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- [00:00]
Ed Milet
So many of you have asked how to see me speak live and for the first time ever, you can come see me speak live in person. All of my speeches have been private events but now I'm teaming up with LifeSurge speaking all over the country. LifeSurge is a one day faith based event where you'll walk in hungry for success and you'll leave ready to build your resources to leave an impact on others. We're talking faith fueled finance, growing your resources, crushing obstacles and then, yeah, using it all for something way bigger than yourself. I'm joining Life Surge in a few cities this year and I'd love to see you there. I'll be sharing the stage with legends such as two time football champion Tim Teachers, star of Duck Dynasty, Willie Robertson and leadership hero of mine John Maxwell, pastor and author Craig Groeschel and worship with artists like Natalie Grant. Tickets are on sale@lifesurge.com and just for my listeners, you can use the code ED30 for 30% off a ticket. There will be a link in the show notes, so click through and take some time to join us. Cities are being added all the time, so if you don't see one near you now, check back. I hope to see you there. So, hey guys, I'm calling on all my friends here in the audience for a little bit of help. We're conducting an audience survey at Gum FM MyLab and we want to hear from you so we can make things here, even a better experience for you and create content that you want. You know, we all know this, there's ads on our show, right? So we want to improve the experience. But in order to do that, we need to know a little bit more about you. So my friends in the audience, we want to improve that experience. So please help us. The survey is quick, easy and and it's a free way to support the show if you'll take two minutes. You'll be helping us out so much by doing this. So go to GUM FM Mylet to fill out our audience survey. That's G U M F M Mylet M Y L E T T. This is the Ed Milet Show. Welcome back to the show everybody. So today is obviously my favorite day of the year. About once a year I get a chance to have this man on our show and hopefully that'll happen more and more in 2026. But let me just tell you about this man. Number one, you all know his accolades. He's the premier leadership expert in the world. The last 50 years of my life.
- [02:11]
John Maxwell
That means I'm old, number one.
- [02:13]
Ed Milet
Well, it means I'm old 50 years. But he sold. I don't know. What did you sell? 35 million books. He's written 100 different books. And that's not what I love about him, even though he's the best in the world at what he does. I'll just tell you all personally that since my father's passed away, which was about four or five years ago, this man sort of fulfills that role for me in my life of the man that I look up to the most. And he's my hero. He's the person that I'll never, ever live up to. The shoes that he's walked in, but they're the ones I would love to try to fill in my life. I admire him tremendously. He's as good a human being as I've ever met in my life. And so today we're gonna talk about his new book, which I specialize in this thing called Failure. So I'm really glad you wrote this book. It's called how to Get a Return on Fail Smarter, Return Stronger with this man. John Maxwell. Welcome back to the show, my friend.
- [03:05]
John Maxwell
Oh, my gosh, Ed, it's so good to be with you. I love you so much. You know, I wish everybody could have the relationship that we have. You know, everybody needs to have somebody that they care for and that they learn from and grow with. And that's. I think when I think of you and I, we just get. We're better together.
- [03:23]
Ed Milet
Thank you. Well, I'm certainly better. My life's changed since I've known you. You know, one thing I want to tell you, just tell the audience, too. You know, when I make decisions, I used to think, obviously, I know we have Christ centered in our lives, but I'm talking about men that I know. I used to think, how would my dad handle this? And since my dad's passed away, the biggest compliment I could give you is, I always think, how would John handle this? That's sort of my. My barometer. I just want you to know that.
- [03:48]
John Maxwell
Well, I want to handle it well, my friend. Although, how would John handle this? We're going to talk about failure, which is my spiritual gift, so it's your
- [03:55]
Ed Milet
spiritual gift, so I want to. That's the one thing I want to know. It is the number one thing. Would you agree that probably holds people back from even making an effort in the first place? So let's frame. When I say failure, just that word, what comes to mind for you when you hear that first.
- [04:10]
John Maxwell
Well, for everybody, it's negative. Very seldom will you ever run into a person that you put the word failure in front of them and they think good things, right? And so it's already a weight. It's a weight mentally. It's a weight emotionally. It's a weight psychologically on people. And so I wrote the book really, to help them understand that it doesn't have to be a liability. It truly can be an asset. But it cannot be an asset until we change the way we think about failure and embrace it. And when you think of mentors. Ed. Robert Schuller, who was the pastor at Crystal Cathedral When I was 33, he found me and he called me and he said, I want you to come into the Crystal Cathedral. I want to meet you. I want you to speak for me. I'm hearing a lot about you. So I'm just a kid, and we're having our first dinner. And he asked me, he said, what's your greatest challenge? I said, well, I said, I don't think I always take enough risk. I think that I'm holding back a little bit. So we talked about failure. And he said to me that day, john, if failure were not possible, what would you attempt to accomplish? Well, if failure is not possible, that just takes the whole lid off. And will you try anything? Now? I don't think it's a great question because failure is very possible. So I think it's not a realistic question, but it was a good question that led me to a great question. You don't get to great until you get to good. It's a process. So after about nine months of asking myself, if failure were not possible, would I do this? Yes. And so I went. I came back with, if failure were possible. But you knew if it happened, it was going to help you.
- [05:47]
Ed Milet
That's a great question.
- [05:48]
John Maxwell
That's a great question. And I started asking myself that question. I've done that now for many, many years. This would have been watch 33. I'm 78, so do the math. So this has been a long time ago, but when I changed the question, I found I changed the frame of mind.
- [06:03]
Ed Milet
Yeah, you've reframed it.
- [06:04]
John Maxwell
Yeah, we reframed the question. Now you can get the mind where it needs to be. And so how to receive return on failure is really about. Let me give you the right perspective, because how we view things is how we do things. You and I both know that perspective's everything. And I mean, outside of sharing my faith, if I could do one thing for any person, I would help them with perspective because that's going to really make them or break them. And I think it's true with failure, too. My perspective of failure determines whether it's an asset or a liability. And return on failure is all about the perspective, the right perspective of failure. Now it becomes an asset.
- [06:39]
Ed Milet
Wow.
- [06:40]
John Maxwell
Not a detriment.
- [06:41]
Ed Milet
I have to tell you, when you do interviews like this, you're supposed to go, this is such an important topic. But it is so important. So my son Max is here today. Last week I was with my daughter and she's graduating college and she's going to get into sales and probably real estate. And she's very talented. She's a closer, she can persuade. She's good with people. She has all that stuff. And she says, then, daddy, why are you not completely sure that this is for me? And I said, honey, I'm gonna be honest with you. I don't know how you'll deal with failure. And I think that more than anything, almost in someone's career and in life defines them. Maybe even more than talent, maybe even more than skills. I don't know how you're gonna deal when you miss six sales in a row or four people stand you up or you embarrass yourself to some extent. And I said to her, and I perspective on this. I said, ironically, I kind of think people that are really afraid to fail are almost like egomaniacs. It's just the flip side of the coin. Meaning they've made so much of it about them. And you write about that in the book. What's your perspective on it? Because I think most people think, oh, no, egomaniacs are very confident people who aren't afraid to fail.
- [07:44]
John Maxwell
Not true. Not true at all. In fact, I tell people, ed, it's very simple. Until you get over yourself, you're never going to be a high successful person, because it's not about me. You're a great communicator. Get over yourself. It's all about the audience.
- [08:00]
Ed Milet
That's right.
- [08:01]
John Maxwell
So when you look at failure, the reason people don't do failure is because they haven't got over themselves. Well, the other day this is so true. I started writing this the other day. So it's brand new, so it's fresh. So I hope it's good. But I don't know if it's good because I'm just working on it, I'll tell you. But okay, thank you. Here's what I think when I think of failure. I ask myself, do you Want to get in the game and fail or do you want to sit in the bleachers and fail?
- [08:28]
Ed Milet
That is good.
- [08:29]
John Maxwell
And so it's kind of like, do you want to watch yourself fail because you're not in the game? Because sitting in the bleachers has already disqualified you. There's no win. No one ever had a beer and a hot dog and won. You know what I'm saying? But the reason we don't get into the game is because we don't want to lose. Because we want to look good in the eyes of people. And so we want that kind of favor. So anytime I'm concerned about how I look to others, yes, I'm in trouble. Not because I'm not trying to give a total disregard for just doing anything you want to do. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that I have to realize that with one trifling, small exception in this world, the world's composed of other people. There's John, but then there's billions. And I got to get off of John onto the billions. To be able to now, to now be comfortable with the fact that I'm not always going to hit it. Linda, who's been with me Edgar's for 39 years as my personal assistant all the way up, I drove up from where I lived up here for this. And so we had about an hour and a half conversation and she said something very interesting. She said, john, I think your secret sauce, she says, I look at it, she said, your secret sauce is that you don't have to win, but you do have to learn. And she said, you jump the fence very quickly. What's over there? You're curious. I gotta find out what I don't know yet. Because when you know, you don't know. The thing you know is you need to know more than you know. But she said, your ability to not only. She said, and you do it first. She said, do it before anyone else.
- [10:21]
Ed Milet
Yes.
- [10:22]
John Maxwell
But she said, you do it first because you just. It's not about you. And she said, and that's your secret sauce. Well, I don't know if that's my secret sauce, but I do know this, I do know this, that when people hold back, almost every time, they don't hold back because what's the right decision? They hold back because what's going to happen to me?
- [10:43]
Ed Milet
Right? Or what are people going to think about me?
- [10:45]
John Maxwell
That's exactly right.
- [10:46]
Ed Milet
It's interesting you say that because I was with just how timely this book is. And by the way make sure you guys go get the book and we're going to talk about it again at the end. Specifically the book itself. But I was working with one of the PGA Tour players that I work with. A golfer?
- [10:59]
John Maxwell
Yeah.
- [10:59]
Ed Milet
And he literally said to me, I'm afraid I'm gonna miss the putt. And I said, no, you're not. He goes, what do you mean? He says, no, I'm afraid I'm gonna miss the putt. And I said, I can promise you, you're not afraid of miss just a ball, not going in a hole. It's not the end of your life. I said, you're afraid of what people are gonna think about you if you miss the putt.
- [11:17]
John Maxwell
Totally.
- [11:18]
Ed Milet
Right.
- [11:18]
John Maxwell
And here's the deal. If you're on the putting range all by yourself, right. And you're putting, do you have. Oh, my gosh. I'm afraid what misses that doesn't even enter your mind.
- [11:27]
Ed Milet
Correct.
- [11:28]
John Maxwell
It's like I was in the Pro Am at Pebble. Be straight years. And my brother and I were talking one day. He said, john, doesn't it make you nervous? I mean, you got thousands of people out there. They're watching you play golf. Doesn't it make you nervous? I said, not at all. He said, why not? I said, because they didn't come to watch me play golf. Get over yourself. There wasn't one person that went to pebble beach and said, boy, I'd like to see Fat Man John swing. They came to see. They came to see the pros. They came to see, you know, what they're wanting for Fat John. Would he putt and get out of the way so I could watch a real putt?
- [12:02]
Ed Milet
Watch the real putt.
- [12:03]
John Maxwell
I wanna watch somebody can really hit a golf ball. Well, that's a different mindset. But if a person says they're afraid of missing the putt, they're afraid of what people will think. Because when they were on the putt in green by themselves, they weren't afraid
- [12:17]
Ed Milet
of missing the putt 1000%. So what does it mean? Help me frame this so I can help people. And even in my coaching, one of the things in the book, I think it's chapter two, is Keep Failure and Success Together. Is that what it says? What does that mean?
- [12:32]
John Maxwell
Well, first of all, I've never heard anybody talk about it.
- [12:34]
Ed Milet
Me either.
- [12:35]
John Maxwell
One of the things. I'm very excited about this book. First of all, this is my third failure book. You understand?
- [12:40]
Ed Milet
Yes.
- [12:40]
John Maxwell
I wrote Failing Forward, which is a million seller. It was My first failing book. Then I wrote, sometimes you win, sometimes you learn. And then I wrote this one and somebody said, well, why'd you write three? I said, because I, I'm really good at it. You know, there's some. Please let me talk to you about failure. Success, I'm not sure, but failure. I'm really good. I'm really good at failure in that process. So I've never heard anybody talk about this. Failure and success are meant to be very close together, but our culture separates them. Succeed, don't fail, do it right, don't mess it up. And we put them as far apart as we possibly can. One's good, one's bad, one you gotta do one you don't want to ever do. And we separate them. But think about it. There's no reality that at all in my life, in your life and everybody that's part of this podcast. They've never had a time where they had three days of all success and then on Thursday they had two days of all failure. Success and failure are intertwined in everything that we do. And every month I've done this for over 30 years, I have a learning lunch where I sit down with somebody bigger, better, faster, smarter than me. And I ask them seven questions. And one of the questions I ask them is, what's the most important lesson you've ever learned in your life? Now, I've done that for over 30 years. Do the math. That's 3, 400 people, different people I've talked to. Every time I ask them, what's the most important lesson you've ever learned in your life? Every time, not sometimes, not most times, when they tell me their story, failure is in that story.
- [14:09]
Ed Milet
Incredible.
- [14:10]
John Maxwell
I've never heard a success, most important lesson I've ever learned without some kind of a miss a loss. Oh my gosh. I woke up, I didn't have any idea. It's always in there. So even at the core of your greatest moments, failure is there. So here's why you gotta keep em together. You need to keep success and failure together. Because Ed, they balance each other out.
- [14:36]
Ed Milet
That's so good. Yes.
- [14:37]
John Maxwell
So I'm over here and I'm just on a roll. I'm Midas touch. It's all gold. Success. Woo. Touchdown. Here we go. I better keep failure right beside that, because you know, Bill Gates said success is a lousy teacher. It makes people think they can't lose. So when I'm on this winning streak, oh, I better keep failure, right. Because if I keep failure close to my success, When I'm on a roll, it will give me humility. And you've got to have humility to learn and be taught.
- [15:07]
Ed Milet
Isn't that true?
- [15:08]
John Maxwell
So with my success, I keep failure together because in my success, I have humility. Let's go over to the. I'm in the ditch now. I'm failing. I'm screwing this whole thing up. I got to keep success right beside that failure in my worst days because it gives me resiliency.
- [15:22]
Ed Milet
Very good.
- [15:23]
John Maxwell
You separate them and you lose humility and you lose resiliency. You put them together now all of a sudden, it's a beautiful thing, regardless of what state you're in.
- [15:32]
Ed Milet
That is tremendous, by the way. That could be an entire book, like, just that philosophy. Seriously, you guys, I'm thinking, I'm watching you right now. I think you're better than I've ever seen you. I'm turning about, like your articulation, your communication, the. The. The tactical stuff.
- [15:48]
John Maxwell
And by the way, about time.
- [15:50]
Ed Milet
No, that's. No, actually, the truth is, that's a pretty high compliment given. You are considered by everybody I know, the world's greatest leadership expert for the last half century or more, to say that you're better now. And I want to ask you. I'm framing that as a true compliment. But around failure. You said something to me a couple years ago that you said a lot of things in life that have stuck with me, but one of them that just blew my doors off. You said, ed, my capacity to grow is greater than it's ever been before, Meaning not only am I growing more than I've ever grown before, and this was. You're probably 75 at the time. I don't know, probably around there. And you said, not only am I growing more, but my capacity to grow has been expanded. Is part of that because your perspective is your learning, and that. That allows you to view failure differently than most people. In other words, are those things two things connected to you?
- [16:42]
John Maxwell
Oh, they're very connected. And I'm in love with learning. I know. I had somebody the other day say, because they said, what do you love best? I mean, you're a communicator, you're a writer, you're a networker, you're a leadership guy. They threw out about seven. Which others? And I said, you didn't name any of them. My favorite thing. I said my favorite things. Learning.
- [17:01]
Ed Milet
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- [18:46]
John Maxwell
Honestly and, and I there's a game I play, it takes three minutes, I play it probably six times a day and I'll have a moment or I'll have three minutes, I'll pull. It's called Word Seek and I'm really good with words because I mean that's right. I mean I'm good with words and I'm always in the top 5%. Sometimes I. I've been a half dozen times number one in the world. I mean just playing this game, you know. Oh, here's your rank. Anyway, the reason I love it is it's a three minute game and when it's done, if I have a good game and puts me in the expert level, I only got about 25% of the words.
- [19:28]
Ed Milet
What are you trying to do? Figure out A word that's a synonym or something or.
- [19:30]
John Maxwell
No, no. It's scrambled letters and you make words out.
- [19:34]
Ed Milet
Find the words.
- [19:34]
John Maxwell
How many words can you.
- [19:35]
Ed Milet
Got it?
- [19:35]
John Maxwell
It's called word C. Now, here's what I love about and I keep asking myself, why am I so drawn to this game? I'll tell you why I'm drawn to this game. I'm never going to get there. And never going to get there is highly appealing to me.
- [19:48]
Ed Milet
I know it is.
- [19:49]
John Maxwell
I want to tell you something.
- [19:49]
Ed Milet
I know it is.
- [19:50]
John Maxwell
You show me a person that wants achievement, but they don't want to be stretched in their life. They're going to be in trouble. And so I love the fact that when I'm done, there's no expert at all. I'm 22% and I was ranked top, but I'm not top. There's 80%, there's 75% that I never even got off of. That there's something very appealing of never having arrived. That it's a journey and it's not a destination. And I can remember one of my books I wrote many years ago was called the Success Journey, and my publisher wanted to call it the Destination to Success. And I said, no, no, no, no.
- [20:38]
Ed Milet
Yeah, you wouldn't do that.
- [20:39]
John Maxwell
There's no destination. It's a journey. And so I think there's a lot of that if you want to constantly grow and learn. I think you look at failure as a terrific asset and not a liability at all.
- [20:53]
Ed Milet
This is a tremendous conversation we're having right now. You've. That thing you said about there's really not a finish line, none. And that you're constantly learning and growing. You've really. In my own life, you've challenged my own thinking about that. I began a business career and a pursuit with an idea of finishing, of course. Truly. And then as I got around you, it challenged my perspective about that to where not only have you inspired me not to think that way anymore, but it's freed me up almost.
- [21:24]
John Maxwell
Oh, it's beautiful. You can fly. You're right. Oh, no, no, you fly. See? And I started off the same way. I thought, go out, do really well, make your money, build your house on the hill, retire, live happily ever after. You have no needs, no worries. So I think we all start off that way. And then I began to understand the fallacy of that whole process. And so I used to think, you do the hard thing, so then it gets easy. And what I discovered is that's not true at all. It isn't you do the hard thing. And if you do it really well, guess what? You get something harder. You finish hard, and you get. Oh, my gosh, harder. And you keep climbing harder. And here's what happens. Respect is only earned on difficult ground. So true significance is only taken on difficult ground, Ed. And if you don't have it so. Therefore, the fulfillment, the joy, the adrenaline, stuff that you want in your life happens in the fact that you're going where you've never been before. You're learning things you've never known before. You're doing things that you've never tried before. And you know. You know you aren't going to do it. All right? You know that you're going to have to take detours. You know, you're going to have setbacks, but it doesn't matter because you're out there where you're supposed to be. Greatness is designed for somewhere out there that calls for a pioneer, not for somebody who sat there and said, you know what? I got it figured out. I tell people, when you think you got it, you're going to get it.
- [23:03]
Ed Milet
I can absolutely attest that that's true.
- [23:06]
John Maxwell
Isn't it true?
- [23:06]
Ed Milet
I've watched it with my friends over and over. You know, we're having. This is. This is a conversation I've not heard on a podcast before, and it's so important. This is one of these things where if you're listening this, you should go back and listen to this again. Even those of you that are. Are doing. You think you're doing well. That's. Why don't you think so many people get to that exit in their company or that point and they're like, it's. It's not what I thought it would be. It's because it's. There isn't really a finish line for these things, and it is disappointing to get. I don't think it causes you to maybe make poor decisions if you think it's going to end. You know, you might cut corners or do things like that instead of being in a pursuit of something. Do you agree with that?
- [23:43]
John Maxwell
Well, totally. I'll tell you what disappointment is. Disappointment is thinking that there's a place where there's happiness. It's not a destination.
- [23:54]
Ed Milet
It's not a place.
- [23:55]
John Maxwell
It's not a place. It's not something I did. It's not some place I arrived. It's what I'm doing. I mean, is there anything more boring than a person that has that been there, done that mindset? Oh, been there, done that you just look up and say, dear God, let me leave you as quick as I can. Because immediately, that's like expert. It's like expert. I mean, when people talk to me about your leadership expert, I say, I'm not an expert. The more you know, the more you know, you don't know. And the more you know, you don't know, the more you know you need to know. And no matter how much you know, there's more out there. And I remember when I wrote my first leadership book, I thought, I'll write a very good leadership book, and I'll have done leadership well. I wrote that leadership book. It wasn't that good, to be honest with you. And I thought, well, man, there's more that I could write about leadership again. Once you keep that mindset of learning and growing, it's kind of like you think you're going to figure it out and you think you're going to get to the end, but you're not going to figure out and you're not going to get the end. And then one day you wake up and say, I never want to figure it out. I never want to get to the end. Because it's in the chase a million percent.
- [25:05]
Ed Milet
This is right, by the way. I've just lived it, but you were the first person that came along. I. You guys, he. His. I think every one of my audience thinks I work very hard, and I think I do. I. You're another level. You're another level. We've flown around together. I've been fortunate to fly with him, and the way he flies is very nice and. But will he. When you get on the plane with him and there's other people around, it's like, okay, what are you working on? What do you need help with? This is what I'm working on. These are my questions. And I've been. He and I are the two weirdos. Because at some point, inevitably, everybody else eventually crashes out. And it's John and I together going back and forth, and I'm just learning. But I guess the thing that I think on failure, maybe you cover it in the book. So I'd like you to talk about this. How do you. Because, you know, not all failure is good, is it? So, like, how do you know? Or is all good? Meaning you have this chapter in the book. Challenge my thinking on this or explain it to me. You say, know the difference between a good miss and a bad miss?
- [26:01]
John Maxwell
Huge.
- [26:01]
Ed Milet
What's that mean?
- [26:02]
John Maxwell
Oh, my gosh, I'm so glad you brought it up, Ed. Again, just like keeping failure and success together. I never heard anybody talk about read about it until I wrote it.
- [26:10]
Ed Milet
Yeah, I have not either.
- [26:10]
John Maxwell
I'm gonna tell you something. I've never heard anybody talk about this, okay? But there is a difference between a good miss and a bad miss. All right? A good miss is still a miss, but you got a little closer. A bad mission, you got a little farther. It's like this. A good miss is when I have a failure. And by the way, you never know whether you have a good miss or bad miss based on what the failure is. It's your response to the failure that determines the good miss and bad miss. Nobody talks about this, but watch this. Watch this. So let's say I messed something up. So what I do? I said, wow, that didn't work. I got to make adjustments. Good miss. Now I'm saying, oh, I've learned that. Don't do that anymore. Change here. I make adjustments. That's a good miss. A bad miss. I make excuses. That's a bad miss. What do you do with excuses except make more excuses? I've never known anybody go from excuse to success. I've never had me either. I know they go from failure to success, but not because excuses takes awareness. When I make excuses, I personally say I don't want to be aware of what could be out there. And you can't fix what you don't know needs to be fixed. And so therefore, we muddle in. That's a bad miss. We're staying that. We stay in that. But it's the response to the failure that determines whether the miss is a good one or a bad one. So when people say, I failed. Okay, I got it. I failed a lot of times. Let's talk about your response. What's your response? Because when these guys are saying, the greatest lesson I ever learned had failure in it, it's because they had good misses outstanding. When people say, I'm done, it's over. It's terrible. It's because they had bad misses outstanding. Doesn't that make sense?
- [28:04]
Ed Milet
Yes. There's a part of the book which I'm gonna let you guys read in the book about kind of the victim identity that we take on that goes down this road also.
- [28:13]
John Maxwell
Totally.
- [28:13]
Ed Milet
It's earlier in the book than this part. Yeah, I've had some bad misses, too. I've had some bad misses where I pointed fingers and didn't learn from it. And a lot of times you end up repeating that mistake in another form. If you don't take something from you
- [28:26]
John Maxwell
either learn from the failure, which is a good miss, or you leave the failure, which is a bad miss. And most people, they want to leave the scene as quick as they, oh my gosh, what happened? It wasn't me. But the moment you leave, you learn nothing. Leaving is a bad miss because it doesn't let you. You didn't stay around long enough to learn.
- [28:45]
Ed Milet
That's so good.
- [28:45]
John Maxwell
And you just have to. I tell people all the time, you got hang with your failure a while. This is good. There's a lot to learn here. You know, don't get off the operating table too quickly. Let the surgeon do the work.
- [28:56]
Ed Milet
The other thing you don't do, at least in my observation, I need to do better at this. But I want to talk about leading other people through failure, meaning one thing I've watched. We've, you know, I'll just leave it at that. But I don't see you when you course correct or coach my observation of you. You don't seem to be judging the person's failure. And even when some of them have been some, you know, failures, you know, judgment failures, we'll say, right. So how do you lead somebody, whether that be business or a child of yours? And maybe it's different in those two and take your time on either one. But what's your philosophy on leading others through a failure?
- [29:35]
John Maxwell
Well, first of all, all I have to do is look at my failures and it takes me off the judgment roll real quick. I mean, my gosh, I have had, in fact, I think highly successful people probably fail more than unsuccessful people. I agree with that because they keep trying. They're out there attempting. And so, hey, if you attempt a thousand times, you're going to have several hundred misses. If you attempt 10, you may only have six or seven. So I think the effort creates a lot of possibilities for failure. But when I look at that failure, what I understand is and try to help other people through it is two. One is nothing helps people handle failure more than me to talk to them about my failures.
- [30:19]
Ed Milet
Okay.
- [30:20]
John Maxwell
I mean, Ed, I've heard you talk and when you do some of your teaching, you're a master at talking about the hard lessons that you learned in that process that brought so you do to tell people you have failed and then them to look at you and see where you are.
- [30:38]
Ed Milet
Yes, that's great.
- [30:39]
John Maxwell
Here's what I tell people. When successful people talk about their failures, then failure gets tagged with successful people.
- [30:47]
Ed Milet
This guy is just good.
- [30:52]
John Maxwell
But when you watch people that have failed talk about their failure. You say, oh, my God, don't want to do that. That's a loser for sure. And so what I say is, when you're successful, the more you talk about failure, the more you help people see it from a perspective of positivity. And so you do a great. Because here's what happens. Okay, Ed, I join your team and you're highly successful. And I'm just starting out, I'm a newbie, and I hope I do it right. You're talking about all your successes, and then I go out and of course I don't do it right. You're never good the first time, you're never good the second time. It's like your daughter. What happens when you have five calls and they're all no's? So you're not good? Well, immediately I look at you and I thought, well, look at Ed. Oh my gosh, he's so good. And then what do I do? I disqualify myself.
- [31:38]
Ed Milet
Amen.
- [31:38]
John Maxwell
I just said, well, I don't have his gifts, I don't have his. I don't get his opportunity. And so what happens is when you talk about the success, you discourage people. When you talk about failure, you encourage people, especially when you're a successful failure.
- [31:54]
Ed Milet
Gosh, that's so true.
- [31:56]
John Maxwell
It's so encouraging. It just, it lifts. Because guess what? When you talk about your failures, but I see that you've overcome them. So when I fail, I say, well, Ed did that, but look, he overcome it. I can overcome them too. It's a whole different mindset. And I wish that successful people, I wish they would talk about their failures more. So do I, because that's where the learning and the growing is. And I'll tell you what else. I'm 78 and people see me kind of like the highlight of my life. I wish they could see me at 28. If I could have one genie wish, it would be, I wish you could have seen me communicate at 28. I wasn't that good. I wish you could, because they would be greatly encouraged. What they're doing is they're seeing a man who has done 50 plus years of personal daily growth every day. And so, yes, it's kind of like in the beginning, you're not as bad as people think you are. But in the end, you're really not as good as people think you are either. And I have this great desire to let everybody know I wasn't really that good. You just have to understand, I made a commitment to intentionally grow and develop myself, but I wasn't that good. I wasn't. And if they would have seen me, they would have seen. Then they would see not the end result, but they would see what growth will do for a person.
- [33:09]
Ed Milet
But, John, I've watched it in the last 10 years that I've been your friend. I've actually watched it. At this stage of your life, you are getting better in those 50 years, is there a particular situation where you failed that you could maybe share that did cause you to grow or make a pivot or look at failure differently? Do you think of one? I mean, I'm sure there's a lot, but I mean, is it.
- [33:30]
John Maxwell
When I was 40, I did inventory, kind of that midlife kind of did halftime thing, you know, And I got a little discouraged because I thought I'm not quite as far as I thought I would get. And so I did the personal inventory. Why am I not as far as I got? And I came to a conclusion about three days later that I really. I had spent a lot of time on my personal growth and development, but I hadn't spent enough time on developing my team. And I said, maxwell, if you don't grow your team, they can't go with you. K Pop Demon Hunters, Saja Boy's Breakfast Meal and Hunt Trick's Meal have just dropped at McDonald's. They're calling this a battle for the fans. What do you say to that, Rumi? It's not a battle. So glad the Sacha Boy could take breakfast and give our meal the rest of the day.
- [34:15]
Ed Milet
It is an honor to share.
- [34:16]
John Maxwell
No, it's our honor.
- [34:18]
Ed Milet
It is our larger honor.
- [34:20]
John Maxwell
No, really, stop. You can really feel the respect in this battle. Pick a meal to pick a side
- [34:29]
Ed Milet
and participate in McDonald's while supplies last.
- [34:31]
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- [35:01]
John Maxwell
And so I made a pivot and I said, I am going to really work on growing and developing my team. And that was one of the best decisions I ever made. But it was one of those times at halftime where I had to come and ask myself, am I willing to now make this big transition. And it goes back to the law of the inner circle and the 21 laws, those closest to you determine the level of your success. And it was at that moment I thought, I will never hit my level of success unless I have great people around me. So I had better. You know, we can only grow so much in personal capacity, but we can grow a lot more in team capacity. And so the idea of partnershiping and teamwork, there's something really beautiful about developing a great team until that one and one doesn't really, after a while equal two, it goes three. There's a compounding there of that.
- [35:53]
Ed Milet
Do you wish your last book we're talking about more like public leaders and stuff? Do you feel like if I'm a leader, I want you to give advice to leaders out there and you have had a failure or a setback or a mistake. One of the things I wish for, like in our public discourse, like our politicians, is for a leader to say, made a mistake. I got this one wrong. I apologize. I'm gonna course correct this. My intent wasn't to do this, but I blew it. I missed the call there. And we're gonna get it right next time. It's almost like it seems like in our culture today, failure is such a bad thing that if you even admit one, you're, you know, somehow you're disqualified forever. I wish. Do you feel that way too? I wish more of her. And so if you're speaking to someone who runs a company or leads a family, which is a leader, a mother that's listening to this, it's okay to acknowledge you've had a failure or a setback or made a mistake. And that's a redemptive thing to do, an important thing to do for both
- [36:50]
John Maxwell
you and the person who's hearing you. It's a two way redemptive thing. When I admit my failures, I get in touch with my humanity, which allows me now to be able to really grow. So it's good for me, but it's also good for the other person. You know, it's funny because I remember last year when I was, when we had a couple candidates running for president, I told Margaret before the first presidential debate, I said, I know who I'm going to vote on. And she said, who are you going to vote on for? I said, the first person in the debate that looks in the camera and said, I made a mistake. Yeah, I didn't do that.
- [37:29]
Ed Milet
Right.
- [37:29]
John Maxwell
Oh, I wish, I wish I could have that. I wish I could do that decision over Again, I said the first person that shows any kind of authenticity, any kind of in touch with who they are, that doesn't blame the other person for all the problems in the world, I said, I'm just gonna. And I just sat there and I
- [37:44]
Ed Milet
thought that'd be a long wait.
- [37:45]
John Maxwell
All right, I'm voting for you. Just one time. Just tell me one time. Of course there was no. There was no. And you and I both know that is, first of all, untrue. We're all human. And number two, it's unhealthy. It's unhealthy because we set a standard that is not livable by anybody. And now instead of us having freedom, we're under incredible bondage and stress. And it does all kind of emotional things that people don't want.
- [38:14]
Ed Milet
That is such an important thing because it's not modeled. You're not seeing that from most public leadership right now, yet the leaders that I've worked with in my life that I admire the most have done exactly what you say to do. I messed that up. I'm so sorry. Please forgive me. I'm gonna get it right next time.
- [38:29]
John Maxwell
And people just can hardly wait to forgive you.
- [38:32]
Ed Milet
I actually think, ironically, kind of like what you said about overall failure, I actually got much closer to that person as a leader. It almost as if that setback or mistake, the decision they made that didn't go the right way, was actually an odd blessing long term because their acknowledgment of it built a level of trust that didn't exist when everything was perfect.
- [38:50]
John Maxwell
Am I inner circle? They know my strengths, and they know my weaknesses. They know my best victories and they know my biggest losses. And I want to tell you, they're close to me because they know my biggest losses.
- [39:04]
Ed Milet
Yep. You also told me when I got to know you better, which, just for what it's worth, just want to say this back to you just so much. I am listening. You told me, hey, Ed, you know, reveal your imperfections to people. You'll become much closer to them if you try to appear to be perfect all the time. And I really have. I've. I've really heeded that advice. That, by the way, it's so freeing.
- [39:23]
John Maxwell
Oh, yeah.
- [39:24]
Ed Milet
To not try to have to live up to some standard that I know is not accurate. Right. I know that it is. Got a hard question for you on failure. So we're talking about this whole failure thing sometimes. Do you worry at all that as we embrace failure? That. And I think you'll know what I mean, when I say this. So I want you to speak to it. There's this whole book you've written. It's gold and obviously just even the nuggets that we've talked about today. But can you go a little too far on that? Where you accept failures in your life? Do you know what I'm saying? Where. You know what I mean? Like, I want to have the. I want to have a guardrail on this to some extent, because some people take this and just go, well, then I don't have to have any successes. I don't have to have any breakthroughs. You know what I'm saying? That does become part of a culture. So speak to that.
- [40:03]
John Maxwell
Well, what I say all the time is failure should move you. And when we become comfortable with failure, we're in trouble. So failure should move you. Failure is your friend not because you had the failure. It's your friend because it says, you better change something. And people change when they heard enough, they have to. When they learn enough, they know how to. And when they receive enough, they're able to. And so that's the change pattern. So when I fail, I am embracing failure as a friend because it raised its hand and said, john, wrong way. You don't want to go here and now. It creates awareness. Failure treated correctly makes me aware of changes I need to make. Failure perspectively, incorrectly is when I look at it and instead of saying I'm aware and I must change, I look at it. I say, I just can't do any better and make excuses. But it's a catalyst. Failure is a catalyst to either have a person change for the better or it's a catalyst for a person to say, I'm a victim and this way it's going to be and that's my life and I can't help it.
- [41:21]
Ed Milet
What's the Bible say about failure?
- [41:23]
John Maxwell
Well, the Bible's beautiful about failure. I mean, think about it. First of all, the Bible never hid failures. There are only two people in the Bible that there's nothing about their life and failure. There's only two great ones, and that's Joseph and Nehemiah. They're the only two biblical characters where you look at their life and you every other biblical character, David, there's some murder and adultery.
- [41:52]
Ed Milet
That's an obvious one.
- [41:54]
John Maxwell
And remember this? God looked at David and said, you're a man after my own heart. Now, David's frontline people in his kingdom didn't say that God said that God looked at a guy that we would look and say, he's not fit to be in this thing. And he said, you're a man after my own heart. I mean, look at Moses, the great men and women of leaders. Honestly, they all had failure in their life. The Bible doesn't try to cover that. The Bible. You know, one thing that's beautiful about God's word and God is. He's not transactional at all. I love about. I mean, God doesn't say, maxwell, measure up and. But guess I think I'm gonna let you in. He's transformational. He doesn't work on a transactional. I don't earn anything. The very fact of forgiveness is a fact that God knows how to handle failure. Well, you guys, this is so good in our lives, and it's so beautiful. It's so beautiful. That's very comforting to me.
- [43:01]
Ed Milet
Same here, brother. Makes me emotional, as you're saying.
- [43:04]
John Maxwell
Me, too.
- [43:04]
Ed Milet
I know.
- [43:05]
John Maxwell
It's because we have a wonderful God. That's why it makes me emotional.
- [43:09]
Ed Milet
Thank God for God's grace.
- [43:12]
John Maxwell
Hey. Somebody says if I don't have God's grace, I don't think I can make. Actually, let me explain something. If you don't have God's grace, you don't make. You do not.
- [43:21]
Ed Milet
This is definitive.
- [43:22]
John Maxwell
For a moment, you were entertaining a possibility. Remove that possibility out of your life, sir. It isn't going to happen. You.
- [43:31]
Ed Milet
You're just such a treasure in my life, and I'm. I. Something happens when we do this. I don't know what it is, but
- [43:38]
John Maxwell
like Ed, I do interviews. You do interviews. We all do interviews. You're the best interviewer.
- [43:43]
Ed Milet
Oh, my God.
- [43:44]
John Maxwell
Now, listen to me. The first time. I remember the first time we did it out in Los Angeles, we sat down and it clicked.
- [43:50]
Ed Milet
Yes.
- [43:51]
John Maxwell
And I walked away and I said it clicked. Because this man, you have a great gift of intuition and discernment. And when you're with people, you see the person, but you see what's behind. And you are a great interviewer because you don't state the obvious. You go behind the curtain and you pull out the best in people. And I think the better people that you interview, the better interviews you get. Because it's all inside. But you have the ability to dig for that gold and get it. You're a great interviewer.
- [44:22]
Ed Milet
You know, I don't mean to say this. We're going back and forth. You do that to me. You do that for me, myself. Like, I. You know, one thing about leadership, you guys, is when you know someone truly believes in You.
- [44:36]
John Maxwell
Oh, totally.
- [44:37]
Ed Milet
It's so. I feel that from you, it's a game changer. Right? It's one of those elements. It's different. I even think with our children, loving our children is obviously, it's entry into the game. I mean, you're supposed to love your children, but believing in them and them knowing you believe in them or as a leader in a company, that's a different thing.
- [44:55]
John Maxwell
Oh, it's the greatest gift we could ever give anyone is the same gift that God gave us. Unconditional love. While we were yet sinners.
- [45:08]
Ed Milet
Yeah.
- [45:09]
John Maxwell
God loved us. Not when we got our act together. Not when we all of a sudden made a better presentation. While we were yet sinners. While we were already screwed up. While we were already. You see, God doesn't. God doesn't fix us to change us. He changes us to fix us. There's a lot of difference between those two.
- [45:34]
Ed Milet
You know when you have the camera guys going, hey, man, they're naughty. You know, you're spitting truth. Can I ask you one more thing? Because we're wrapping up. I just want to ask you about this one thing. That is another thing you have. It's not in the book.
- [45:45]
John Maxwell
Yeah.
- [45:45]
Ed Milet
Okay. You want others to succeed. Were you this way when you were young? Let me tell you what I mean. I want everyone to understand. This one time he gave a speech that I thought was just incredible. Every time he speaks, but I was with him afterwards, I said, that was just mind blowing. And he goes, oh, here's the notes. You should give this speech. You do it better than I would.
- [46:04]
John Maxwell
Oh, I remember that. And you did it better than me, too.
- [46:07]
Ed Milet
Absolutely untrue that I did it better than you. However, there's a lot of this kind of protection thing with leaders or just people in life, because I think they think if you succeed, I'm going to fail. So I want to wrap this part at the end around failure. You look at it completely differently than that. How do you look at it?
- [46:26]
John Maxwell
I want more for you than I want from you. And when I remember, in fact, we were in Nashville. Yes. And I just finished talking and we had me sit beside. And I just kind of put the speech together. And really, it's unreal that you did that. Well. And I think I looked at you and I thought, here you have it. You'll make it better. And can I tell you, I know you will make it better. Here's why. If you gave me one of your speeches, you'd make it better. I could make it better. And it's not because I'm better. It's because you already gave me a foundation. I already got what you got. Now if I get one little. One more thing, it just got better. But I wouldn't have had that one little thing if you wouldn't have given me the foundation. And so when I was young, Ed, I played ball and I was very competitive. And I think there's a lot of things about competitive people that's a real advantage to them. So I'm not anti competitors, but here's what I want to. In my own heart, I had a major life change when I lost that competitiveness and decided I would rather help other people succeed. Because if I win, it's only one. If they win, it's a whole bunch.
- [47:37]
Ed Milet
Very good.
- [47:38]
John Maxwell
And I just. At this stage of my life, yeah, I get more joy out.
- [47:44]
Ed Milet
You do.
- [47:45]
John Maxwell
Out of someone else's success.
- [47:47]
Ed Milet
You do.
- [47:47]
John Maxwell
I mean, God's. But I've got a lot. I've got stuff out of my. I'm okay, but. But I just. I like to see people do well.
- [47:54]
Ed Milet
I know you do, and I love you for it. By the way, the lesson there is that if someone else is succeeding, it doesn't mean you're failing. And that's one of the topics of failure that I wanted to make sure we. We covered. I just want to thank you. This is such a tremendous conversation and real rare when I do the show that as we're doing it, I'm thinking of people that I want to share the episode with. I always tell the audience, make sure you share this with someone you care about. I'm thinking right now of the people that I want to share this with, beginning with my daughter, who we talked about in the very beginning. So I love you.
- [48:23]
John Maxwell
Love you.
- [48:23]
Ed Milet
God bless you. By the way, the book, you guys, is how to get a return on Failure. You know, you're getting it now. Fail smarter, return stronger. It is. It's tremendous. He's just. He's the best. Thank you. God bless you, everybody. Share this episode. Max Out. This is the Ed Milan show.