Chris Goede (6:25)

No, no, no, no, no.

John Maxwell (6:27)

Keep them together, not apart. Bring them together. Success and failure go together. I've never known a person that had a success story that wasn't filled with failure. I just haven't. In fact, when I have my learning lunches, I have seven questions I ask a person when I want to learn from. I do these monthly. I've done this for 35, 40 years, have learning lunches, and one of my questions is, tell me about your failure. Tell me about your losses, tell me about your adversity, tell me about your crisis, because that's where you find the soul of a person. And by the way, wisdom always comes out of crisis. Always. Wisdom doesn't come out of the easy lessons. Wisdom doesn't come out of coasting. Wisdom comes out of trials and difficulties and problems. That's why it's so sweet and so beautiful and so insightful. That's where wisdom comes from. So that afternoon, I spoke on flops, failures and fumbles. I told story after story of stupid things I did. I'm telling you, these leaders are laughing, they're clapping, they're cheering, they're punching one another. They're looking at me and they're saying, how did he ever build one of the top 10 churches in America? This kid's done so many dumb things in their life, and I'm laughing at myself. They're laughing with me. When I got done that afternoon, it was like a catharsis. It was like having a healing service. They were on their feet, they clapped, they applauded. That was back when we had cassettes and at the back we had wool and type of duplicators and we were putting out tapes. Now listen to me very carefully. When we have adversity, it helps us connect with other people. I mean, I have many shortcomings, I have many faults, I have many failures. And let me listen to me right now. I have fear, but adversity, it'll make you and I totally relatable to other people.

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Mark Cole (9:32)

Hey, welcome back. And Chris, I love this lesson. I love doing it with you and I love it because we have a lot of relational leaders on our team. We really do. I work hard to be a relational leader because that's kind of my first filter. But, boy, you're a relatable leader as well. In fact, guys, I'm going to go ahead and tell you, stay tuned because Chris was just telling me some stuff he took away from John's today that he's going to talk to me about and ask questions on. And it's truly just a great framework of how to relate with people. So, man, let's dive in.

Chris Goede (10:05)

Yeah, let's dive in. I think this is such a great topic for you and I to talk about because we've had the opportunity to be with John for so long and people will come up to you. I know all the time, me periodically. And what's John really like? And I'm like, listen, he is what you see. Like, we're going to talk sports. He's going to make mistakes. He's going to spill drinks at the dinner table every single time. And he's, he's so relatable. And why is he so relatable? I think it's because he's so real. So we're going to talk about this. The first thing I want to do is set the stage for this. We're just going to talk a Little bit about leading in a way that makes you relatable. It's not. John talks about this adversity. What I don't want leaders to get in the habit of doing is going when someone talks to you about something, one of their disappointments, you go, yeah, me too do. And you jump in. Don't get into the. Yeah. And no, this is leading from a way that you're communicating and you're leading to become relatable. And oh, by the way, that's because you're failures. That's because you understand that what I understand what I'm going through is failure. I think I read a statistic a little while ago where it said over 45% of first time leaders fail. I thought that was actually pretty low because I think it's probably higher than I know first time I led something. Yeah, we want to go back and apologize to, to them. And John says that all the time. And so this is a great thing that you and I have learned from John over the years. And so we're going to dig in and talk a little bit about this. And the first thing that comes to mind, this is what I wrote down the first thing. And I want Mark to talk about this because we've been together for so long. I've seen Mark live this out and he has access to John all the time. And now his leadership is modeling what John has taught him. And so I wrote down three things when I knew that what the topic was this morning of what I see in Mark. And we're going to kind of just go over them. And I want Mark, I want you to unpack them as a leader. So that.

Mark Cole (11:49)

And these are good. I said that just a moment ago. These are good. Not because they're, I've modeled these. These are good because they're a framework.

Chris Goede (11:55)

It's a framework. That's right. It's good.

Mark Cole (11:57)

And how all of us as leaders need to stay relatable.

Chris Goede (12:01)

That's right. How can we lead in a way? So the first one is authenticity over perfection. Yep. And the reason I say that John even talked about how he went back in that lesson and he, he said, give me, give me 45 minutes. I'm going to do a lesson on flops, failures and fumbles.

Mark Cole (12:14)

Yeah.

Chris Goede (12:15)

And he still does that today. And everything he talks about, talks about what does he fail in? He doesn't want us to be perfect. And you know that. He just wants you to be authentic and, and have that openness and honesty which then as a team drives a Culture where, man, you feel supported because it's like, oh, man, Mark is the owner and the CEO, and he struggles with that, too. And so you just kind of feel supported in the environment. So just talk to us, unpack a little bit about how uncomfortable it is sometimes to be authentic when you're not perfect, and then just modeling that for John over the years, how that has shaped your leadership.

Mark Cole (12:48)

It's so funny. We're going to invite people into a continued conversation that we had earlier today. A leadership conversation. Let's do it. By the way, welcome everybody, to Chris Goede's office. It looks like the studio, but this is just a continuation of a leadership conversation.

Chris Goede (13:02)

And I was finally here for a day. Like, I know it's been a little while since y' all seen me, but I'm back in the office.

Mark Cole (13:06)

I told Chris if he didn't show up today, he was fired from the Five. He said fired from. For free. Okay, so let's continue this conversation. Chris. In some ways that. That I'm going to try not to be so contextual that I become irrelevant here. So. But, you know, I share my story often about the first 30 years of my life. My entire life was. Was spent on modeling perfection. The level of my spirituality was how much I could fake being perfect. The relationships were only as strong as the perception of my perfection. Everything built around this concept of perfection, righteousness and being right and getting rid of anything bad in us that was in a spiritual framework. And again, many of you know my story, but truly my relationships, truly my spirituality, truly my usefulness from a financial standpoint to my organization was totally dependent on how perceived perfection I had. And yet internally, Chris, I've said this story. I've tried to be authentic with this. Not to be authentic, but to be relatable. I was far from perfect. And the more I strained to give a perception of perfection, the deeper the chasm of incompleteness in my life. And I just imploded. I self imploded all over everybody.

Chris Goede (14:37)

Can I. Can I stop you right here? So let me come back to this because I want you to talk about a thought that just came to my mind when you were unpacking that, which is you, you tried to. To live that way, lead that way, Right? And. And what ended up happening was you didn't feel valuable or even valued because people wouldn't connect with that. Right? And so you're sitting here leading something, trying to be perfect, and yet internally, as leaders, because we're not being real, we're not being relatable. We're not being authentic. You didn't feel valued in what you were doing or from the people that you led.

Mark Cole (15:16)

And more importantly for myself, because I knew me and I couldn't be me. And because I couldn't be me, I became a worse version of me. And by the time me showed up to everybody else, I already knew what they knew. I was so far from the perception now. So, in other words, what I'm telling you is, is I have spent 30 years of my life and much of that was leadership, because I was in a family, in a glass house that everybody was looking to as leaders. I spent almost 30 years, let's call it 20, 20 years of perfection over authenticity. The more I could make people or show people or demonstrate to people I was perfect, the more they gravitated to my leadership. And yet, internally, I was a wreck. Now that I've painted that story and spent way too long on it, it's a true story. And for many of you, it may not be in a religious context, but many of you are trying to fake it till you make it. Stop doing that. Kill that statement. Don't let anybody tell you that faking it till you make it is a good thing. I'm talking about even in the of effort. I'm going to fake it with effort. No, you don't want to fake anything. Work hard, but don't call it. Fake it till you make it. Now that I have said that, because it's a soapbox for me, the best compliment I get, in my opinion all the time, Chris, is, man, you're so authentic. I met Frank, by the way. Hello, Frank. A podcast listener this past week in Nashville. And Frank said, man, I love your podcast. I love it. I said, well, John was standing right beside me. I said, it's actually his. We're using his name. I said, it's actually John's podcast. And he said, okay, okay. I love your portion of the podcast, Mark. And I said, well. John said, well, why do you like it? He said, mark is just so relatable in his authenticity. And, Frank, again, thank you for saying that in front of the boss. I asked him for a raise after that. He didn't give it to me, Frank, so we got to go a little bit better next time. But I get that compliment all the time. That man, thank you for just keeping it real. Thank you for being authentic. And I take that as one of the best compliments we could get because I tried the other way of perfection over authenticity. And I want people to know why do I want people to know? And I'll give you three reasons that came to me right as you told me right before we turned on the recording, I'm authentic because it's a better choice than trying to be perfect. I've tried being perfect. It doesn't work. And I can succeed at being authentic. I'm good at it. So, number one, I like being good at whatever I'm doing. So, to be honest with you, call that selfish, call it whatever I like authentic, it's much better than perfection.

Chris Goede (18:07)

Wouldn't you agree? The energy that not only it takes to be one, but then the energy you receive as a leader, completely different when you're in that wheelhouse 100%.

Mark Cole (18:16)

The second reason that I like to be authentic is the reason that John's talking this whole thing being relatable to others. People love the flops, fumbles, and failures that John talked about more than they love to hear about my success. In other words, once again, this may be a selfish ambition of mine, but I found it much more effective with influencing people. When I'm authentic, the payoff is greater. I like the payoff of authenticity better than the payoff of perfection, because when people see you as perfect, they may idolize you, but they don't want to emulate you. They can't do it. So. And then the third reason that I would tell you to be relatable, and maybe this is the most honorable one, is authenticity. Authenticity truly connects with someone to say, hey, if Mark can do it, I can do it. It really puts belief in others much more than perfection.

Chris Goede (19:10)

That's good.

Mark Cole (19:10)

And for years, Chris, I thought people was inspired with my perfection, and I would keep faking it only to find out they're a lot more inspired and I'm a lot more relatable when they see the challenges, the difficulties. And again, I think that one has very little to do with me and much more about the person. But I would tell you that this concept that you pulled out of here, this is Chris Goedes, that the big way to be relatable is to have authenticity over. Perfection is a model that I want all leaders to really grab ahold of.

Chris Goede (19:48)

Yeah. And I think you bring out so many good principles in your description. And what I want people to hear is that Mark basically just shared that until he became authentic, which then, by the way, he became relatable, he was not on a path to become perfect. Not saying he's perfect, but when you are not authentic, you can never see the light at that end of the tunnel of in this perfectionist. Right, perfectionism. But when it's the other way, it absolutely can happen. I'm not being perfect, but you can make more progress.

Mark Cole (20:23)

And by the way, there's one more point we gotta make on this. Are you really relatable when you're communicating perfection?

Chris Goede (20:32)

No.

Mark Cole (20:33)

That's why many leaders, and most of the time this happens in men leaders. Women leaders are so much better at this. Men leaders have the posing syndrome. How many times, Chris, in all authenticity, have you asked yourself, what if people find out how really incompetent I am? A million times because you was a pro athlete. A bunch of times because you were a collegiate athlete. So many times because you walk into companies much bigger than ours and try to act like the expert. How many times have you walked in and had some variation, some version of your posing? Right now, Chris. And if they find out, all the time. Let me tell you something. When I'm authentic, I go, baby, here it is. This is what you got. And the gap for relatability is good because if you're relatable and people think you're perfect, it is an incessant wheel of trying to impress them.

Chris Goede (21:23)

Yeah, it's on the table. Can't do it. Okay, so the other thing we talked about then, which I think then leads to this, is being okay, being vulnerable. Yeah, Right. The power of vulnerability as a leader allows you to be relatable. And when you're vulnerable, then you share, as John talked about, you share all the things that you made mistakes on. And. And then what that ends up happening is that drives trust with your team. It drives more collaboration with the team because they know, hey, we're going to just put the cards on the table where it is. And by the way, for those that you do lead team volunteers or your family, you want more engaged engagement from them. What I want you to do is be more. More vulnerable because when you are, everybody's jumping in. In the pool with you. And from your leadership, I'm smiling because I'm not sure which one to pick. I have lots of them between the two of us, and we're just like, hey, no, no, here we. I screwed it up. I lost a million dollars because we tried this or I did this. And John's okay with all of that, but I'm just going to be vulnerable and tell you, man, this hurt. And even if it's Sharon, personally, you sit at the head of our leadership table and are extremely vulnerable about professional and personal things that make you very relatable. In the room. And it drives connection, and then it drives trust with each other. It drives engagement and all of that. John does this continually. A lot of people don't get to see this as much from stage as you do personally. But those that are struggling with maybe being vulnerable, maybe even with themselves, like you talked about, or with your family or someone that you're leading or volunteering, whatever it might be, how do you get over that? How do you feel comfortable being vulnerable to the masses, but also to the few when it's something that our flesh doesn't just allow us to do in order to be relatable to people?

Mark Cole (23:14)

Yeah. First, let me kind of put some distinction between authenticity and vulnerability. Okay. This is homemade. This is mine, and it's not prepared. It's a response to Chris. I knew this right before. He was going to use authenticity over perfection, and then he was going to talk vulnerability, but I didn't have time to kind of prep this out. So you're never good the first time.

Chris Goede (23:32)

That's right.

Mark Cole (23:33)

So authenticity is when a running back runs through the hole and drops the ball, gets hit and drops the ball and goes, man, he hit me right at the right place, and I dropped the ball. Guys, I am so sorry. It's a report card on what I've done. Vulnerability is saying, when that guy hits me in that spot right there, I can't hold on to the ball. Somebody help me. So in the business world, I'm going to show you something. I will authentically tell you, Chris, that for the last five years, it has been super hard to lead. It's a report card on my leadership sitting in your office while ago, I told you a scenario that I cannot lead through without help. That's the difference in authenticity and vulnerability. Authenticity is a report on what I did. It's ownership. I'm authentic, man. I failed. Vulnerability is, if somebody don't help me, I'm going to fail again. And many people are okay with authenticity. They're not okay with vulnerability. This is a separate category. Podcast listeners, it's a separate category. Just because you're authentic does not mean you're vulnerable. And just because you're vulnerable don't mean you're authentic for what you did yesterday. Too many people that don't match the two and say, I know I'm vulnerable here because I'm authentic about what happened yesterday is the complete package. That's why I loved your package. I'm telling you guys, this guy, this is a goatee system of being relatable and I'm giving you all the credit because it's good. Now that we've defined authenticity is a report on where I struggle. Vulnerability is where I admit if I don't get help, I'm going to keep struggling.

Chris Goede (25:02)

That is brilliant.

Mark Cole (25:03)

Now, let's talk about vulnerability. I just told you in the office, I told you we're going to continue the conversation. There is some scenarios in my leadership that the older I get, the more mature I get, the more authentic I get about a track record of challenges, the more vulnerable I can become on how to fix those challenges. And that's why in a conversation I had with you just a minute ago about leadership from the last five years, I went, chris, I don't know how to lead in this scenario. That is vulnerability that every leader. Now that I understand vulnerability, that is a position of leaders really getting out of the cycle of frustration, the cycle of failure, and the cycle of losing that many of us find ourselves in. I can tell you this. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again. I'll tell you something else. The definition of insanity is thinking authenticity of just being. Well, I just missed here thinking that's going to fix your issues. You're going to have to be vulnerable, where people will rally around your shortcomings so that you can truly be relatable. And I love the newness. It's new for me. I love the newness, the freshness, the return I'm getting by being relatable in a. A vulnerable way, not just in an authentic way.

Chris Goede (26:30)

Yeah, I got to go back and just repeat this because I took notes when Mark said this, and again, we're just reacting off each other right here. So I love this. Authenticity is, man, what I did, you're owning it. And in leadership, we talk about that. You want to be responsible, you want to be teachable, all that stuff. Vulnerability is, hey, man, I can't do this. I need somebody to come around and help me. And I have so many scenarios in my head, both personally and professionally, thinking about that and how they are separate. And as a leader with myself, starting with myself first, am I living it out in that order? Am I being authentic to myself, saying, man, what I did was not right? And then am I transitioning, saying, I need help and am I willing to then bring somebody alongside me to be able to do that? So I want to move to the third point. So as I was thinking about this lesson and I was thinking about your leadership and leadership meetings that we have, and what I love about this Those that are watching, wherever you watch from a viewers or you're listening to us, is that we're just taking inside our boardroom. We're taking inside what we do on a daily basis where Mark is leading John's organizations and we're just sharing with you real, real stuff. And so I, I hope this is adding value to you no matter where you're at. But one of the things I, I started with this word of going, man, I understand Mark when he's going through something and he becomes more relatable to me as a leader when I'm able to empathize with him.

Mark Cole (28:00)

Right?

Chris Goede (28:00)

We're all going to sympathize with people in certain situations, as John talked about. Oh man, like, I mean, I hate that you messed up right there. But, but there's a difference between those two. And we're not going to talk about that today. But I go, man, I can understand, I can empathize with, with Mark and by really working to grow my emotional intelligence and being able to be more compassionate, which my wife is listening, I don't know, she doesn't agree with that word with Mike. But to be able to really understand and to empathize with you in a business situation, in a leadership decision, in a personal growth failure or a personal growth success, whatever they are, can I be able to do that? How do I understand Mark? And that's where I began thinking about what you share with us and, and ultimately you want to be around a leader and you want to be around team members that can't understand where you're at. Because going back to your brilliant point, if they don't understand where you're at, how can they come help you when you're vulnerable and say, man, I messed up the first time and I need somebody to help me. And the only way to do that is to get into a place of being compassionate, understanding, which is increasing your ability for your emotional intelligence to grow. EQ is a funny word we talk about. It's a big word sometimes. It's hard to understand when you do this. John's phenomenal at it. He has a natural gift in it and a heart for it when it comes to emotional intelligence. How have you worked at really growing your emotional intelligence in this so that people that are around you, you're leading with, understand and can be compassionate even when maybe they don't completely know all the context of it because you play at a higher level and sometimes you have to swoop back down and, and it's a complicated system. But When I thought about this, I wanted to close with this because I often will be like, I'm not sure exactly what he's going through it there, but, man, I can understand because of the way that he was authentic and he's vulnerable with us, and now I understand where he's at. Not completely contextually. Contextually. But I can increase my emotional intelligence.

Mark Cole (30:00)

Yeah. So there's emotional intelligence for empathy. You win a lot there. We can go through that. In fact, we need to do that. Maybe we'll do it another podcast if you'll ever come back. Little jab there. Forgive me, but the other emotional intelligence that I think I want to spend a little time on is emotional capacity, and that's internal emotional empathy. Intelligence is understanding and relating to you. Emotional capacity is what's on the inside. I want to go on emotional capacity for a moment with emotional intelligence. Same word, just using capacity. Because I believe to be truly authentic and to be truly vulnerable, which is a system you gave me, it's got to be built on emotional capacity. Has to be insecure people. They're not authentic insecure people. They're not vulnerable. You know, somebody insecurity. They're posing. They're trying to keep it together because they're emotionally unstable because of their insecurities.

Chris Goede (30:57)

That's right.

Mark Cole (30:58)

Therefore, because you've given us a system that's brilliant again, I'm going to just keep giving you credit for it. Authenticity. Vulnerability is on the foundation of emotional capacity. Emotional intelligence makes sense. So, because we've been talking so much about the internal part of being relatable, although we're talking about the external results of being relatable, I'm going to stay on this internal.

Chris Goede (31:18)

Well, it has to start. It has to start before it ever comes out.

Mark Cole (31:21)

And so this has went that way, which I love this. It is brilliant this way. So let's talk about emotional capacity. I told you something I think I've only told three people is all I can remember in your office just a minute ago of how I tested my emotional capacity.

Chris Goede (31:38)

How.

Mark Cole (31:38)

And for those of you that kind of want to know a little bit of the story, had a friend that went through an incredible difficult time and how he dealt with it. Emotional. I watched him emotionally crumble. And it just. It just concerned me. It raised every red flag within me that I could imagine. I spent months going through scenarios of leadership that would help me understand my emotional response. If some leadership challenge hit me like it did my friend several years ago, I just went through it. I went through every Component from an emotional standpoint to test my leadership resolve, my resiliency, my ability to really work it out. And it absolutely. Many of the scenarios that I worked out came through during COVID came through during ownership, came through during work. I had no idea that Covid was going to happen. It was several months before COVID I had no idea it was going to happen. But I will tell you what worked for me is it allowed me to work through vulnerability and authenticity because I had already answered the emotional capacity question.

Chris Goede (32:46)

That's great.

Mark Cole (32:47)

And so for all of us, that's kind of gleaning from this today. For you to really get relatable, which is the point, the point of the lesson, you've got to relate to yourself first. In other words, to Chris's point, you've got to have empathy with yourself and your challenges before you'll ever be able to extend empathy to others. Otherwise you will be posing. In fact, let's just do a little self test right here. If you are more understanding of other people's flops, fumbles and failures than you are your own, you don't have enough emotional capacity for the next level. You can't extend acceptance and embracing others in their challenges and not do that to yourself. And have enough emotional capacity to be authentic and to be vulnerable. You'll be too tempted to fake people out. You gotta answer the question on the inside on this one before you can extend it on the outside. You've got to build that capacity. And here's the good news, you can build capacity. John's written a book. It's not as a special today, but since I'm mentioning Jake, we're going to have to make it a special. No limits. How you can blow the cap off of your capacity and the sub line we've laughed about forever, but it's true. You can extend exponentially your capacity, specifically in your emotional intelligence. You can do it, but it's work and it starts on the inside. Before it works out. You can become more authentic and not feel like that. That is an indictment on your leadership. You can admit weaknesses of future and that not to diminish the importance or the significance of your leadership, but it starts on a foundation of emotional intelligence about yourself, account capacity about what can you handle. And I went through that, Chris. I told you another leadership scenario that I'm going through to where I'm going, I don't know that I can handle that. I don't know that I'm built for that. And as a type A leader that loves the Weight of the world on the shoulders. To be able to say that and that not to feel like a self indictment of my ability to lead is tremendous growth. Because I spent 30 years not admitting I couldn't do anything and telling people I could do everything in the meantime doing nothing. Is it related to character and those kind of things? And so you've given us a great framework as a response to how to be a relatable leader. John did a good job on adversity. Makes you relatable. Success and failures are not opposite. There's great wisdom always comes out of crisis. John gave us three or four points here. They're in your notes. Go listen to it again. It will help you. But Chris, you've given us a framework today that is profound. And I mean it, man. As soon as you said that right before we went live, I went, dude, that is powerful. And the more we've talked about it, the more powerful it is. I never listened to our podcast because I think I sound too Southern and I don't say all the words right. I'm going to go back and listen to this one because there is a lot to glean for this. I hope you too. I just gave myself, Jake, our own testimony, but I hope this has helped you as well. I do want to give you a next step that's. That's always a challenge that I put to myself and our team. What is the next step to this lesson? We believe the next step is understanding the foundation of leadership. It's a product we call 21 laws of leadership. It is a digital product. It's video, it's application points, it's shareable notes. That's in a digital form. It's typically over $1,000. Today we're going to give it to our podcast listeners. Actually, this week we're going to give it to our podcast listeners for $199. Go take advantage of that because it's going to help you. There's another podcast that comes to mind that we've done called Get a Return on Failure. And it is a great podcast. We'll put that in the show notes. We'll put the link to the 21 laws of leadership. Go and take advantage of that, Jenny. Jenny, you are a podcast listener whom I love. Heard the podcast. Great leaders value people, Jake. I hope we can put that in the show notes as well. Here's what Jenny said. She said, ethics in leadership. We need more and more teaching on this. I agree, Jenny. She goes on and says the Maxwell Leadership Podcast is a part of my personal growth plan where once a week I learn new concepts and reflect on what's being taught. Thank you, Jenny, for leading well, because everyone deserves to be led well.