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- [00:09]
Dave Ramsey
From the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions. This is the Entre Leadership podcast where I take calls from leaders like you about what it takes to win at any stage of business and leadership. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host with over 30 years of being in the trenches doing what you do and so if you're wanting theory, you're in the wrong place. This is an actual practical situation we're doing here. I actually made these decisions this morning like you're going to ask about. So here we go. Game on. Well, my great pleasure, one of my best friends in the world and a great mentor and one of the biggest icons on the stage of leadership. The one and only John Maxwell, New York Times bestselling author, coach speaker. More than 100 books, because he writes about one a week, have been translated into more than 50 languages. He's named the number one leadership expert in the world by Inc. Magazine in 2014, and there's no question that he's on that list all the time. He's the founder of the John Maxwell Company. The John Maxwell Team trains millions of leaders and millions of coaches around the world. He's going to be with us at the Entree Leadership Summit in May in Denver as one of our speakers, and he and I trade off. I speak for him occasionally on his stuff and he will come and hang out with me. We've been trading barbs like that for many years. Denver is May 18 through 21. If you want to join us and go to entreleadership.comsummit. welcome back, my friend. It's always good to hang out with you.
- [01:36]
John Maxwell
This is so much fun. I woke up today and says, oh, Ramsey and I get to have fun together and help people too. It's kind of a good gig, isn't it?
- [01:44]
Dave Ramsey
It's a good gig. It's worked out good. God has blessed us beyond our wildest imagine has the new book is High Road Leadership. I want to talk about it for a minute before we go and start taking our first few calls. By the way, if you want to call in, the number's 844-944-1070. Bringing people together in a world that divides the content on this has it's very timely in a divisive world that we live in today, but it's also some of the best teaching on leadership is to teach people the nobility that you're called to when you're called to be a leader.
- [02:24]
John Maxwell
Totally. It's a this is my best Dave Leadership culture book I've ever read. There are 12 chapters and every chapter is Another picture of what a high road leader looks like. And you and I both know that, you know, culture eats vision for lunch. And so I'm very excited about the book because I think that, you know, vision is what we see, but culture is what we do and culture is our behavior. And it's really 12 behaviors that high road leaders have that are attainable, but they have to have a picture of it before they really know how to get there. And so I'm very excited. The book's doing extremely well, but it's basically sit your team down and these are 12 behaviors of a high road leadership, team organization. And, you know, look at it and see what do we need to do to get there.
- [03:19]
Dave Ramsey
Yeah, I remember listening to the John Maxwell tapes when I was a brand new leader. I was trying to not be a boss anymore. Those little cassette tapes I used to come in my car. This is before we ever met. We became friends many years later. But so it's decades I've been consuming John Maxwell's information. And it's one of the great writers and thinkers that's formed me into the leader that I am because I was a boss. And bosses, of course, push and leaders pull. And so, you know, I'm learning. I heard you say, leaders serve, leaders serve, leaders serve. And I thought, no, I actually pay these people to serve. I'm not. It took me a minute to figure out that I was serving them by creating a culture of excellence, by demanding performance, by those things. And then I remember another stage particularly, and it's one of the attributes of this. I remember hitting this point where I finally got not cocky, not arrogant, but just comfortable in my own skin. And if you weren't okay with it, I was okay with you not being okay. Kind of. Finally, I didn't need to pose, I didn't need to do that. And when I did that, the attractiveness of our whole organization went way up. And you're calling it. And I agree with this phrase, exactly. Embrace authenticity.
- [04:35]
John Maxwell
Absolutely. In fact, when you said that, when you gave that example, David, it reminded me of a statement I made several years ago, that if you need people, you won't lead people. And when you get comfortable in your own skin, all of a sudden now you're leading them for a different reason. You're not leading them for personal ego. You're not leading them for some kind of justification why you're a leader. You're leading them because you really want to add value to them and make a difference. And when you think of servant leadership, it's really adding value to people. How do I intentionally take my team? And one of the characteristics of a high road leader in there is they want more for their people than they want from their people. And that's where we live. And that's why, I think that's why when you think of what you have done, Dave, and your incredible work of helping millions of people, I think what you have done is you have found the need as a leader. And what leaders have to do, they have to find the need and they have to find the person before they can lead them. You just don't lead. You have to find. And I think that's what you've done. And I think you've done it incredibly well. In fact, I know you have. And I think it's really helped develop you into not only the leader you are, but your organization being the leadership financial organization in the world.
- [05:42]
Dave Ramsey
Yeah. Thank you. Well, I mean, that means a lot coming from you, this idea that you can just be yourself and be okay with because myself is the definition of self. And what you're describing is I really do want good for you.
- [05:58]
John Maxwell
Oh, of course.
- [05:59]
Dave Ramsey
You know, I really am going to add value to your life by you being in the organization. I really am going to be there for you when you're hurting. I really am going to cover your family. When a family member's got cancer and you need a little time off, we're going to be there. We're going to treat other people like we want to be treated, as Jesus said, right?
- [06:15]
John Maxwell
Golden rule.
- [06:16]
Dave Ramsey
Yeah. And it changes everything.
- [06:19]
John Maxwell
And let me just say something about authenticity. I think a lot of people think that people want a perfect leader. I don't think they want a perfect leader.
- [06:25]
Dave Ramsey
No, they want to know you're authentic.
- [06:27]
John Maxwell
I think they want an authentic leader. And I tell everybody. In fact, in the book, one of the things I say is we all have an eagle in us. We love the eagle, wants to soar. But I said, I also have a hippo in me and the hippopotamus in me. Dave, I don't want to soar. I want to go to find some mud hole and stand in there and feel sorry for myself for a few hours and please don't disturb me. I'm not wanting to fly today. I want to soak in mud. But the point being, every person has hippo in them. Every person has eagle in them. And we have to come to grips with our humanity and who we are. And then how do we use that authenticity and humanity to best lead and Serve other people.
- [07:10]
Dave Ramsey
Release the hippo and soar with the eagle. I like it.
- [07:13]
John Maxwell
Come on. You and I could probably write a country. We're in Nashville. We could do a little country song on that, huh?
- [07:17]
Dave Ramsey
And if you and I wrote it, it would be bad.
- [07:19]
John Maxwell
It would be. It would be fun.
- [07:22]
Dave Ramsey
There's a reason we speak for a living instead of sing for a living. I'm just saying. John Maxwell, my guest today. We're going to take your calls from all across America with leadership questions. The phone number is 844-944-1070. Lillian is in Lexington, Kent, Kentucky. Lillian, your question for Dr. John Maxwell.
- [07:42]
Lillian
And I. Hi, Dave and John. Thanks for having me.
- [07:46]
Dave Ramsey
Sure. What's up?
- [07:48]
Lillian
Sure. I'm the owner of an embroidery business. We've been in business for 13 years and we currently have 33 employees. Our revenue last year was 3.6 million.
- [07:59]
Dave Ramsey
Goodness. Way to go, girl.
- [08:01]
John Maxwell
That's it. That's embroidery money, Dave.
- [08:03]
Dave Ramsey
That's serious money. That's a lot of stitching.
- [08:07]
Lillian
Yes. About four years ago, we promoted our most senior team members from each of our departments to team leads. As of today, we only have one of those original leaders left who's really embraced and succeeded at leadership. I found that being a small company with little room for that upward movement, the expectation is we should promote our most senior team members whether they'd be a good leadership fit or not. My question is, how can we find leadership potential in our current team members or when hiring so we can build up more leaders and offer career growth opportunities when the buck stops with me?
- [08:45]
John Maxwell
Well, Lillian, first of all, you don't promote people because they're senior leaders or that they've had tenure.
- [08:51]
Dave Ramsey
Nope.
- [08:51]
John Maxwell
You promote them because they're good. And everybody has to understand that you don't go to the next level. You got to grow to the next level. And what I would suggest, because you have still a beautiful but small organization, is I would suggest that you develop what I call a leadership table. And a leadership table is not an official position, but it's a possibility position. And what you do is have every. You should at least have twice a month meetings at your leadership table, where you bring people that are on your team that have no leadership positions, but you have leadership discussions. Because what I found is if you bring people to a leadership table and you discuss leadership things that you're thinking about in your business, you're going to find out very quickly those who lean into leadership and those who don't. And it's a great farm team way to Begin finding who your potential leaders are that perhaps sometime need to go fill that higher position. And it's very non threatening. In fact, what I suggest on it, Lillian, is that when you invite them to the leadership table, you just say, we're going to have a leadership discussion. And this may be the only time you come to the table. You don't set it up as you were doing this every couple weeks for you. Because what you want to do is you want to keep the people at the leadership table that lean in and you want to let the people that don't lean in, let them go back and help you in the business. But they're not going to do the leadership stuff. Because what you have to do is you have to discover. You have to discover who your leaders are and you can discover them two ways. Have something like a form, like a leadership table where you can begin to see if they have that natural leaning. And secondly, you've just got to let them go out and practice. You've got to let them. How do you develop leaders? You practice leadership. And when you practice leadership, that is the indicator whether a person can lead or not. You know, let a person practice leadership for three months with a couple projects that you give them and you're going to find out if they, they can produce or not. But I have never been in favor of. You've held this position for a period of time so you now can go into a senior leadership position. I think the only promotion that I ever do is they've got to produce. If they can produce, they get promoted and they can't produce. There may be some roles in the company that they can have, but certainly not leadership roles.
- [10:55]
Dave Ramsey
And if the expectation, you said you used that word among the people in the organization is that if you've been there a while, you get promoted, that's your fault. You need to change the expectation. You need to announce pretty regularly that your raise is effective when you are. You need to announce pretty regularly that leaders, that people are promoted to leadership because they exterior leadership skills, not because they breathe air and take up space. You know, seniority gets you nothing, honey, like the cereal, right? So all it gets you is loyalty and we love you and we appreciate you, but it is not a guarantee that if you're taking up space that you get promoted. There's an old book from the 1970s, and I bet John remembers it, called the Peter Principle where you stick around an organization long enough that you get promoted to your level of incompetence and you have to avoid that Principle. Remember that one?
- [11:47]
John Maxwell
Oh, I remember the book as soon as you said it. Peter Principal. I do exactly what you said. What was amazing, this book was written in the 1970s, and still people are doing the Peter Principle. It's kind of like we're talking about 60 years ago, 50 years ago. Come on, let's learn that we just don't promote people just because they're on.
- [12:03]
Dave Ramsey
The team and for no reason except that they can do the job. That's the only reason. Hey, Lillian, we want to help you out. We want you to be in our Elite app and get some support from some of our coaches and walk alongside you as you make some of these changes. And I'm going to give you that. That membership for a year. So you hang on the line and the team is going to sign you up and get you going. Now through December 2nd, you can get elite $500 off your annual Elite membership. This is the best price we offered. It's like Christmas time, people. So you need to get. This is a good bargain. This is like, known as a gift. Now through December 2nd, get 500 bucks off your annual Elite membership. Best price we'll ever offer. And we can walk alongside you and help you do all of those things. We'll be right back with more John Maxwell and Your calls at 844-944-1070. This is the Entrez Leadership Podcast.
- [13:01]
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- [14:10]
Dave Ramsey
Know the next right step for your team. Well, welcome to being in business. Most owners deal with seasons of uncertainty, like every morning. But that doesn't mean you have to keep blindly stumbling from one obstacle to the next. We know how to get you through the stages of business, and it's called the entree leadership system. It's a roadmap that takes the guesswork out of business growth. You can build the life and the business that you want. Where one of them's not running the other, you're running both of them. It's possible, folks, it can be done. And I can show you how we did it and how we've coached tens of thousands of businesses to do it. If you'd like to learn more about how to solve the right business problems at the right time, check out entreleadership.com system. Dr. John Maxwell, good friend and mentor and to all of us in America when it comes to leadership, my guest today as we take your questions, Roger is in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Roger, what's up?
- [15:06]
Roger
Yes, sir. I appreciate you guys having me on. It's a pleasure speaking with you.
- [15:09]
Dave Ramsey
Sure.
- [15:10]
Roger
So we own a. We own a specialized storm shelter safe room business. I started with a company 10 years ago and then opened the first franchise in 2019. Then two years later, I purchased the rest of the company. So we have three locations, six dealers throughout the Midwest and the South. We do two to two and a half million dollars annually. So we've got eight staff, not including my wife and myself. She does our payables and receivables, phone calls, overseeing leads, assignments. So in an effort to have more control of our processes and increase our margin, this year we brought in most of our fabrication in house. When we did that, my plate went from full to spilling over. I love what I do. By no means burnout, but I'm becoming increasingly aware that the more I do, the less efficient we are and the less we accomplish as a company.
- [16:04]
John Maxwell
Yeah.
- [16:05]
Dave Ramsey
You just took on the second full time job, Bubba.
- [16:08]
Roger
Yeah, absolutely.
- [16:09]
Dave Ramsey
Wow.
- [16:11]
Roger
So my question, I know we can scale and we have scaled, but I know that the limits is within what my abilities are. So where do I spend my energy and focus to continue to grow and go to the next level? Do I hire more staff or a manager to oversee a portion of the operation? But also, all of that being said, creating space for a home life and my relationship with my family.
- [16:40]
John Maxwell
You know, what you need to do is first of all, before you think about hiring staff and going that route is you just need to prioritize yourself really uniquely and effectively. Let me explain what I mean. I talk sometimes about the three Rs, and the three Rs will really help you to prioritize yourself and what you should be doing in the company. You know, what gives me the greatest return? I mean, there are certain things that you do, there's certain things that Dave does in the company that it gives the return, and there are certain things that you do that. I mean, it's just. They're good things, but they're not gonna give you. So you gotta give. What's giving me the greatest return? What's required of me, what do I have to do? What gives me the greatest return, and then what gives me the greatest reward? And when you talk about you're not burnout, perhaps, but you're kind of getting a little.
- [17:30]
Dave Ramsey
I'm tired.
- [17:30]
John Maxwell
You're tired. The reason you're tired is you're not doing the things that give you the reward that you need. And so the reward takes care of the getting worn out a little bit in leadership, the requirements keeps you just absolutely in the lane that you need to be in the lane as the leader. And then, of course, the big one, I always say is, where's that return? When I do something, it just helps the company. I mean, the bottom line is better. And, you know, basically, in my work, I only do about three things. And. But all three things I do, when I do them, it rains and we make money and we help people and do our best to, you know, change lives. So I think when everybody gets around, they start talking about what I want to, what do I do to build my team? The first thing I say is you got to get yourself positioned correctly. Then what you do is you bring people around you that compliment you in the areas that you're not doing that are going to be really good at it. And I think if you take that approach first, then when you start hiring, you hire with purpose and have a real sense of meaning of why you're doing it.
- [18:41]
Dave Ramsey
Exactly. What you've done is you said six different ways in the setup on this. I think I counted them maybe five different ways that you're having trouble delegating because you're having trouble trusting someone else. You're the only guy that can do it. You're the only guy that can do it. You're the only guy that can do it. And the answer to that is bull crap. Yeah, there's some other people can do it, man. And so learning to delegate and here's how you delegate, okay? And John. John teaches this. I teach it. I've learned it from him. You delegate. When you can trust someone's competence and you can trust their integrity. So if they show you they can run that fabrication center better than you can, and they never steal, lie, mistreat people, you can trust the wholeness of the person, then it's easy for you to turn loose. Really easy. Because they're better at it than you are. And the only reason you're holding on is not because you're a control freak. It's because you haven't found anybody and mentored them and discipled them enough to put them into the role and turn them into better than you at it. And I got 400 programmers that do software engineering in this building. I have no freaking idea what they do. And it's like $50 million in payroll. I mean, I really could not. I cannot write a line of code. But the guys that are leading them, the gals that are leading them, I trust their integrity. I trust their competence. And I do measure the outputs. Do we get software? Do we get digital products out that work without bugs? Do we get things out that serve people and that make revenue? So I can measure the outputs without being a technical expert?
- [20:27]
John Maxwell
You know, can I just jump there? Because the word major grabs me. Because I think a lot of times when we empower people, we forget. Because empowerment is a great word, but, oh, I'm empowered. I've got freedom. But I'm telling you, with freedom comes accountability.
- [20:40]
Dave Ramsey
Absolutely.
- [20:41]
John Maxwell
So when you're talking about major, don't miss what he's saying. Yes, I'm going to let you run, but you just don't run without having to measure what you're doing and us being accountable for what you're doing and have these tough conversation meetings. Because I have found no matter how competent a person is, Dave, if they're not accountable, they will never give their best. I include me in that. I include you. You have to have an accountability, or else a person will never quite get to where they want to go.
- [21:13]
Dave Ramsey
Well, and because that way we're at least on the same team. We're aimed at the same thing.
- [21:17]
John Maxwell
Absolutely.
- [21:17]
Dave Ramsey
Because sometimes they're accountable to the wrong measure because we didn't make the measure clear.
- [21:21]
John Maxwell
Correct.
- [21:22]
Dave Ramsey
And so they're running off over here to the left. You think they're supposed to. They think they're doing awesome. And we thought I wanted them over here on the right.
- [21:28]
John Maxwell
And that's why you, as a leader, you have to have upfront expectations that you have to sit down at the very beginning and say, let's be really clear what track we're running on and what we're going to try to accomplish.
- [21:37]
Dave Ramsey
So what does running the fabrication plant at your place look like, Roger? What are the seven components? And start to roll that out and go, okay. If you do this, you're winning. To the extent you're not doing this, you're losing. We don't take them bowling and put a blindfold on. You know, we're not bowling in the dark. So we know what. We know what the pins look like. Right. We know what, knock them down.
- [21:57]
John Maxwell
Yeah. Or take a bowling and take. Have no pins. When you roll the ball, you think, oh, heck, what did I do? I didn't see anything move. And I know that sometimes they don't even have pins down there. They just give a bowling ball and wonder why they're not excited about their job. And there's no feedback or whether, hey, every time you roll the ball down at the end, in a few seconds, you know whether you did well or not. But you gotta have bowling pin measurement. You gotta let people know whether they're feedback.
- [22:23]
Dave Ramsey
And it's accountability.
- [22:24]
John Maxwell
Totally. Yeah, it's accountability. Absolutely.
- [22:26]
Dave Ramsey
So I put a golf simulator in the new house.
- [22:28]
John Maxwell
Oh, did you? How's that going?
- [22:30]
Dave Ramsey
It's really hard to cheat.
- [22:34]
John Maxwell
And I played golf with Dave, and Dave handicap includes cheating. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. No, no. It takes one.
- [22:44]
Dave Ramsey
I was going to say Captain footwear here.
- [22:46]
John Maxwell
Okay. We do have some good types out there on that course.
- [22:51]
Dave Ramsey
We laughed until we cry every time we play. It's always good. But, yeah, we're not playing in the pga. But it's a different level of accountability. We know exactly whether you're hitting it. You know exactly what's happening here. And the last piece, Roger, is you said, how do I get my home life balance back? Well, you just took on two jobs, so you're going to have to offload one of those to have more time at home by creating a delegatable situation like we just talked about. And that's working, as our friend Michael Gerber said in the book E Myth on your business, not just in your business. You're spending a lot of time in your business. And so leveling up and getting up out of the treadmill stage, where it all doesn't count on you, is going to give you great joy at the office and at home. And you're going to scale. You're going to double almost immediately.
- [23:39]
John Maxwell
When you start doing that, of course you are. When you said balance, Dave, just for one moment, I just want to say people ask me about balance. I talk about seasons more than balance, to be honest with you. I don't think life is really a balanced affair. But here's what I do know. I've never met a balanced leader, but I have met a balanced team. And what happens is I think the team gives that balance because they compensate complete at all. And so I tell, when I look at my life many times, the only way I'm going to have balance in my life is to have a balanced team that can complement me, complete me in areas that I can't. And then that allows me to have the home life I want and everything.
- [24:17]
Dave Ramsey
And you know what? That includes our old friend Zig Ziglar used to say that the home team. The home team, home team has to be balanced too.
- [24:23]
John Maxwell
Absolutely.
- [24:23]
Dave Ramsey
And so there's times when there's the ox is in the ditch at work and I gotta work.
- [24:28]
John Maxwell
Yeah.
- [24:28]
Dave Ramsey
And so guess what? Guess what Sharon Ramsey did. Guess what Margaret did. They took care of the home fires.
- [24:33]
John Maxwell
And that's what I'm talking about.
- [24:34]
Dave Ramsey
But it was not a full time season. It was just for a season.
- [24:36]
John Maxwell
Yeah, it's a ditch. But you're only in there for a short time, Right. If you're in the ditch for all season, then you've missed. You don't understand seasons.
- [24:44]
Dave Ramsey
That's not a season you need to get up out of the ditch. But if it's, you know, like we do a book tour, you and I, right? Yes.
- [24:49]
John Maxwell
Yes.
- [24:49]
Dave Ramsey
Yeah, I'm going to be gone.
- [24:50]
John Maxwell
Yep.
- [24:51]
Dave Ramsey
I'm going to be gone for a while. And when I get home, we'll go do something fun.
- [24:54]
John Maxwell
That's exactly right.
- [24:56]
Dave Ramsey
And all that stuff. And with the money we made from the book tour.
- [25:01]
John Maxwell
And that's where the wife says, go, have, go, go, hey, go, go have a good book tour.
- [25:05]
Dave Ramsey
Would you please go to work?
- [25:06]
John Maxwell
Absolutely. And don't come back until it's about a good book tour.
- [25:10]
Dave Ramsey
Yeah, don't come back without a check, buddy. I'm just saying that's how it works. Dr. John Maxwell. The new book is High Road Leadership. We're taking your calls today here on the Entrez Leadership podcast.
- [25:24]
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- [26:38]
Dave Ramsey
Thanks for hanging out with us, America. My friend John Maxwell, Dr. John Maxwell.
- [26:44]
John Maxwell
Just John.
- [26:45]
Dave Ramsey
Just John. Yep, Just John is with us. And Just John, one of the number one leadership experts in the entire world. Over 100 books on leadership. My favorite still, and I guess probably still your best selling would be 21 irrefutable laws.
- [27:01]
John Maxwell
Bestselling.
- [27:02]
Dave Ramsey
Yes, I wrote a foreword. Y'all allowed us to license it. We have a Dave Ramsey version of 21.
- [27:06]
John Maxwell
Thank you.
- [27:06]
Dave Ramsey
Irrefutable Loss. So wrote the foreword to it. It's required reading around here, as are many of your books. And you know, by the way you were talking earlier with the first caller we took and I drove past it and forgot it. You said to have a leadership table. I would add to that a separate table that's just in a small company. What we did is we just started forming reading groups.
- [27:29]
John Maxwell
Yeah, that's good.
- [27:30]
Dave Ramsey
We said, hey, hey, we're gonna go, we're gonna grab John Maxwell's new book, High Road Leadership. We're gonna go through it together and discuss it. And then you'll start to see people grow and you'll start to see the ones that are not willing to even read a book, you know, which, that's a problem. If you're not a reader, you're not a leader.
- [27:46]
John Maxwell
And we did the very same thing. And when you do that, because Dave just gave you a great tool. But when you do that, don't go into this reading center as a teacher, go in as a facilitator. In other words, read the book with them. In fact, like on that one, I tell them, take 12 weeks, take one of the culture practices and pictures each week and everybody do two things. How's that going to change me and how's that going to help me change our organization? And so you discuss it, but get yourself in the game with it. It's not like I'm going to teach you, we're going to talk about it together. I love the facilitator approach more than the teaching approach because I want, I want you to be a part of the learning, growing experience with them. Not kind of like, I already know this and I want you to know it. I think there's a right way in small groups to really bring the most out of people. And I think once you became a part of that process, you bring more out of them.
- [28:47]
Dave Ramsey
Absolutely. Andrew is in Little Rock. Andrew, your question for John Maxwell.
- [28:52]
Andrew
Hey Dave. And John. Just wanted to say how grateful I am to be speaking with both of you today. It's a true honor. I'm the CEO of a group of manufacturing companies in Arkansas. We'll do about six and a half to seven million in revenue this year with 34 team members. And my question is this. How do I unify a diverse, multi tiered leadership team around new ideas with total ownership and an open minded attitude?
- [29:24]
John Maxwell
Wow, that's a great question.
- [29:25]
Dave Ramsey
What if.
- [29:26]
John Maxwell
Let me tell you a mistake I made when I was a young leader and I would go, well, I would listen to a podcast like this or I would go to a conference by myself and then I would come back and try to convince the team how wonderful this was. And all of a sudden it hit me. It took me three or four years before it hit me, so I was a little slow at it. But all of a sudden I realized if I would expose them to what I'm being exposed to at the same time, two things happen. One is we can immediately discuss what we're learning and growing. And the second thing is they can begin to have ownership of it. And so what I would greatly suggest to you is the fact that you need to involve them as quickly as you can into your new thinking, into your ideas, bring them together and say, let's talk about something I'm thinking about and what I teach my team is this. When I bring you a good idea, I expect when we're done with the conversation to have a better idea. Because collaboration is an incredible way to increase great ideas. In fact, a great idea isn't born out of a vacuum. It's where we get together. If you have a good idea and I have a good idea and then someone else has a good idea, all of a sudden those Good ideas have potential of having a great idea. And if I share something with you that I've learned and you share something with me that you've learned, all of a sudden we've learned more already. So I think that the mistake we make is sometimes as leaders, we hold onto our ideas, our thoughts too long for ourselves and don't throw them out to the team early enough. And when I throw them out to the team, I'm just saying, look, this is not the end thought. This isn't even the greatest thought, but it is a good thought. And let's see what we can do with this idea and let's see if we can make it better. And there's a lot of ownership that comes in when people get to be part of the process. And now all of a sudden, it's not like it's what Maxwell wants us to do. It's, look what we've done together. And you know, you've done it well when it's no longer your idea, but it's our idea, you know, it's, what do we do? We take the vision from me to we the mom the moment. As a leader, you are in a we situation on ideas, vision. You are cooking now. Because everybody will carry it. Everybody will walk out of that meeting now and they'll carry it. Because people that own something carry it and then they become contagious with it.
- [31:38]
Dave Ramsey
Yeah, we're aimed at something we all believe in and we're not all trying. The way we celebrate diversity at Ramsey is that the diverse, the fact that you are a different in some way gives you a unique insight into solving the problem that we're all here to solve. Period.
- [32:00]
John Maxwell
True. Very good.
- [32:01]
Dave Ramsey
Not. You are unique and you get to be treated special. No, you gotta. We're all on a team. We're all blocking, we're all tackling, we're all throwing the ball, we're freaking scoring touchdowns to win the Super Bowl. If you're not participating in that, I don't really care about your opinion because that's what we're doing. This is who we are. We are. And so that's why we love people. I mean, John, we've hired people from everywhere. I mean, I even hired a Florida fan.
- [32:29]
John Maxwell
That's hard for a 10.
- [32:30]
Dave Ramsey
Sea boy. And I walked through here the other day and I saw an Alabama.
- [32:33]
John Maxwell
Oh, come on.
- [32:34]
Dave Ramsey
Guy in here. I can't believe it, man. I got everything.
- [32:36]
John Maxwell
That shows you're expanding. No, no, you wouldn't have done that 10 years ago.
- [32:41]
Dave Ramsey
All that does I'M growing, Jon.
- [32:42]
John Maxwell
That shows TAB leadership is expanding. All of a sudden, you're really growing. I mean, when you said Alabama, I said, oh, my God, either you're growing or God has done an incredible transformation work within your life, I can tell you that.
- [32:55]
Dave Ramsey
Or our HR department just is slipping on the filter. That's all it is.
- [32:59]
John Maxwell
And they said, and days ago, how did they get in here? How did they get in here? But diversity is. And let me say something else that's very important. When people come around the table, everybody on the team needs to know why they're there. And I've never liked having people at the table because they have a position.
- [33:18]
Dave Ramsey
Nope.
- [33:19]
John Maxwell
I want people at the table because they have something to contribute. And so what happens is, Dave, if we're on the same team, I said, now let me tell you why Dave's at the table. Dave's very creative, and we got a lot of creativity we gotta work on, and he's gonna help us in this area. When you let everybody at the table know why they're at the table, two things happen. One is it puts tremendous weight and responsibility on me to produce in that area, because now everybody knows why I'm at the table. But the second thing it does, it gives great value and appreciation and diversity of why somebody else is at the table. That's not like you at all. But you know that there's going to be a time when they're going to contribute to that game plan that's going to be really huge. And I think when people don't know why they're at the table, I think there's a lot of confusion. And people say, now, okay, what's my role? And I think it's a leader's responsibility to say, you're at the table for this reason. I tell them this. You either get at the table and produce, or I'll put you on the agenda next time. You'll be on the menu next time.
- [34:13]
Dave Ramsey
And here's something kind of rude, but it's also so true that it's scary. The only time you'll have a whole team that all looks just alike is if most of them are dumb. Because smart people don't want to hang out like a sheep. No, no.
- [34:32]
John Maxwell
They have. No.
- [34:32]
Dave Ramsey
They don't want to be a lemming going led over the cliff by a cult leader. They don't want to follow blindly. The better leader people don't.
- [34:41]
John Maxwell
Oh, no. The better leader you have, the more they have individual thoughts that could contribute to the team. And you're exactly right. When everybody falls in line real quick, you've got a bunch of sheep and you're going to the slaughter.
- [34:51]
Dave Ramsey
It's going to be.
- [34:52]
John Maxwell
No doubt about it. No doubt about it. No doubt.
- [34:54]
Dave Ramsey
Some bad things are getting bad things happen. John Maxwell is with us today. This is the Entree leadership podcast. Without our mission statement, Ramsey Solutions wouldn't be the company it is today. A mission statement clarifies who you are and who you aren't, so you and your team have clear direction for all your decision making. To get help creating your own mission statement, download my free mission statement builder@entreleadership.com or if you're listening on Spotify or podcasts, just click the link in the description. Hey guys, my marketing budget for this show is you. I don't have one. So if you want to help us, click the follow button thingy there. The subscribe button thingy. Share the show. If you're YouTube or your platform that you're listening to us on, all this stuff has a share button, use that. If not, do what I do. I'll be listening to a Maxwell podcast and I'll click the link because I'm pretty primitive and I'll just send the link to about 8 or 10 of my buddies going, you gotta hear what Maxwell's saying on this. If you'll do that for this show, you help us a bunch because you're our only marketing and the show's growing, so we know you're doing it. Thank you, by the way, for that. Oh, and those five star reviews, they're awesome. Mama said, if you hadn't got anything nice to say, don't say nothing, Move on, troll, and so go on to something else. But hey, we're here to help. We're here to help you. It's what we do. And Dr. John Maxwell is with us today and Trevor is going to be with us in Houston, Texas. Hi, Trevor. Welcome to the Entree Leadership Podcast.
- [36:44]
Trevor
Thanks for having me on. I'm a big fan of you both. So thank you for everything that you do.
- [36:49]
Dave Ramsey
Thank you, Trevor. We're honored.
- [36:51]
Trevor
Yeah.
- [36:52]
Dave Ramsey
How can we help?
- [36:53]
Trevor
So, yeah, I own a franchise video marketing firm and we do 1.3 million. I have seven now, eight amazing humans that help me. And right now I'm at the stage where I know the next phase as founders. I as what I need to do is step back and be the visionary. I'm already kind of out of the date today, I would say, but I mean, even a further step back and bring in someone under me. I'm scared, honestly, about becoming irrelevant and losing the company culture that I built and of course the financial risk that comes with that. So my biggest thing to ask is, am I too early? How old are you thinking like that? I'm 34.
- [37:47]
Dave Ramsey
How long has this been open?
- [37:50]
Trevor
I've been filming since I was 13.
- [37:52]
Dave Ramsey
No, dude, I mean, you made a 1.3 million. How long from zero? When did you start making a living doing this? I mean, like three years.
- [38:01]
Trevor
I would say about 20. 20 is when it really took off.
- [38:04]
Dave Ramsey
Yeah. Okay. Three or four years. Okay, good. John.
- [38:07]
John Maxwell
Well, first of all, I think you're too early. Let me just say this. You don't want to be irrelevant and you don't want to be that, but you do want to be replaceable. And there's a difference. If you're irrelevant, of course you're going to be doing things that people don't even care about. And so you're going to lose your business very quick. But you also want to be able to build. You need to build team members. And I would suggest to you, because you're young and you're not experienced in this area, that you do this slowly and you do it individually. What I did when I was young, before I really knew how to build a team, is I spent concentrated specific time with a player on my team and I shared with them things that I was doing and we did it together. And it was, you know, it would sometimes be a two or three month process and I would watch them. It was kind of like, I do it and you watch me. Now I'm going to watch you and you're going. And then I'm going to have you do it. I'm going to have you do it. And then. But if you really want to build a company, you go to step four, which most people never do in an equipping process. It really. You go to I do it. First of all, you have to be able to do it well. If you can't, you cannot give to other people something to do that you're bad at yourself. That's why I've never understood people in training that can't do the job. Training people how to do the job. So I do it, then I do it again.
- [39:32]
Dave Ramsey
And those that can't do shouldn't teach.
- [39:33]
John Maxwell
Yeah, yeah, but you see it all the time. You see people training Dave, that they've really. They're not successful in themselves. So I do it, but then I do it and you're with me. That's the Power of proximity. Then you do it. And I'm with you. Now we're coaching. Then you do it. I want to see you do it alone. But that isn't the end. And then you do it and somebody is with you. Multiplication of leaders is in that last step of you doing. Somebody's with you. And I would suggest you do it this way because you don't have a lot of experience yet in empowering and delegating and equipping people. And this, I think, is the, the best way for you to know if you're doing it right or not. And you're going to find that out. Because if you, let's say you spend a year and you've done three or four people and you find they're doing really well, then you're saying, I have a system that works. And it's a slow system, but it works really well. Besides, you got a small company, and if you get one good leader out of that system in a year, you probably really improved your bottom line and have probably gotten you where you want to go yourself.
- [40:33]
Dave Ramsey
Exactly.
- [40:34]
John Maxwell
But I really suggest that you're not experienced enough to turn that over to somebody else yet. And you're small enough. You need to really have leadership and control of it and not just kind of designate that to somebody. And then you're gonna find out it's not really working.
- [40:51]
Dave Ramsey
The team is pulling 90% of their energy from you at this stage.
- [40:55]
John Maxwell
Of course.
- [40:56]
Dave Ramsey
And if you unplug and go sit in a tower and call yourself a visionary, there's no power left in the building.
- [41:01]
John Maxwell
No. Yeah.
- [41:03]
Dave Ramsey
Because you're the power source. You're the power source.
- [41:05]
Trevor
I appreciate that.
- [41:06]
Dave Ramsey
Yeah. Roll it. And here's the thing. You're always going to be. You've been the visionary so far, and you're always going to be the visionary. If you're running a business 300 times the size you're running right now, the size I'm running, In other words, 300 million, then you immediately, you are, you know, you're still the visionary, but you're a more mature version of visionary than you were when you were at a million. You're a more mature version of leader, servant, leader than you were at a million. You're a more mature. So all you're doing is growing these attributes, not to be able to turn loose of the other things. But there's always going to pull energy from you. The Bible says where there is no vision, the people perish. And we always talk about vision around the Christian world because that's the phrase they always use when they're getting ready to build a building. Right. At the church. They get up where there is no vision, the people perish. Right.
- [41:59]
John Maxwell
And the church isn't going to be built.
- [42:01]
Dave Ramsey
Exactly. They're getting ready to go several million dollars in debt, and we're getting ready to have a fundraiser. So here we go. Grab your wallet. But the real part of that scripture that you need to remember is not where there is no vision, it's the parish part, where there's no vision that people perish. Roadkill, baby. I mean, it's like the whole thing is burned down. So they need your energy, your vision, your stuff. And it's one of the things I still provide at Ramsey. Even though we've got multiple layers of leadership, I'm still, you know, head visionary installing an injection of that energy.
- [42:38]
John Maxwell
No question about. And let me say, when I was a young leader at your age, I made a lot of mistakes. But let me tell you one I really made. I thought in leadership that I would pay now and I would play later.
- [42:49]
Dave Ramsey
Oh, yeah.
- [42:49]
John Maxwell
And so I thought, oh, my gosh, I'm going to work really hard and I'm going to get it where I want to, and then I can kind of just take it easy. Let me tell you something. There's no such thing as pay now and play later. It's just pay now. Here's why. When I lead in a difficult time, the value of getting through that and being successful is I get to do something harder in leadership. And this is a fact.
- [43:11]
Dave Ramsey
I graduated that class.
- [43:14]
John Maxwell
Think about it. When you had just a few people, David, leadership was pretty easy. You had seven people. You got around the kitchen table and you said, let's do these things, and you went and did. But the bigger you get, you've got more people, you got more possibility of miscommunication. I mean, so what you do is in leadership is this. You don't lead to retire, or you don't lead to kind of like, thank God I don't have to do this anymore, or thank God I don't have to cast vision anymore. What you do is you lead. Respect is earned on difficult ground. So what happens is, if I lead well at the level I'm on, what that does, it just allows me to lead at a higher level and a more difficult level, because the only problems you get to solve are the problems nobody else is solving. The only decisions you get to make are the problems are the decisions no one else is making below you. So everything gets harder so you get better. Not so you don't work, you get better. So you work better. And once that you have this mindset that you're always going to be in that game, then all of a sudden you begin to build off of the difficult, knowing it's going to help you to do the more difficult, which is going to help you get more and more gravitas in your leadership, which is going to allow you to build that company.
- [44:26]
Dave Ramsey
That's exactly right. Boy, that's gold. That's gold right there. It occurs to me, listening to you, that what felt really, really hard with 10 people, I still feel the same hard, but it's just 1100 because I've got bigger muscles, because the muscles were built over the years. But the strain never goes away. If it does, you're going to lose your muscle tone.
- [44:49]
John Maxwell
Well, if the strain goes away, you've lost the heart. I mean, in other words, the soul of the organization goes. When the leader begins to say, I no longer want to be involved, or now I can relax, or now I don't really have to do all these things. So if you just remember, you don't work hard to have time off. You work hard to improve your life so you have credibility to lead on a higher level. Because eight people in the beginning of Dave's work will follow him because they love him and care for him. But when he has several hundred people in this organization, they're going to follow him because he's good. They don't have the connection with you well enough to know that. Well, Dave's a friend. And we start out together in the garage. And so we're going to keep doing this.
- [45:36]
Dave Ramsey
Right.
- [45:37]
John Maxwell
And so you establish a gravitas and a credibility. Again, when you do hard things well, you get respect from people. They look at you and say, let me. You brought them through Covid when you came out of COVID and you're doing better after than you did before. There is a respect that you're gonna receive from the people that is gonna give you a greater return than anything else that you can have.
- [46:01]
Dave Ramsey
You know, it's. Well, we're fighting together. I mean, we're shoulder to shoulder with warrior poets.
- [46:07]
John Maxwell
Yeah. And we've won together and we've won big games together.
- [46:10]
Dave Ramsey
Yep, that's it. And so the next time a big thing comes up, we go, we killed a lion and a bear. Yeah, this Philistines nothing.
- [46:16]
John Maxwell
Bring on the big boy.
- [46:17]
Dave Ramsey
Yeah, bring him on. Let's go.
- [46:19]
John Maxwell
Bring on Shaq Goliath. Come on. Bring him on.
- [46:22]
Dave Ramsey
I love it. Dr. John Maxwell, ladies and gentlemen. The new book is High Road Leadership. Be sure you check it out. Be sure to get signed up for Entrez Leadership Summit May 18 through 21. You'll hear from him, me and many, many other world class leadership teachers. It is one of the premier leadership events in the nation today. Don't miss it. May 21st. You can get it entreleadership.com summit my friend, always honored to spend time with you. I love you and I'm proud of you. Proud to say I know you.
- [46:53]
John Maxwell
Right back at you. Don't we love doing stuff together?
- [46:56]
Dave Ramsey
We have a blast. We don't do enough of it because we have so much fun.
- [46:59]
John Maxwell
But it's fun.
- [47:00]
Dave Ramsey
It's a good thing. I love it. Hey folks, be sure now remember, it's better to bury a weary warrior than a quivering critic. This world needs more high quality leaders. So take courage and lead. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thanks for listening to the Entree Leadership Podcast.