I said, that's going to be my world. That's what I'm going to teach leaders. I want to teach them how to be competent. I'm going to teach them how to have good values. So now I just kind of wrap up our mentoring session by encouraging you for the next 30 days to ask those three questions. What do you cry about? What do you sing about? What do you dream about? And if you can identify the things that you want to change because they really bother you, and if you can identify the thing that you do well that really helps people succeed. And if you can identify what is that dream that you have of making a difference, if you can identify those three, ask those three questions and try to fill in the answers for those. I will promise you those three questions will make you a better leader. Fifty years ago, I heard them in a classroom. They still have brought improvement in my life.

[Podcast Announcer]

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[Mark Cole]

Hey, welcome back, everyone. Chris, I love this quote from Oprah Winfrey. She said, passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you. You've watched her for years and years and years awaken people, women, to something greater within her. I think she has something. She's answered these questions John just shared. Now, I've never had the privilege of talking with her, but I guarantee you she could answer them just like that because I think she understands what makes her cry, what makes her sing, what makes her dream. And Chris, if I can be honest with you, I've watched a couple of Oprah Winfrey's shows and she made me cry. So I think she's caught it and captured it. And so I'm really excited to talk about passion with you.

[Chris Robinson]

Yeah, absolutely. I love it, this topic. And, you know, especially when, you know, you're looking to kind of just grow as a leader, grow as an individual. I think these questions are foundational and kind of setting the tone of what you do and how you grow as a leader over your time. You know, when I first look at this question, you know, let's just kind of go back and forth today on this one because I'll be honest with you. The first question is, what do you cry about now? I am at 45 years old now, and I can honestly say that at this point in my life, I still do not have that one thing that just pierces my heart that I just want to get out. Like, oh my gosh, this is this world problem that I have to solve and find and fix and do. And so I still struggle with this. And I was asked this question probably back around 2007, 2008, through some books again, that were developing me in my personal growth. And I remember struggling with that question. And here I am almost 15 years later 20 years later, I still don't know that one that I could cry about now happy about and dream about all day long.

[Mark Cole]

Let's go all day cry about.

[Chris Robinson]

And I don't know if it's my attitude bend of always looking for the positive, but for me personally, I still haven't found that yet.

[Mark Cole]

Yeah. You know, basically what I want to tell you Today, on the third episode of 2025, I brought you a very hard hearted person. Somebody that just does not know how to get emotional. Somebody that doesn't have a soft spot in his heart. And I'm just kidding, guys. You got to know how much I love, love this guy that's sitting across from me. This is one of my incredible favorite people. And let me tell you something about Chris, because I appreciate your candor. You know, I'm a big authenticity vulnerability, what you see is what you get kind of guy. And so does everybody in podcast land. That's how you are too. And I love how you just kind of laid that out there. I've watched this guy, I'm looking at our podcast viewers right now. I've watched this guy get so emotional and cry when he realized the significance of what you get to do. We could start talking about the fact that we're on a podcast, talking to a hundred thousands of people right now, and you'd get emotional.

[Chris Robinson]

Yeah, that'd make me cry.

[Mark Cole]

Somewhere in there. It would. Somewhere in there, I believe, is the answer to this question that John is challenging you to answer. Because there's something about people that probably are not seen as worthy actually achieving worthy things that awakens that emotion in you. Because I've watched you tear up cheering about something. There's something in there. Let me, let me tell you, because what I think I want to do today is I agree with your comments that if you understand your passion and you'll unlock your passion, you will absolutely become a better leader. I'm reminded in this session, I've probably said this in podcast family before. One of my favorite quotes my dad gave me over and over again growing up, he said, mark, if it's worth doing, it's worth doing with passion. Because what he was really saying is, don't do something that you're only doing halfway. Don't do something that you're not excited about. How John Maxwell says that is when people say, what's your favorite book? He says, the one I'm writing now, it's the passion around the here and now. I think these questions are good at a personal level. Podcast friends and family to be able to answer these and really work through it. Those moments that really grab your heart. There are some people out in our podcast family, unlike Chris, that really does not cry. You don't know how to show that emotion. And I'm not saying that the emotion of touching your heart and pulling your string is not there, but it's very protected for whatever reason in your life. But I think you need to really wrestle with this question over the next 30 days. As John said, I think you want to ask yourself the question, what does touch, pull, grab my heartstrings? What is it that I sing about? What is it that I dream about? The second thing that I want our podcast family to do, Chris, is I want them to answer this as a team, as an organization. What is it that has the heartbeat of your organization, that when it's noticed, everybody just stops everything else and focuses? Everybody says, it doesn't matter what quitting time is. We're not going to quit till we get this done. What is the thing that wakes people up and say, we'll give extra as an organization because we want to hit that need? Every organization should have a cry seeing and dream question to answer as well. For me, what makes me cry, and this always has, has been people living below their potential. Now, for those of you that's new to our podcast family, at 33 years of age, I found my purpose statement. I had been living it up until then. I just didn't articulate it, didn't know how to articulate it. And it was at 33 that I discovered that Mark Cole exists to motivate and inspire people to reach their full potential. When I got that statement, I went back and went, oh, that movie made me cry. What was it about that movie that made me cry? Somebody overlooked with the potential that was in them. I could right now think of a little girl that has come into our life. I can think about my grandkids that has all this potential, and their potential has been overlooked. And right now, without faking, I could just get caught up in people that are overlooked. I think that comes because my mom was the leader in our household. My mom's 95 at the recording of this podcast, getting ready to be 96 in March. And my mom was an overlooked leader because 96 years ago when she was born, the world was even less friendly to women in leadership. And I can remember my mom saying, if I would have just been born at a different time, I would be able to lead at a different level. And I watched my mom with all this potential. She absolutely was running the show in my home. And I watched her overlooked by most of society. And I think somewhere in that, it really grabbed me to people that has a potential, but they're overlooked and they're not given a pathway to pursue that potential. It breaks my heart. It breaks my heart like big time. Take me to a movie to where some little girl is overlooked and pushed aside and not seen for her potential, but seen for her circumstances, and it'll rip me every single time as an organization. John basically alluded to this. He's the visionary of the organization. What makes us cry is bad leadership. What makes us cry. We can talk politics if you want to. We can talk religion. We can talk about any of the things that are very important to us. And when it is done by bad leaders, it is an incredible, just sadness that overcomes our organization. We are sad with bad leadership, with bad models of leadership. That's what makes us cry.

[Chris Robinson]

Yeah, I love that and I love that you fleshed that out, because that really gives me some context. As you talked about several different things. You know, there's plenty of stuff that I emotionally, physically cry over, but I think I probably, like many listeners out there, there's gotta be somebody else, at least one, that when you hear this, I think of that internal heartbeat of like, I wake up day in and day out thinking about this thing that makes me cry that I want to go out and solve. But, you know, as I listen to you, I was looking for and I heard themes, you know, what movies make you cry? Is there a certain theme inside of a movie that gets you every time? Is there situations that you see throughout life that, you know, make you cry? Are there people that you have a soft heart for it that make you cry? I can answer yes to all of those questions, but I think taking the big context of that question and thinking that, oh, this is the. The heartbeat. Because you've seen the movies of people that, hey, they dedicate their lives to those things that made them cry. And I think that I probably took that phrase or this thought for years answering this question to that extreme. And now with you breaking it down there, going, oh, okay, getting clarity. After 20 years on this question, the podcast is over.

[Mark Cole]

We finally woke Chris up to what makes him cry. Let me give you one real time, very vulnerable, personal example last night, speaking of making me cry, Stephanie and I are having the privilege of pouring a lot into our grandchildren right now. A lot. And I've been traveling right up to recording this podcast late last Night. And I came in and I took our oldest grandson to this program that he's doing to kind of help him with his cognitive skills and stuff. We're on the way. And he asked me to play his favorite song because we're in G. Paul's fast car, which they love me to drive fast. Don't, don't, don't send them a text, guys. And he said, paul, G. Paul put our. Put our favorite song on there. Which, that's not even important. It's a good song, but it's not even important. After our song came on, another song that came on that's a little boy singing about wanting to be like his dad. He says, I want to be like you. And he said a four letter word. And the dad said, hey, where did you get that? And he says, oh, I heard you say it the other day. I want to be like you, dad. Isn't that cool? And so then fast forward to verse number two. And he's saying his nightly prayers. And his little grandson just says the most brilliant, beautiful prayer. And he said, where did you learn to pray like that? And he said, dad, you've been doing that. We finished the song and writer said to me, he said, paul, everything you do, I want to do better when I'm. When. When I'm older. And I went, wow. It blew me away. I get home and my little Penelope, she's the perfect grandchild. The other three boys, not perfect is not the word I would use. We get home and she said I'd been traveling a bit. She said, paul, will you just hold me till I go to bed? I've missed you.

[Chris Robinson]

You.

[Mark Cole]

She's two. I went, yes, I do.

[Chris Robinson]

I'll sleep in your room.

[John Maxwell]

I'll sleep on the floor.

[Mark Cole]

My point is. But. But why did that make me cry? Because these little kids that need a voice in their life that makes them believe in their value in their potential is what they're longing for right now. Stephanie, my wife, and I get to be that voice for our grandkids. They don't want to be me because I'm their dad. They've got a dad. They want to be me because I'm unlocking the potential in them. And I literally went to bed last night weeping for the two comments my two little grandkids said last night because they are around somebody that's believing in their potential.

[Chris Robinson]

Wow. Love that.

[Mark Cole]

Yeah. Let's talk about sing. Well, there you have that tear jerker right there. Let's do talk about sing. And so let me break down how I. I see singing and. And where I get super excited. It's all tied together, which I think your passions are. For me, I sing about people overcoming great obstacles and experiencing a life they never dreamt. When I get in a movie and people have these high aspirations and they go through crazy difficulty and overcome the difficulty and then achieve not only their dream, but something much greater than their dream. Man, I become a musical performer. Look out, Prince. Look out, Michael Jackson. I'm going to be the next icon because there's a song that comes within me that I just want to blare it from the tops that says, hey, if it happened to them, it can happen to you. If it happened to Mark Cole, it can happen to you. Chris, you're a testimony of that. When I hear your story, every time, Every time I hear your story, which is twice a year at least, I'll hear your story on stage in front of thousands, and that starts happening. And every time you start sharing that story, Soarin's another one. When I hear that person that's overcome obstacles and now they're living a better life they ever dreamed, man, there is a song that comes in me, right? I think that comes back to the potential in people, which is my purpose. Potential overlooked, cry. Potential exploited, explored, leveraged, and better than ever. I want to sing.

[Chris Robinson]

Yeah, yeah. You know, for me, what makes me happy. Let me give real quick, though, for those of you that are out there listening, this is a quote from John Max actual's book, the 15 Laws of Quotas. Unhappiness is not knowing what you want and killing yourself to get it.

[Mark Cole]

Wow, I love that quote.

[Chris Robinson]

I love that quote. Come back to that. So what makes me happy, though, is I found very, very early on in my career, I was very fortunate as a sales manager at a call center that I fell in love with leadership development and helping people grow and develop. And so, you know, when I was able to have this thought or this concept or idea of, hey, what if I can make a living just adding value to people, help develop leaders, I thought, oh, my goodness, this would be incredible. If I could just train people, if I could just coach people, if I could just speak in front of audiences, what type of world would that be?

[Mark Cole]

Wow.

[Chris Robinson]

And I remember just that just filling my heart, and I getting to do that every single time that I could. So I would do sales meetings, I would do this. I mean, you would not believe the amount of motivational sales meetings I would do. Like, I was speaking in front of thousands. And I remember Going into a Toastmasters one day time that had five people in there, and they give you this outline that says, hey, this is the context of today's presentation. You're in this sales meeting. It's a first of the year meeting. And this. And I mean, I was standing up, I was, you know, motivating the crowd, and there the evaluation came back. They're like, well, you need to bring it down a little bit. There's only five of us in here. But here's the thing. I was not in that room. No, I was not in that room. In my head, I was in the context of illustration. In my. The joy that I had in doing that was outstanding today. You know, to get to do that day in and day out, I mean, it just amazes me to get to record the podcast, to go and do teaching calls, a webinar, to fly in, to fly out. You know, my wife says, well, doesn't that drain you? Like, you're going there, you're coming back in the same day? Oh, yes, I'll be back in time for dinner. This is great.

[Mark Cole]

That's the truth. We love trips like that. You know, as an organization and again, leaders, I'm challenging you to answer these questions personally, but I'm also wanting to challenge those of us that lead an organization to find out what's the heartbeat of the organization. What's your organization cry about? Bad leadership. What our organization sings about, what we declare every time we get in lead meetings. Chris, you're. There is when somebody gets enough value and they go become the hero to other people, they become a multiplier. And we hear these stories and it just fills us. I mean, we've got 53, 54,000 coaches around the world. They make us sing. They make us sing because we're watching things unlock within them and they're reaching their potential. They're going out and doing greater things, and it's because we get to be a part of their story of making them the hero.

[Chris Robinson]

Yeah, I love that. I mean, that brings us to number three, which is really what I dream about is, you know, seeing, you know, people that we help live out dreams that they have. There's nothing more fulfilling than going, hey, I helped this person go from here to there. And now they're living their dream, but now, on top of it, they're helping other people do it as well, you know, and to see them have experiences and the life that they visioned out, that. That just fulfills me. It's what I dream about. And what a privilege I can remember.

[Mark Cole]

I've told this story from stage at IMCs before. I can remember as a 5 kid standing on my carport. You remember those little railings, little railings with all the little design and the railings that would stop, I don't know what it was going to stop because it wasn't going to start up a car. But it was little cast iron railings that would keep, I guess people like me from jumping off the back into the backyard. And I would stand on those with a little pole that go all the way up to the roof in the carport. And I would stand on there and I would imagine that the carport was a ship. And I was taking this ship with cargo to regions of the world that did not have my precious cargo. Food. Sometimes, sometimes it was material, sometimes it was fighter jets that would go rescue people that was fighting. I took all kind of things around the world in my carport ship. And I would dream about the idea that I was bringing something to people that would give them something they could not have. And I would dream about that. And then I can remember one day I was on this ship and I was sailing the seas and it was a stormy and I was almost falling off and I looked and there was a plane in the sky. And all of a sudden I went, man, this ship is slow. And all of a sudden my carport ship became an airplane. And man, I began to fly the airplane with cargo and people and the people that was in the back of my plane, that I was the captain of this plane, they were going and I would drop them off and they would go into their communities and impact like crazy. Until one day I was inside and got to listen to the launch of a space shuttle. And I went, why am I stuck in this atmosphere when I could be in a different stratosphere? And now all of a sudden my carport that was a cargo ship that became an airplane now became the spaceship. And I can remember this, Chris, and what I was doing there is I was taking people to places they could not go by themselves. They were going farther than they ever gone. Well, really what I was doing as a five year old kid that I could vividly do, I could take you to the place 1874 Rock Cut Place, Conley, Georgia. I could take you, Chris, and I would put you in that carport because I'd drive by it every once in a while and show my kids and I would get in that carport and I'd say at 5 years old, I was dreaming about What I'm doing now, now I wasn't dreaming that I was going to work alongside somebody like John Maxwell or Chris Robinson, but I was dreaming that I was taking stuff to people that they could not get by themselves. I was dreaming about taking people to go make an impact that they never would have made without my airplane. And I was taking people to a site that they had never seen. Because really what I dreamed and what every one of us is dreaming, it's in there. I promise you it's in there. Take some time and you'll go back to 5 year old and go that was silly. No, that wasn't. That was profound. That was mindless. No, that began to impress the mind on what needed to happen. And in my little world, what I was dreaming is what still I dream about right now. Scaling my influence to awaken the potential in millions of people. Now that's what I dreamed back as a five year old kid. I couldn't have articulated that. I didn't have the wisdom, I didn't have the life experience, I'd have the exposure. But I kept walking toward making sure that I was growing my impact so that it would set millions of people to the potential, to the impact within them. That dream's in every one of us. There is a dream similar to that that goes back and shapes the way you play pretended there is a dream. And if we can awaken that and begin with our adult shoes to intentionally begin to chase that, that's what John's after today. I love one of the greatest ideas. I think that came from a business leader that we had, a guy named Paul Martinelli that he came up with this idea called the Pack, the President's Advisory Council.

[Chris Robinson]

Yeah, I was one of the first members.

[Mark Cole]

You were one of the first, were you really? I didn't know that. Give me a high five. I think it's one of the best things that we've done. Here's why is we found people that wanted to use their skills to do the work of the mission. They want to utilize what they're passionate about and volunteer themselves to make someone else's journey a little bit bit smoother, a little bit faster and a little bit bigger. And I'm watching. We have PAC members right now. They're under your care. We have PAC members right now that if you combine the hours served in any given year, it would be 24 hours a day for 18 months. In 12 months. 18, 12, 24 hours a day, 18 months in a 12 month span, they are serving others in their skill set and their passion. Here's why. Because for an organization to really dream, it's got to be about awakening the dream of the people inside the organization. My dream as the CEO of Maxwell Leadership is to create an environment that is so hope filled, so courageous, that the dreams that reside in every person on our team and all 54,000 coaches around the globe, there would be an ingredient that would awaken that dream within them. My question to you, podcast family, because Chris and I started this podcast saying we weren't going to have enough time. And I'm looking at the time now. We didn't have enough time, we didn't have enough content for the time and now we don't have enough time for the content. My question to you, leader, is are you dreaming and are you awakening the dream in others? And if you can't say that, do what my good friend Chris did at the very beginning of this podcast and go, I've heard this idea 15 years that I needed to understand what I cry about. And then in this podcast he went, whoa, you just gave me some perspective that I can go dig into that. When I asked you, go dig into what makes you cry? What's that tear? What makes you sing? What's that song? What makes you dream? What's that aspiration? And let's begin to pursue that in 2025. Hey, I believe all that starts on the inside. So our special for you today is we're going to give you a discount to the book Developing the leader within youn 2.0. It's in your show notes. You'll be able to use the promotion code podcast and you'll be able to get that. J.J. listened to the podcast recently, how to Create a Growth Environment. By the way, that's a great podcast. Let's put that in the show notes as well. Jake, JJ said getting stuck is something that happens to leaders as well. Thanks, Mark. Thanks team for getting unstuck with your thinking and bringing a great lesson to us, the listeners, jj. That's what we try to do every single week. Thank you for joining the podcast today. We will see you next week for a new episode. Until then, go lead well, because everyone deserves to be led well.

[John Maxwell]

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.