John Maxwell (2:57)

In the early 1980s. So we're talking about 40 years ago. I remember that one of my first teachings when I started traveling and speaking was a teaching called Principles that guide my life. I asked Linda, ask Aaron, my team, I said, my research people, I said, can you find that teaching for me? I mean, it's been years, years, years. I go probably honestly a couple of decades since I've ever even looked at that. And so they found it for me and they brought it to me and I thought, I'm going to share a little bit of this with you, okay? And here's the quote that I want to start with you, okay? And that is the principles that you live by create the world that you live in. And for me, when I looked back and I saw this lecture on principles that guide my life, I thought, you know, principles to me have been like anchors. They've held me steady when the storm was kind of tossing a little bit. They've been like friends. They've been alongside of me to give me security and assurance. They've been like the North Star. They've kind of been a guidance for me. But I thought it would be fun. So I'm going to give you a 40 year old lecture, okay? So when I was in my youth, in my young 30s, I was running around the country teaching principles to guide my life. And I won't need to teach them long because these are just principles. But I thought, oh, I want to do this for you. Okay? So here were the principles that I shared that guide my life. Number one, my attitude determines my altitude. And as a young man, I realized that attitude's a choice. And I have loved and tried to live. My father modeled this for me. A good attitude. I mean, I wrote books like Failing Forward. Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn. The difference maker, Your attitude, key to success. Okay, I've just always known that my attitude determines my altitude. How high can you go? Well, what kind of an attitude do you have? And it's a choice. So whatever attitude you have, whatever attitude I have today, can I tell you something? We chose it. So I never feel sorry for people. Who have a bad attitude. I wanna walk in their life and say, look, you chose it. I didn't choose that for you. My attitude determines my altitude. Principle number two, There is not much difference between success and failure. Wow. As a very young leader, I realized that you shouldn't separate success and failure. That's a mistake. Putting success over here. Failure. No, no, no, no. Success and failure need to go hand in hand because they really serve one another. Failure causes me to appreciate the work that it takes to be successful. And so when I'm successful, I realize that I had to go uphill and I had to overcome adversity. And success helps me to. To understand that failure is not final. And, I mean, they're so compatible. Never, ever, ever, ever separate them in your life. You'll have successes, you'll have failures, you'll have mixtures, you'll have ins and outs, ups and downs. It's all part of it. Don't despise your failure and don't idolize your success. Don't go there, don't go there. Just let them serve you together. The third principle that I taught 40 years ago was that personal growth precedes professional growth. One of the books I read was by James Allen, and that book changed my life. And he had a statement in it that says, you cannot travel without until you first travel within. And I have realized that. That my personal growth is going to determine my future more than anything else. I'm going to have to increase my growth capacity. I want to. Instead of going to the next level, you want to grow to the next level. If you grow to the next level, when you get to the next level, you can handle it. If you just go to the next level, that doesn't mean you can handle it at all. Principle number four, Helping others succeed helps me succeed. I learned that in my 20s from Zig Ziglar, when I heard him in Dayton, Ohio. And you know what he said? He said, if you'll help everyone else get what they want, they're going to help you get what you want. And the thing that was powerful about Zig's teaching was he said, you help them first. That's when I learned I was doing it wrong. I was saying, help me, and then maybe I'll help you. And all of a sudden I realized, oh, no, no, no, no. I'll help you and I'll get the return. Number five. Live a life of integrity. Live a life that is open, that is honest, authentic. Real people don't want a perfect leader. They do want an authentic leader. Number six. These are just principles. I taught these 40 years ago. My ability to get along with people ability. How true that is. You know, Stanford research says that success in business is 13% product knowledge and 87% people knowledge. Did you get that? The most important ability that I can ever cultivate in my life is the ability to get along with people. Number seven. My dad taught this to me when I was growing up. Pay now, play later. He taught me that you always are going to pay, son. Don't think you go through life without pay. The question is not are you going to pay? The question is, are you going to pay on the front end or are you going to pay on the back end? And he taught me that if I paid on the front end, the play would be beautiful on the back end. But he also taught me that if I played on the front end, that pay kept compounding, and when I had to pay the price, it would be huge. Principle number eight. Giving is the highest level of living. I believe that with all of my heart. I love to be generous. You see, I think there are two measures of a great person. One is that they're giving, and secondly is they're forgiving. Boy, when you forgive people and can get over the stuff in your life and when you are generous toward people, it's a beautiful way to live. Principle number nine, Life is not a dress rehearsal. Live it fully, enjoy it daily. You're not going to give another chance on my tubes, though. When I die, I just want to just basically say, he finally ran out of breath. He just kept running and he just finally live for the moment. Love the moment. And principle number nine is success is having the love and the respect of those who are closest to you. When those who are closest to you love and respect you the most, you're the real deal. When, by the way, when those who are closest to you don't love and respect you the most, you got a problem.

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Mark (11:11)

Hey, welcome back, everybody. You know, I'm reminded of what Stephen Covey said. He said there are three constants in life change, choice and principles. And I listened to John here just talk about how his principles have really helped him and how he stabilized his life, how he's comforted his life and how he's guided his life. And so I'm super excited to jump in here today with you, Chris. We talked a little bit before John's podcast and I was just like, wow, let's get into the discussion now. But I went, well, we might ought to give everybody else context of what John said today too.

Chris Robinson (11:48)

Let's bring it back then. Let's bring it back to attitude. Because again, we were talking about attitude being everything. And I know people sometimes think, well, ah, that's fluffy, that's light, you know, but it's not. It truly is the core. You know, John says it's, it's not everything, but it's the main thing. And it's not everything, but it's the day difference maker. And so talk to me about a time when it was your attitude, not your strategy that actually set you up for success. And what did you do to, you know, lift the team and how do you consciously choose what can be changed?

Mark (12:21)

Yeah, you know, I went back when you talked about that and I thought about, which I may reference a little bit later in the podcast too. But I thought about this complete change of life, a lot of it. I brought challenges on myself, failed, messed up, been given opportunity, squandered the opportunity. Just a terrible example of how I wanted my life to model leadership. And I'm sitting there in this time to where the circumstances caught up with me, the challenges caught up with me, many of them self induced. And I sit there and I had a decision to make. Much like in the opening notes where you just said, I determined if it's, if, if this is the reality, what I'm going to do with the reality is more important than how do I change the reality, how am I going to address it? And I sit there, Chris, as you're asking that question as we talked a little bit earlier and I realized that it was an attitude change that said I'm going to change today and I'm not going to change my circumstances. In fact, when I made the decision to change my attitude, circumstances got worse. Isn't that true? That that happens. You go, okay, I'm going to beat this thing with a good attitude. And then just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, it got worse. Just to test to see if you really are going to change that attitude. And this was a case in my life some 25, 30 years ago. I had a moment to reconcile just a poor lifestyle, a poor set of decisions, and I made the decision. I'm going to change my attitude on this. I am absolutely going to change. What I discovered is not only did things get worse, people didn't appreciate the change of attitude. People disagreed with the change of attitude. They wanted me to have the same sticking attitude that I'd had for years before. And I watched the resolve that happens when, you know, you know, at the heart level, at the soul level, that there is a change that has to happen. And I watched how the test came. And the tests were not an enemy, they were a friend. They deepened the resolve. And so if I, if I could talk to any of you out in the world of podcasts right now, the listeners or the viewers, and I would go, hey, if you can make a decision, you're going to start with this attitude that we're talking about right here. You are going to change it at the core level. Chances are you're going to get tested on that decision. Don't see that test as a challenge. See it as an opportunity to deepen your resolve, because that's what will happen.

Chris Robinson (14:59)

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It will deepen the resolve. And I know that we've had many opportunities to, you know, deepen our resolve and attitude. And I can think very early on, when we came on together, probably, you know, anywhere from six to 18 months in, we had some staffing changes, some staffing issues. And, you know, the team around us came at both you and I hard because we were the only ones still standing on a decision. But the attitude, you know, what was happening bothered every single person. But you and I locked arms and said, nope, we're just going to keep moving. We're going, we're going to be high road leaders and just keep moving through this thing. But that was a choice, that was attitude. And I love seeing that. So people have a choice every single day to make this. But this next statement that John makes, my first response when I heard this was, uh, failure creates appreciation for success. Now after the, uh, you know, I've got a very corrective attitude and positive attitude. And so I pondered on it for a moment and I thought, man, that's absolutely right. It does Create appreciation for success. So I remember you talking about a setback that you had early in your leadership career where things didn't go according to plan. Take us into that moment and what felt like failure at the time and explain what that experience taught you that success never could have taught you.

Mark (16:20)

I just. I love this. There's a podcast coming up next month, in the month of March that I'm super excited about introducing our podcast friends to Dr. Brooks. He's written a book and we're going to highlight it and I'm going to bring a podcast to you. But in that idea of failure, he's talking about mindset and the meaning of life. And oftentimes it is the difficulty of life that brings meaning to life, not the successes. It is actually understanding the dark side of failure that gives you the bright spot of success without tension. And I'm trying to remember the exact word he uses in his book. But if there was not restriction and tension and challenges, we would not live very long as a human body. We're made for the resilience and for the ability to step up. We're made for that. And you remove all the resistance of your life. It's why many of us, I might be included in this. That spoil our children too much, and then we send them out to the world. We do not help them and do them a service because you are going to have to go through the difficult times to really get there. So I think that's what John is talking about, Chris, when he talks about that failure gives you an appreciation for success, whereas success coming alone does not have that same appreciation. If I could speak to myself as a parent or those of you that are out there with children or grandchildren, but also those of us that are leading others, we don't do our team a favor by trying to protect them from difficult. We don't do our kids a favor by protecting them from difficulty. Because it is in the persistence that we understand resilience. It's in the persistence that we understand the value of success. And it's in the persistence where we develop backbone to be able to take the next greatest resistance that's coming your way. Here's the way we try to teach that in our company. This is the way that John taught it to me. I can remember so many of you know that's been listening to the podcast for a long time, that myself and some teammates have become owners of John, the company that John owned. And I can remember when John first invited me, this would have been 15 years ago to Become an owner with him. And I'd been sweating it out. I'd been grinding it out, Chris. I'd been nailing it. And John said, hey, you want to be owner of this with me? I said, sure. I was couldn't wait for the next statement of how much sweat equity I had in the company. He said, okay, it'll cost this right here. And I went, I don't have that money. I don't have it. And I went to my parents and I said, I don't have this money. And they went, well, we've got it in our retirement, and we'd be glad to give it. And I went, no, no, no, no. You can't give it to me, but you can loan it to me. Let me talk to your financial advisor. You can own it to me, and I will pay you prime. I will pay you premium return back. I'm so glad I did that, because, number one, I showed John, you don't have to solve my problem. You just have to give me the invitation. I showed my parents. I'm not looking for a handout. I will give you more money than you made if you had left it in your stock market. Thirdly, I showed myself that I'm ready for the next big opportunity. And when the next big opportunity come, guess what? I had the same common problem. I didn't have the money, but I figured out how to go get the money because I had proven it to myself before. If you leader, parent, grandparent, if you overprotect the people that are looking to your leadership, you actually paralyze them or stymie them from the challenges ahead of them, and you're going to hold them back from the life they can live.

Chris Robinson (20:09)

Yeah, absolutely. I mean that. That transition as well into the next one, because it talks about helping others succeed. You know, you had John give you an invitation. You had your parents give you the opportunity to loan you some money to help you succeed. But talk to me about someone you intentionally invested in when there was no immediate benefit to you. Okay? Now, I want you to talk about this relationship, you know, what, what you gave, what they became, and how that decision ended up shaping your leadership. I remember a guy.

Mark (20:38)

I'm going to call him Eddie. His name is not Eddie, but I think he's a podcast listener, so he might recognize components of this story. But for the people that are impacted by Eddie, I'll keep it Eddie. But this has been probably about 10 years ago, there was a guy that came onto our team, and to be honest with you, I Didn't see the value and the potential in his life. A friend of ours had to call me and say, mark, you've got a guy named Eddie working on your team. And I'm just going to tell you there is great potential in that guy. And this leader that called me was not only a great friend, he was a brilliant leader. And I went, man, if he sees something, I'm missing something. So I went to work with Eddie and I just really challenged Eddie tremendously. I challenged him so much to think like a leader that I'll never forget the day that I went to myself. Boy, I thought I taught him too much to think like a leader because John had made a decision to go a direction in the organization and Eddie had made the decision that it was not the right decision for him. And I'll never forget the time that 24 year old Eddie came into my office, come to work with us at.

Chris Robinson (21:48)

19.

Mark (21:50)

As an intern and then get out of college. I'll never forget when Eddie came and said, if this is the direction of the company, I'm going to have to resign. And I'll never forget looking at Eddie, who I trained. I'd been told by a friend to really look at Eddie. Say Eddie. Sorry to say now to have Eddie sitting there going, mark, I can't go here. And I went, eddie, this is the direction that we're going. He said, well, I'll be going a different direction. And I accepted his resignation. He said, but this won't affect me and you working together. Eddie went and started his own business and absolutely built a seven figure, well, an eight figure business that has now become one of our vendors.

Chris Robinson (22:34)

Wow.

Mark (22:35)

Now we still partner together. He has a lane, a track that he's able to build on. I have one. Here's my point in telling and picking that story to your question. One, it's a great story that if you do it right and you train people to think like leaders, they may outthink you and do different than you. And that may be a good thing too. If you do it right, you never have to stop working alongside each other and helping. But number three, which is the point here, by helping Eddie succeed, Eddie now helps me succeed. Not as a teammate, not even as an employee, but by a craft and a expertise that I don't have and I don't want to develop.

Chris Robinson (23:16)

Right.

Mark (23:17)

And I get it because I helped him step up.

Chris Robinson (23:19)

Yeah.

Mark (23:20)

Yeah. So it was, it's such a good story. I don't tell that story that much just because it was such a Difficult time of a leader, disagreeing with a leader. And I'm going, oh, you don't want to do that. He wanted to do it. He's done quite well.

Chris Robinson (23:34)

Good for Eddie. You know, when I. When I think about that situation of helping others, I, you know, as a sales manager, very early on, I was. My goal was just to develop managers. You know, I've talked often about making that shift from trying to be the star to be a star creator. And my goal inside that organization was how many people could I get promoted to the job? And, of course, I was now new to this philosophy with John Maxwell. I'm all, you know, in Glee. And then the true test came. The true test came when several people that I had got promoted were now at the same level as me. And now another promotion was coming, and there was a potential for them to pass me.

Mark (24:13)

Yeah.

Chris Robinson (24:13)

So this was a chance to say, hey, do you really believe what you're teaching in this moment? And I remember, you know, in that moment, going to who I knew was the top, you know, person in there and saying to him, hey, look, either one of us two are going to get promoted. And here's what I want to do. It's like, if you get promoted, man, I'm going to do everything I can to help you be a success if you get the promotion. And, man, if I get promoted, I. I'd want you to do the same. And he said, yes. Well, he got promoted. Now, immediately, I'm being tested on this Maxwell content, helping others go farther. You know, we say the phrase, you want to. I. I want you as a leader to go further than me. But then when they do it.

John Maxwell (24:50)

Yeah, exactly.

Chris Robinson (24:52)

And so he got promoted, and, you know, it worked out well. It went great. And then years later, as I became a coach with Maxwell leadership and I began, you know, my own coaching business, sure enough, he becomes one of my clients for a company that he owned.

Mark (25:06)

How cool is that?

Chris Robinson (25:07)

And I was inside that organization helping develop leaders because that was the thing that I loved in the organization and still could call him today, and he'd help me with anything. But it's really, truly about helping others succeed.

Mark (25:19)

Well, and I love the part, I love about that Chris that I don't want to miss. And it's a redundant point, because it's true in every point that is treat someone so well when you empower them that you'll want to be doing stuff with them down the road. And I love that part of the story.

Chris Robinson (25:35)

Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Great, great. We. We're moving faster today. The last one I want to touch on is getting along with people. Getting along with people. I believe that's one of the absolute best qualities. That's one of the top qualities that you have to have as a leader is getting along with people. But how do you, as a leader, create space for people to get along inside the organization?

Mark (25:57)

Well, so I love this question. I love this question. And I love. Thank you. Thank you, Chris, for making this applicable to leading a team. Now, you know, all of our podcast listeners, viewers, you know that John is helping you right here on the inside. He's working an inside job right here. He's telling you you need to have the ability to work with people, and you need to develop that, be that ability from within. I love how you brought the question to more of a corporate setting, because I, as leader, a leader, want very strong, independent, capable leaders that I can empower. Right. Don't we all want these leaders that we can empower? And the answer is yes, unless you're insecure. And then I'd say go work on your insecurities where you can come back and want to empower leaders. Okay, so we want that. But when you get more than two people on a team, when you get more than one person on a team, you have differences.

Chris Robinson (26:56)

Okay?

Mark (26:57)

And if you can't handle differences, you won't be able to acquire unity. You won't be able to obtain unification if you don't allow separation. So what do I mean by that? I think the first way that you get people to work a lot, get. Get along with one another, to work together, is first appreciate their differences, appreciate they think different, appreciate what they bring to the table that is unique from what somebody else brings to the table, and always know the differences in people before you begin to try to align them with where they're the same. Now, that's scary, because if any of you are a part of social media or if any of you watch any news outlet, I don't care what side of the political coin you flip. Your side of media is crazy. Now, not kind of crazy. It's crazy. Flat out crazy. There is not any kind of media outsource outlet out there right now that is speaking for America as a whole. They have us so divided, it's not even funny. But that's a soapbox you're not even asking about. However, it's very important because as leaders, we have to unify people. Evidently, our political leaders don't, but we should. Leaders should be about bringing diversification to bring it to a unique team that is beautiful in its uniqueness, that can all march to the same beat of the drum and head in the same direction. That's the beauty of leadership. That's the power of real good leadership. So the first thing that I do in bringing people together and creating a community is, number one, celebrate the fact that we look at things different. Don't get scared of it. Don't try to conform it. Don't try to make people see the same way I see or think the same way I think I celebrate it. The second thing to do, I try to find common ground. What are the areas that we're most common in? We're after the same thing. We're after the same mission. We all want to help people. And then the third thing that I require is robust dialogue. Now, we use tools like disc. We use tools that show our differences so that we can have robust dialogue about what I bring to the table, what you bring to the table, what your challenges are, what my challenges are. We use tools like that. But at the same time, the greatest ability to get people together is one, celebrate their differences, two, find where we're the same, and then three, expect them to work it out if they can't. I've had too many environments with too many people that disagreed that I tried to play the referee rather than put the responsibility on the team to figure it out. And let me tell you this leader, very important, underscore this. Pause it. Getting ready to drop something on you that will help you if you'll get it. If you become the referee for your team's differences, that's the best you've got because they will always use you as the referee. If you empower them and put expectation on them to figure out how to work with their differences, you don't get caught in the middle of a civil war. And that's the biggest thing. Leaders have got to give space for differences. Leaders have got to give space and responsibility for the sameness. And leaders have got to get space for them to work it out in healthy and honoring environments.

Chris Robinson (30:27)

Yeah, and you have. And what I love is you have 100% full moral authority to teach on that. Because I've seen that environment in action. You know, I mean, I'm positive attitude guy. I get along with people, but yet not everybody on the planet. And in fact, we had one team member that I didn't get along with. That was a part of our executive team. It wasn't an outward verbal. We don't get along. We don't like each other, but it was just a dismissive, well, he can do that. I'll do that. And I remember we did an assessment at that time, and we appreciated some differences. But I remember getting everybody's report and looking at this, and I looked at his, and I went, oh, wait a minute. Sometimes sameness can be the problem. I thought that it was differences, but it was sameness. My grid read exactly as his grid. And in that moment, I mean, I stopped and I put the thing down. I picked up the phone.

John Maxwell (31:27)

Wow.

Chris Robinson (31:27)

And I called him and I said, hey, look, I know that we've been having some issues. I know that there's tension between us. I don't know it is. But we kind of clip each other back and forth. I said, but. But I found it. I said, pull up your report. Pull up my report. Lay them over each other. They're exactly the same. I said, man, I've been clipping you because you've been clipping me. But we're doing it from different places, but we're saying the same thing. It's like we're on the same page. We're. We're in. We're in this together, and we don't even know it. But because of our personalities being like, hey, I don't have to deal with. You know, it's like I can just keep moving along without that person, and I don't have to make an issue of it. I don't have to do it. But it was because we had an environment and we didn't have to have you as a referee. One, because I'll take some credit and say, hey, I was mature enough to pick the phone and be able to call 100%, but it didn't require you to be a referee because you created an environment. And we also had a model of, hey, we do need to appreciate the differences. We found that common ground through a tool, but then did the most difficult part. We had robust dialogue. Now, that team member today, no longer with us, but I can tell you what, right now, I can call him. He would do anything for me. I would do anything for him. Anytime that we're in proximity together, we just have the best time, man. But it was only because you created an environment. So thank you for leading. Well.

Mark (32:44)

Well, thank you for that maturity that you just talked about. That's what it requires. But you have to give space for them to achieve that maturity rather than getting in before they have the opportunity to mature. There's a. There's an epic that we did that I want to put in the show notes, Jake. It's called the foundation of a leader, and it's really going to give you the foundational components. Where Chris just talked about how that maturity and then going. When he saw the light, he was like, okay, I know what to do here. I got it. You've got to create environments for that. The foundation of a leader is a great episode. The other thing is we have a resource that some of you may have heard about, but it's called the High Road Leadership Digital Course. And this is where John teaches us step by step of how to travel the high road as a leader to be more effective. And so we're gonna give you a discount for that product. Go to the Show Notes, click on that, see a little bit more about it. It's John teaching us on how to lead and to travel the high road. I have a listener comment that I want to. Well, it's a listener question, actually, that I want to dig into today. How can I work on repairing a broken relationship with a more sensitive or emotional leader as well as focus on growth both individually and together in the midst of that? It's a great question.

Chris Robinson (34:06)

That's a good question.

Mark (34:08)

I would tell you this, my friend. One, you've got to make sure that you are emotionally strong. You want. You want to understand how you work. You want to understand your idiosyncrasies, because trust me, you have them. That's the reason I didn't use your name, because I was going to call you out and say, trust me, you have them. But at the same time, you don't let those define you. But don't let those define the sensitive and emotional leader either. There may be things that he or she have went through that needs help, needs healing, and they have brought that into their leadership. But don't judge their leadership on that. Understand their leadership on that. And now go have the very candid conversation. I'll tell you this, Chris. Chris, you know this. Sometimes a candid conversation will not be effective, but it's always required. You cannot deal with things that are not addressed. I love this statement right here. I'm not even sure who to attribute the quote to, but I love this. Everything mentionable is manageable. Everything mentionable is manageable. And I would tell you, even though you may not be the leader, even though it feels like there's a more sensitive, broken, emotional leader, you have the responsibility to go and have a conversation. Because you're listening to the podcast, you're being tweaked to ask a question. Like this. And all of us, when we sense a problem, it's our responsibility to go head on and address that problem. May not always work out, but it's better than leaving it unaddressed, my friend. Thank you for that question. Thanks, all of you, for listening today. Thanks for being a part of this podcast. Go bring powerful, positive change to the world around you, because everyone deserves to be led well.