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John Maxwell shares that there's one most important quality of leadership. Do you have it? In this week's episode, John Maxwell reveals why humility isn't just a virtue—it's the essential ingredient for lasting influence and meaningful leadership.
After his lesson, Mark Cole and Chris Goede dive into real-life examples and honest reflections, sharing how you can apply John's wisdom to multiply your impact and create sustaining influence as a leader.
Key takeaways:
True humility empowers you to learn, grow, and serve others, turning challenges into opportunities for lasting impact.
Leaders who balance confidence with humility create environments where influence compounds and teams thrive over time.
Your willingness to be teachable and embrace gratitude—especially in adversity—is the key to both resilience and enduring success.
Our BONUS resource for this episode is the Cultivating Humility for Lasting Influence Worksheet, which includes fill-in-the-blank notes from John's teaching. You can download the worksheet by visiting MaxwellPodcast.com/Cultivate and clicking "Download the Bonus Resource."
Take the next step in your growth journey and become a Maxwell Leadership Certified Team Member. Click here to speak with a Program Advisor today!
References:
Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Podcast. We're real committed today and really in every
episode to add value to you for an exchange. That exchange is as we want you to go multiply
value to others. Today I think we'll be able to really dig into something that's helpful
for leaders and that is how to cultivate humility for lasting influence. I've watched a lot
of leaders, Chris and Chris Godis with me today. I've watched a lot of leaders that lead with
a lot of certainty, a lot of confidence, all desirable traits. But there's also these leaders
that know how to employ and use humility. And so we're going to talk about that. I can't wait
for John to share with us about cultivating humility. I can't wait to come back and break
it down with you. But what is a leader that's been in your life that really demonstrated humility
and what was it about that leader that was demonstrating humility so well? I love the question.
I actually think about a leader that I know from a distance and I've watched. And it's
interesting that when you step back and you watch somebody when they don't know you're
watching them and they still live out that humility, I think they got it. And this
leader could, as access to any resource, doesn't have to meet with people that have just joined
the team, whatnot. But I watch them walk in the back of the offices and start connecting
with shaken hands, looking, pacing themselves through the people that have just joined the
team that maybe are an hourly employee and really make it about them, then about him. And so that's
the leader when you ask me that question, it comes to mind and an action that he lives out that I
can tell is it's true. He's bathed true in humility as a leader. Yeah. When I thought about that
question, I thought, you know, John exhibits a lot of humility can't believe that the success he's
had or the people that's been impacted by his life's work. But probably the leader that has
exhibited humility more for me than anyone else is my dad. My dad was an elected official in his
denomination. He was, he had reached the apex of some things. Man, there was always this quietness
and this humility that I would watch my dad in very tense situations. I would watch my dad just
handle it with an incredible amount of humility. And I'll be honest with you, many of our podcast
listeners viewers may not know this, but my grandparents, my dad's parents could not speak or
hear. So my dad never had the privilege that you and I have of having a conversation with his
mom and dad never. And my dad never got really good with the dectology, which is language with
your fingers, right? Or your hands. So he relied on his sister most of the time for his interaction
with his parents. A lot of him. And I always thought that my dad's quietness, his slow to give a
decision was because of that, but the further I get away from his lifespan and the more that I
want to model the leadership that my dad gave, the more I don't think it was necessarily that,
but it was a quiet humility that he picked up from his parents and not being able to hear
everything right in a room, not being able to respond like most of us could, but still having a
presence, a force and a leadership that made a difference in my dad's life, right? And so John's
going to talk today about cultivating humility, about having a lasting influence. And probably in
this leader that you mentioned, and certainly in my dad, 88 years, and the people that came out
to his moral service were all about his humility was the impact. And so I want to have lasting
impact like that. We all do. That's why we're listening to the podcast. I want to have it. And
I believe John's going to give us a key. And you and I are going to get a breakdown that key
afterwards and that key to lasting impact is humility. So here's John, enjoy, grab some notes.
By the way, if you want to download our bonus resource, if you would like to watch this on YouTube,
if you would like to take advantage of some of the things we'll talk about throughout our show
today, you can go to Maxwell podcast dot com forward slash cultivate. And you'll be up to speed
with all of the resources. All right, here we go. Here's John Maxwell.
The most important ingredient in a leader's life, the most important quality is humility.
When you were a person of humility, when you're marked, when you're marked by anything,
you become marked in a meaningful way. And I don't want you to miss those two words, meaningful
way. We're all marked when difficulties hit us. When adversity comes, we're all marked. We're
all changed. We're all out of our comfort zone. So the question is not, are you going to be marked?
The question is, are you going to be marked in a meaningful way? Meaningful means useful.
We're going to be marked in a useful, a good way. Meaningful way. If you have humility,
you'll get the best out of the markings. It'll be something that will be purposeful to you.
It'll be something that will be helpful to you. It is something that will grow you. If you have
humility, you'll be marked in a meaningful way. If you lack humility, you'll be marked.
But it won't be purposeful. It reminded me of the statement that when adversity comes to us,
some people get better and some people get better. Same adversity, same issue, just a total
different reaction. Humility gives us the opportunity to respond in a useful way. What does that mean?
I think of Jim Collins when he wrote the book Good to Great. I remember he talked about that level
five executive. And he began to talk about greatness. And we all know this. But he said greatness
says there's a paradoxical blend of about level five leaders. And they have a
personal humility in their life. And then they have a professional will. And he was basically
saying that all of the great leaders, they have a professional will to build a great company and
be people of excellence and do the thing that they are purposefully trying to accomplish to help
you. He said they're very professional in their will. But they're very humble in their personal
life. And he was saying it's the perfect blend. It's what I call, I like this, the balance blend.
It just keeps us on course. Humility allows us to be teachable. Humility allows us to have
a spirit of wanting to learn, wanting to grow, willing to change. I read a marriage therapist
and what she wrote was very interesting. She said the most important quality, when you look
for a potential mate, she said the most important quality is to find somebody that has a desire to
keep learning and growing throughout the relationship. Well, when I saw that, I thought that's not
a good marriage counseling. That's good business counseling. That's good friendship counseling.
I mean, you want to have a relationship with someone that they're continually learning,
they're continually growing. They're expanding. We want people on our team to be talented.
Gotta have talent. And so when you think of talent, I mean, if you're a track coach and you need
a high jumper, you don't need seven people who can jump one foot. You need one person who can
jump 17. So talent, we've got to have it. Humility is comfortable with correction.
Humility is willing to reconsider. Humility seeks learning as much as it wants to lead.
Humility values the pause to make adjustments and pivot. That's the word we've heard a lot about.
During the pause, I'm going to live my values. During the pause, I'm going to learn and
apply what I'm learning. During the pause, I'm going to lead people with hope.
Okay, during the pause, I'm a leader. I'm going to look for opportunity because almost every
crisis has major ridiculous opportunities within it. And during the pause, I'm going to take
better care of myself. I not only say humility allows us to be teachable and humility allows us to
reflect and adjust during the pause. I just say to you, humility allows us to serve others.
Now, I don't have much more time left with you today, but I'm going to read you one one thing.
Just one quick thing. Alan Ross says, humility means knowing and using your strength
for the benefit of others on behalf of a higher purpose.
The humble leader is not weak, but strong. He's not preoccupied with self, but with how best
to use his or her strengths for the good of others. A humble leader does not thank less of himself,
but chooses to consider the needs of others in fulfilling a worthy cause. I love to be
in the presence of a humble leader because they bring out the very best in me.
Their focus is on my purpose, my contribution, my ability to accomplish all that I've ever
set out to accomplish. Hey podcast listeners, many of you listening right now would probably love
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What a great lesson Chris. I look at your leadership to be honest with you and you've got a quiet
sense of humility that I really respect. So I'm really excited about breaking this on down with you
today. See as Lewis said humility is not thinking less of yourself is thinking of yourself less.
I love that quote on humility. I think it's 100% right. Most people think humility is not thinking
very much of yourself. This introvert and kind of quiet and self-defacing kind of leader.
That's not it at all. There's a strength to humility and John certainly gives us that
perspective. Yeah. This quality, this characteristic that John's talking about. It doesn't
make the flashy headlines. What I loved about what you said in the opening going back to that is
but it has great longevity. It does, man. And like that's if we're thinking about growing our
influence over time and we're thinking about being able to compound that. That's where that comes
from. I think the leaders that you've seen do that I think have had that humility that allow
them to kind of last through all things. We can all think about or imagine a leader that blew up in
the media, blew up in the organization maybe got but that arrogance and that that defensiveness,
that's the quickest way for a leader to kind of fall apart and not have long-term influence.
And that's what we're talking about. We're not I think what at the root of what John's trying to
get here is how do we have long-term influence and that longevity of it. And so I want to talk
about this word and unpack it a little bit from a leadership perspective. And I want to just
write out the shoot, say to you, how has this attribute shaped your leadership and all that
you're responsible for and you watch over time, long time you've been with John and running these
companies, increased your influence year after year after year. You know it's bathed in that.
In your own words, this is not a very great question to pull out humility in yourself because
I'm asking you to talk about yourself. But how has it shaped your leadership?
Well, so I go back to I've really had two environments that gave me enough latitude to grow into the
leader I wanted to become. It's been two. It's been working alongside my dad that I mentioned
in our pre-comments today and working with John Maxwell. Two of the greatest leaders in my life.
Right. I got to serve alongside them as the second man.
I learned a lot from that first time about humility. When my dad was humble, I wasn't.
Man, I had the ball in my hands. I had the bull by the horns. I had the brain. I had the horse
is ready to go. And I was charging in my little world. I always say I was a big fish in a small pond.
I was charging success and getting accomplishment that my dad never got. And he was an elected official
for over 50 years of his life. Man, I was on a fast track faster than him, raised more money.
I was on a track. And I knew it. And I let that become my identity. I let my success become my
determining factor. I allowed the opportunity that was given me because I was born on third base.
I was born a coal. And in our world, that was a big, that was a thing. And I allowed being born
on third base. Dictate to me a level of confidence that my wife, when Stephanie and I got married,
she went, man, I always thought you were confident. I just realized you were, you were a legal
centric. You were cocky. You were not confident. And I exhibited confidence, but it wasn't. I
believe that when someone couples certainty slash confidence with humility, there's an
approachability there. But when you do not couple egotism, which you can't with humility,
that's exactly what it comes across as narcissistic. It comes across as dictatorial. It becomes
across as this untouchable thing that will crash and burn. So back to your question.
I really think, I said this at the beginning, I think the further distance I've gotten from
my dad's lifespan, he's been gone now for eight years. I think the further I get from him,
I realized that his longevity was because of his humility. I love this about John Maxwell.
We will get calls from Uber, Uber successful people. And John gets off the phone and I'm in the
car with him in some city and some rental car doing something. And he goes, can you believe that
person just wanted to talk to me? And I though, yeah, I can believe it. You're the fricking,
you're the fricking excuse my language. You're the fricking leadership guru. Of course,
they won't talk to you. He goes, I just cannot believe they've read my book. There is a humility.
And John does not come across as necessarily humble about his passions and his accomplishments.
There is a quiet humility in John. And my dad, Chris, I will say in you, that gives you a sure,
fire. John says this, the most important quality in a leader's life is humility. That's the first
statement in your show notes. If you downloaded them, the most, this is the leadership guru of the
world giving us insight right here. It's all in humility. And oh, let me just talk because he
lives at this out so much so you and I yesterday were in a meeting. And our team brought some ideas
to you and how we want to honor them in certain meetings. You're like, hold, hold on a minute.
If all four of us are in this meeting, one of you fired the next day, we're not doing that.
Can't be the John Maxwell show. And that's what it was. And you just that example just popped
in my head going, yeah, at the core, because you know, I'm better than most that he's the humility
is there. And I would put him in a position that would feel so uncomfortable because it was about
him. And no wonder why he says, this is the most important part. And he lives that out.
He does. And I want to live it out. And you ask a very penetrating question to me, where did I
learn the humility that thank, thank you for saying you recognize a little bit of humility? It came
from a life of no humility for the first 10 years of my leadership in the other environment.
Accomplished great things. Accomplished some of that. I wrote down, this is what I wrote down.
I wrote in that journey or tell us about you were going after success. 100% you were going after
this and Mark Cole show. And it's what I wrote down. And now that shift has more and it's moved into
the influence, right? And the long term influence and the impact with other people not success.
But let's talk about the word longevity. Man, I crashed and burned in a epic
in New York, Manhattan perspective. And just heard a lot of people crumbled. And the longevity
wasn't there. The success trajectory was there. The accomplishment more than even my father had
accomplished in his life span at the same ages that I had accomplished was not there. But guess what
also wasn't there with my dad, no crashing and burning. The longevity of his influence is
remarkable. The same thing with John. Consistency compounds, humility establishes longevity.
That's great. I love that. I think Bade than this. John mentioned a little bit. You talk just
briefly about it a few minutes ago. I remember you coming to our team or leadership team. I think
it's probably as soon as last year. And you said, you know, there's two things that John and I are
talking a lot about right now. And we think it's it's one of the areas that leaders need to
improve in. And this is at the root of this is humility. And you guys were talking about we
need leaders to be coachable and responsible. Yep. And how does that play into that humility?
Right? Like because that's that's almost an indicator if they're not that they lack humility.
In my mind, just processing with you and those that are our viewers and are listening.
But you got to have those two things as he talks about even in here to be able to show humility
is to be coachable to step up and take responsibility and to understand by doing that, you will
increase your influence. That's not the reason. That's not the motive. But it's not about success in
that moment. It's about that influence level. So just talk to me a little bit about why you and
so often we're talking about those two words last year. Yeah, you know, so coachable really comes
in when you're marked, you become marked in a meaningful way. John talks about that. The idea
of coachable means that I take a second chair perspective. I take a student perspective. I take
a posture that somebody has something to teach me. So that one really links very naturally to
humility. What doesn't is responsibility. So if you'll allow me, I'll let John's teaching talk a
lot about being coachable, being an attribute of humility because you're 100% right. Those two do
tie to humility. The one on responsibility is harder because when I take two responsibilities,
we talk a lot around here about own it. Yeah, own it Chris this year. Yeah, CSG, by the way,
if you don't listen to Chris's podcast, the Maxwell leadership executive podcast, you got to
listen to it. It will absolutely enlighten you on executive leadership, how to be an executive
in an environment where the team's looking for you, you looking to you for your leadership.
The idea of responsibility means that I own it. It means that it's mine. If it's meant to be,
it's up to me. If it's going to happen, I'm going to make it happen. If nobody else does it,
it's just excuses don't matter. There's a swagger that comes with responsibility naturally that
when it works, it's hard to be humble. It doesn't fit naturally for people that are responsible
to also couple responsibility with humility. It's an astute question of yours to go,
well, then how does that happen? Yeah, I think at 100% when it goes wrong, it's me.
When it goes right, that's it. It's y'all. That's it. It's got to be coupled with that.
If you're not careful, responsibility brings self-credit and self-in-good times,
and then you get it. But here's what I found. People that are not humble,
when something goes wrong, it's everybody else's fault. Yeah.
And when it goes right, it's mine. That's right. And so there is a direct connection to it,
but you have to fight responsibility with no excuses, humility. It's on me. I'm not going to give
you three reasons why it's on me. It's just on me. Yeah. And then when it works, it's on y'all.
It's all yours. Podcast family, listen, as a self-reflection question,
how coachable are you? Yeah. How responsible are you? Yeah. Because what Mark just unpacked for us,
both in from his leadership perspective, and then even John mentioned it here, is an indicator
of how you're showing up with humility or not. Yeah. And then if you're brave enough, maybe ask
somebody on your team or somebody around you to be able to speak into that. Because I think that
I think that will lead to a great conversation about your humility. Because we all want lasting
influence. That's what we want. And sometimes abruptly, we have to be shown that it's not about
success, and we got to recalibrate, or sometimes it's just gradually, but we need to have those
people in our lives. Yeah. One of the things I just mentioned about it being abruptly,
adversity is one of the things that changed your trajectory when it came to this characteristic
trait of a leader of humility. And so John talks about adversity in here, and he talks about
we can either be bitter or we can be better. Yeah. Walk us through some adversity in your life as a
leader to where you were headed down the bitter route. And you had to make a choice. And you had
to choose to become better through that. And how did you do that? And where did you keep the focus?
And what was the North Star? Walk us through that. I had a season in my life to where I really needed
the support of those closest to me. I was lost. I couldn't figure life out. I wish I could,
with my words, articulate the despair, the discouragement, the versus maybe depression. I don't
know the adversity that I felt during that season. And I think about that often, Chris,
in thinking about how I responded to it, I get phone calls often from people that has
known me for many years often. I would say once every couple of weeks now with the little bit
of connection that I have with John, the little bit of connection with this podcast and they're going,
man, how did you go through a season in your life to where you are all alone and you didn't become
better? And number one, it's got to be, it's got to be good to teaching from my parents. There's
got to be something because I look back and I go, wow, man, I've seen a lot of people get better
with those circumstances coming. And I didn't, I just did not feel that bitterness. I didn't feel
that tug of bitterness. So some of that, John always talks about, he says, man, I won the parent
lottery because of unconditional love. It's like that. I think in the idea of becoming better,
I watched my parents get mischaracterized, mis-spoken about. They were in a public eye. And I watched
them not let that become better. And so one is, I got the parent lottery and not choosing the
better route. I think the other thing though, Chris, is I did go for some time, not wanting to
feel favorable for some people in my life. If I chose to just not think of them, I chose to not
pray for them. I didn't curse them, but I didn't pray for their blessing either.
And I went through and John, John arrested me one day when he said, man, I had something in my
heart towards somebody for years. And when I discovered it every day for a year, I prayed that
that that person would get multiplied blessing. And he said, sure enough about September, October,
that person started getting super blessed. And here's how I knew I had beat it. I got really excited
for it. I felt it. No one ever knew that more. He started me. That was in 2013.
2014, I can remember this, to this day, a daily prayer I had for somebody in my life that I had
had something against. I didn't have bitterness, but I certainly didn't want it to be better.
Prayed it, prayed it, prayed it, prayed it. And it was a difference maker for me. But let me tell you
this right here. Final point on this. I never allow myself to go unchecked in blind spots in my
life. And here's what I mean. Stephanie, my wife and I were on a trip recently. And we had
some people that we were acquainted with on that trip. And a subject came up that demonstrated
unbelievable emotion from these people that we kind of knew. We knew them, but we didn't know
them great. But when this opened up, it was visceral. It was, it was, it was tough. And it surprised
us. Now, it didn't surprise us because we were best of, best of friends. We know the people,
but we had a public idea of these people that was not right under the cover, something so visceral,
something so angry. And I can remember when we left that environment, my question to my wife was
not, wow, can you believe that about this person? He was my first question, Chris. Stephanie,
is there any area in my life that when that is touched, an anger and a bitterness comes out to me,
like we just did that. Interesting. It wasn't condemnation to them. It was this. And you know what,
Stephanie says she said, Mark, my wife is like your wife, very critical when given the opportunity
of me getting better. She says, I don't know of one. She says, I can't think of one. And would you
believe that while she was saying I can't have one, it came to my attention that there was someone
in my life that I didn't have bitterness toward, but I certainly did not want their, them to have
the best. In other words, here's how I characterize it. Stephanie, there is an environment in my life
that I still can't go back to that environment and say, I am better because of that environment.
I don't have a lesson from that environment. This is three or four or five years old. I went,
I don't have a lesson from that environment. And that concerns me because you can't have gratitude
until you find something to be grateful for in a situation. And I am literally emotionally dead
to that. I'm not better. Oh, happy day. I'm not better either. And that concern, because if you
can't find a place to be better and have gratitude for being better, I think you're open for bitterness.
And so I'm working on it right now. As you ask that question, I have an environment. I have a
situation in my life that I can't look back and go, I'm grateful for that because I picked up
that and that concerns me. So let's unpack this for just a minute. The tie to the humility part of
this is not necessarily thinking less of yourself, right? But focusing that situation, that adversity,
that learning, that I love the question to your wife, right? Do I do something trigger me and I get
that bitter about it? Does the humility come in in a situation like that because you can
put the other person, the other situation above kind of where you're at? How do you tie the humility
part to that? Love this question. Love this question because I'm learning it right now. And there's
an area. I can't do it. And it scares me. Here's what it is. There has got to be a spirit of gratitude
in you that no matter how difficult it was, no matter how wrong you felt, there's something you
picked up that you can be grateful for. And there is not, I can't think of, but one area in my life
that I don't have gratitude of having gone through that one. Now, there may be a hundred. But right now,
I'm experiencing one and it scares me because I believe the antidote to bitterness, that toast
definitely is gratitude. And if I can find a reason to be grateful, no matter how you missed, no
matter how you misused me, if I can find a spot, a reason, a spec. So you're saying I have a
chance. If I can find a spec to be grateful for, I have an antidote for any bitterness that I'm
going to wear off. This answers the very first question that I asked you. How has this character
trait shaped your leadership? That's it right there. Yeah. The situations that we all go through in
the adversity is looking for that gratefulness to be able then to lead to the humility of why we're
there. Open hands in all situations. That's really good. That's, I appreciate you just being
vulnerable enough to share that with us. So I want to move us towards the back end and as we kind
of wrap up, I don't want us to leave without talking about this pause that John, you know, reemphasized.
In both of you, you both you and I are our action oriented. We're like reemphasizing for nothing.
What do you mean pause? And you made a couple of comments that I thought was really interesting.
I want you to share with our viewers and our listeners about the pause and wear humility plays in
that and how we go about doing that because for those of us that want to have longevity in our
influence and we want to make a difference. We want to go to that significant place that we talk
about. How do you do that? How do you manage that? Yeah. Welcome to the intervention of Mark Cole
podcast. Glad you joined us. Mark, if you're not watching, Mark is on the couch. Yes. I'm going to count
and he's going to write me a check after we're done is what's going to happen here. Goody absolutely
has me on full display for all of you right here. So, so I'm not good with pausing. You just said
that I would reiterate that you and I and other leaders. We just have this propensity to action.
I think you're much better at it and I am by the way. I think that pausing
demonstrates openness for others to have a better perspective, to have an openness. I know way too
many leaders that if they would just practice the pause, they would cultivate the greatness in the
people around them. But because they don't pause, then they don't realize the greatness around them
and they end up being a lid on the organization. That reality probably helps me more than anything.
I don't know if my pausing is as much humility. Is it fear of missing something? Yeah. But when you say
though, that okay, so yes, it's a fear, but in those pauses and I would say watching you from
the outside, I would say the answer is yes, but I want you to unpack this for me is that in those
pauses, you become more teachable. You become open to reconsidering a perspective. You become
open to maybe serving a certain individual versus just completely blowing past the pause
and an act or move or change or I can fix this. But when you do the pause and you're open to that,
that shows humility in your leadership. And back to even what we were talking about, we were kicking
off about the arrogance and the defensiveness and that's the surefire way for a leader to blow up
and not last long. It's going to be a lot of failures. But in that pause, I think how you are in
that put what you're open to and what receiving tells a lot about your humility. It does. You know,
we talked, we talked a couple of episodes ago, you and I talked about not only the propensity
to move, but the passion to have answers and to get things done. Going back to that, I think
in the pause, there is a sense of, there's a sense of expectation, criticism, self critique.
That's what we were talking a lot about was criticizing ourselves. There's a bit of self critique
that I've got to have the answers and I've got to see more and before. And if I pause, I'm not
exhibiting more and before behaviors. I'm not exhibiting that I know the answers. Therefore,
I'm exhibiting weakness, right? Somebody that's doing a pause with a humility, go back to what John
said during the pause X, during the pause X, go back and listen to that. A leader that is self-confident
and is exhibiting humility is not hearing all that self talk. They're leaning in to really get
the answer. Often when I'm pausing, I'm pausing for effect, not for information. I'm pausing
to show humility rather than to be humble. And I'm just telling you when John was saying that while
I go, oh shoot, I now have the point. It's the same thing with good leaders ask great questions,
right? John says, Mark, you got to slow down and ask more questions. You got to ask more questions.
And so I do it, but you know what? I do it most of the time for a checklist, not for information,
not from learning. I do it because I'm supposed to, not doing it because I get to.
And though that dynamic is a spirit of humility that I'm convicted with if you can't tell from
this lesson. And so I'm sitting here going, Mark, if you won't longevity in this thing called
leadership, you better find and cultivate and aggregate humility. So I'm going to let you wrap
up in just a minute before I begin to land the couch and you counsel me. Convicting is what
that last five minutes is from our call. And I hope a lot of you are doing the same thing and
taking time to reflect on what he just said. And here's where I want you to be reflecting.
What is the motive behind what you're doing? Good stuff. Because this is the key. If we're talking
about longevity for influence, one of the things that we hang our hat on here. And John has,
he reaches this all the time, is there's a fine line between influence and manipulation.
And what Mark just so vulnerablely shared with all of us is that he's doing it maybe at times.
And I think all of us would say, well, we probably do it as well is to manipulate a situation.
Makes me look like I'm thinking, oh, makes me look like I'm in whatever it is. And so John says,
there's a fine line between the two. And it's your motive. So as you're in the pause and you're
thinking about being teachable and reconciled. What's the motive for being in the pause? Is it for
the outward effect? Or is it, hey, I don't really care what my image is. That's not why I'm doing
this. I'm doing this because I want to grow 100% and that's what Mark is saying. He's checking
himself right now in certain situations, going, why am I doing this? Is it because of the
posture of owner and CEO of actually, or is it because I'm in growth mode? And when you can
answer, it's in growth mode, you're living out humility. Mike drop Marvin. You got to save it
for us. Marvin's one of our podcast family. He's a viewer listener. And he listened to the podcast
acknowledge your humanness. By the way, we'll put that in the show notes at Maxwell podcast.com
forward slash cultivate because that goes right along with the humility that we're talking about.
Here's what Marvin said about that episode. I loved this point. Quote, leaders are not as good as
they appear. In quote, because people have the tendency to put their leaders in pedestals like
they're super hero, heroes sometimes. When we stop only to listen to ourselves, we begin to understand
we're not very different from one another. The only difference is who we are leading.
Marvin, thank you for that compliment of a great podcast. Boy, you captured it well with that.
Go check that out. Hey, see you again next week. Until then,
lead well because everyone deserves to be led.
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