Maxwell Leadership Podcast - Success and Gratitude: Why Great Leaders Revisit Where They Came From

0:00They just slapped you in the head with a sword. Okay. I got it. Shouldn't have had a sword in the house. Got all that. Got all that. Popped in the head. Got a mark to prove it. And you're getting ready to tell your brother how frustrated you are with him. But before you do, tell Emory what you're excited about. What you're grateful for. Yeah. Hey, welcome to the Maxwell Leadership podcast. I'm super excited to invite you in to the studio today. Because I think today we're getting ready to share a secret to sustained leadership. And I think that secret is not allowing yourself to get so caught up in success that you forget to be grateful. And Chris, you and I, I mean, we're sitting in studio today. It's a beautiful building, beautiful studio. We work for a guy like John Maxwell. But chances are you sitting in this seat is because you're standing on the shoulders of somebody in your life down the road in the previous road. So talk to me before we get into John's content. Talk to me about somebody who shoulders

1:00you're standing on while you're sitting in this seat. And give me just a little bit of who you're standing on the shoulders of. So the first thing that comes to mind, and this is not just because this is his podcast or his company, is John. And the reason I say that you and I've been able to be around for so many years. But I was reminded of a meeting that you and I were in several weeks ago. And we were just talking about some of the things in the organization. And the answer was, at least I put it out on the table, that I thought the issue was leadership. And we got into a conversation about, well, like what's different maybe with what you've learned and just got me thinking about putting the time in and being invested in his content, his books, because his principles are simple. They're just not easy. And I need simple. But if you live them out, and I am a different person today,

2:00not just as a leader, but as a husband, as a father, because of those experiences of men and women, like John, like yourself around this type of environment. And so I'm grateful for it, because, matter of fact, my wife is grateful for it. Because she's like, I think early on, I saw some incredible growth from you, spiritually, because person of faith, leadership-wise, all this kind of stuff, just because the environment they're in. So the person would be John, the environment, would be what you and John have created here for so many years that I'd be a different person without that, and I'm extremely grateful for it. Yeah, let me just fast-track to you in our podcast listeners and our podcast viewers. Let me just fast-track to you to say this. We hope to be that for you, but somebody has been that for you. And I want you, as we talk today, as John talks about the stabilizer between success and gratitude. I want you to kind of put that image, that person, that environment that you were a part of in front of you as you listen to this lesson.

3:00I think it'll keep you stabilized as you pursue success. We all won't success. That's why you're tuning into the podcast today. We want to add value to your success. So you'll multiply that value to others. And chances are, you're even on this podcast because somebody inspired you to the best you. Let's keep those people in mind. So here's what I need you to do. I need you to get really excited. I need you to get ready, because this is going to be an incredible, incredible podcast about success and gratitude. Hey, if you want to watch the YouTube version of this, if you want to pick up some things that will drop in the show notes for other resources, you can go to maxwellpodcast.com forward slash revisit. Maxwellleadershippodcast.com forward slash revisit. And you'll be able to also download the bonus resource to follow along with John. So grab your pen, grab your paper, grab your thought of somebody, something you're grateful for. Listen in. Here's John.

4:03People that are successful, they feel very entitled. A lot of times, so things. And so they got this whole list of, here's what I'm entitled to. And this should be mine. And I deserve this, that hope, Ross. And the to balance or stabilize your, that entitlement mindset is gratitude. Put gratitude alongside it. The problem with I deserve, people say, well, I deserve this, I deserve this. It's that it changes our perspective. It just does. A proud man is seldom a grateful man. For he never thinks that he gets as much as he deserves. So, let me do a little teaching here. I think it's good for all of us to go back and get what I call, go back and grab a gratitude experience. Let me explain. Go back and grab a gratitude experience.

5:10So during the summer, we live in the Highlands, North Carolina. Not enough here, but in the Highlands, it's delightful. It's just a little sleepy place and up in the mountains, about two hours north of Atlanta, about 5,000 feet in the smokey. Lovely, lovely, we love it. It's wonderful. But it's a mountain place, mountain people, mountain town. And so Margaret and I were having some work done on her house up there. So the guy that was the head contractor, wonderful guys. His name is Ronnie, delightful guy, really like Ronnie. And he told me, first day, he'd be so, my, he said, it's an honor to be here and do your house. He said, I read some of your books and so we just headed off. So after a few months together up there, Ronnie came up to one day and he said, John, he said, I hate to ask you, but everybody knows that I know you. And he said, I belong to the Highlands Rotary Club. And the Rotarians were wondering, they asked me if I'd ask you.

6:12He said, I really hate to do this, but they just, would you like to come and speak of the Rotary Club? He says, we have about 80 people come out. And good people, good people. Would you like to do that? I said, Ronnie, I'd love to do that. Is it you kidding me? I said, no, no, I'm not kidding. I would love to do, I said that only Charles will have is working on a date. So let's get our counters out and let's see if, and we had a little challenge. It took me, it was, it was, it was going to be about two months before I could hit their day right and be there. So I said, yeah, I said, let's, let's, I'll come and speak the Rotary Club. He said, can we have her time? I said, you can do whatever you want. I'm just going to be there and I'm looking forward to it and tell them,

7:12I'm going to speak of the Rotary Club. Oh, he said, this will be amazing. This will be amazing. So the date comes and I go down to the Rotary Club and they're all excited. They've advertising. They got a record crowd. Record crowd. They got a 140. They had a move it to a new facility so they could have a little bit more room. And this is big. You got a 140. And it was, you know, when I was younger, I spoke of Rotary Club. You know, when I was starting off, I, I did Rotary Club speaking. And I, I just wanted to go back again. I'm talking about grabbing a gratitude experience. And so, and, and, and Rotary Club is as corny today as it was. 35 years ago when I, you know, they got that bell that they ring and they got all these things that they do. And I'm jumping through all the hoops and that came time for us to go get our lunch at the buffet and got my paper plate and my paper cup, my plastic utensils,

8:17put all the stuff there and sit down and we ate and then we did the Rotary Pledge and we did several things. Then I got to speak and I spoke and had a wonderful time. They were delightful. I had so much fun with them. And at the end, because it's up in mountain territory, they gave me a walking stick. Well, I mean, you know, really a nice walking and I thanked them and so I came back home to my house and where you put the little thing where you put the umbrellas and stuff. I put the walking stick right there. It's kind of right by the stairway, by the front door that you kind of, you know, just, you see the walking stick every day. So I had a friend come up to see me and he, he's, he's like, he said, he said, what's that? I said, that's a walking stick. So he said, where did you get there? I said, it's the Highlands Rotary Club. They said, well, why did you get it from them? I said, I spoke for them. And they're going to be like, what do you mean?

9:17You spoke for a Rotary Club? I said, I did. I had a great time. And I taught him how much fun I had. And then I explained something to you. You always need to go back and visit where you came from. You never want to forget all the people and all the places that made you who you are today. And every year, I grab a gratitude experience. Every day, every year, I surprise somebody by doing something to nobody else, but, but I do it because I need to remind, I need to remind me. Are you with me? Of who I am? And what made me? And the journey that I took. Hey, welcome back. I, so we did talk a lot in our opening about success and gratitude.

10:21And who are you grateful for? But John really picks up the lesson today talking about entitlement. In fact, it reminded me of a quote Paul Gibbons said, feeling entitled is the opposite of feeling grateful. Gratitude opens the heart. Entitlement closes it. We really are today talking about a stabilizer. How do we make sure that success does not give us a sense of entitlement, but yet with success, we keep a heart and a mind of gratitude. And boy, I hope you picked up as much from John as Chris and I did. It was, it was fun to watch him. He lives it. He absolutely lives it out. We were sitting here listening kind of laughing with his story from the rotary club. Yeah. And he was talking to us like, oh, can't you just see him going in there and giving back and loving every and ham it up, loving every minute of it. I want to go a couple of different places today because I don't want us to just fly right by that entitled heart, right? Because there's no doubt that if you're grateful as a leader, as an individual, it is associated

11:25with I think being more resilient. I think building better relationships, I think lowering your personal stress. But we've all seen those leaders and you know it. They're just, they just entitled. You know it right away when it, when it, it just, you're in a communication, you're in conversations with them. Talk to us a little bit about in your mind as a leader, you go into a meeting and you're connecting networking. What are the differences that you see in leaders that just show up with gratitude? Or they're like, hey, you know what? I'm like, I deserve to be here. By the way, I think the entitlement is one of the biggest threats a leader could ever get involved in. And I know you would agree with that because all of a sudden you start believing your own press clippings and you, you know, one of the people's opinions and you don't want to do that is a huge threat to your leadership. How do you identify the difference between those two and, um, and talk to us a little bit about maybe some attributes because I, I wanted to be, I wanted to be handles that you share that you see through your leadership lens that our listeners can, can grab a hold

12:29of it. You know, I watched a lot of leaders. You mentioned one, I walk into any meeting, whether I am the contracted, consulted advisor or potential expert or whether I am the learner, the person that needs to pick up something. And I always get a sense of gratitude before I walk in. I can't believe I'm getting ready to learn or I can't believe I have earned the respect that I can come in as the authority of a subject. It's always a moment to reflect. I can't believe I get to sit into this room. The other thing I've watched successful leaders do is when they're going to give feedback, let's call it constructive criticism so we can hide our nasty attitude. Okay. Let's just call it corrective criticism for the moment. I've watched the people that just launch right in as if they're an expert of negative feedback. And I've watched the people that says, Hey, let me, can I tell you what I just picked up from this environment for what I enjoy from your company? And they start with this gratitude and then they go, but let me tell you where I think

13:30it can get better. I appreciate and listen to critical or positive feedback, critiquing what it is wrapped in a substantive, a tangible moment of gratitude, of affirmation. Now, I think that people that give criticism often come from a place of entitlement. I deserve better service from you. And so you should have given it to me. I know when I call a credit card company because they charge something that wasn't even right. And I call it, I'm justified. This is not right. This is not my charge. What did you do? And if I go like that rather than going, Hey, thank you for taking some time to help me today. Here's what happened. I got charged on a wrong thing. It was wrong. It wasn't right. But I have found I get much better service when I go, thank you for taking some time to help me with my problem today.

14:30Rather than justifiably jumping right in with what's wrong, I get worse customer service and I blame it on the rep rather than my attitude. And leaders that understand you earn the right to give a critical feedback. You don't have the right. You earn the right. How do I earn the right with gratitude? It's so good. You took the words exactly what I was thinking, right? I like that we have to and we talk about influence. We talk about being a leader is having influence no matter who you are, where you are, or a position. And in order to be able to have conversations, maybe sometimes that you have to have, you need to earn the right to do that. And one of the ways to do that is by showing, and what Mark said was authentic gratitude. Yeah. Right? Like his example was the credit card. That was authentic. Hey, thank you for answering the call. And hopefully you still feel the same way at the end of the call. But that just changes everything on the dynamics of it. So let's talk a little bit about, I want to go from this entitlement to these experiences.

15:32And what that a great is. Grab a gratitude experience. Experience. I love that. Yeah, I don't know that I've heard him say that before. I don't think I've heard it yet. But what I want to do is I want to talk a little bit about your gratitude experience or something that comes to mind, right? You have had an incredible journey and those that have listened to us or watching us on YouTube, they know you're, they know your journey to success. And there are oftentimes I see you living this out. No one else knows about it. So I'd like for you just to pick one or two that you go, man, that's a gratitude experience for me. That is something I'm doing because I'm so grateful for where I am and the success that I've attained. Let me, let me use a personal and professional if you don't mind. And I hope I do this not to shine a light on me. Gratitude is extremely, extremely important to me. It's very important. You live it out. Yeah. And I'll tell you why in just a moment. But for me, it is the most important attribute that I want to give to my kids.

16:34So I grew up, I grew up as a preacher's kid. Most of you know that I was able to eat every meal because somebody had caught the vision of giving from their abundance to our church so that my dad could get a salary so that he could feed his family. And it indelibly, every time you know some people like to say grace, some people like to have a problem saying grace, why don't you pray all the other times, rather than just write it through. I got all that. But our family really recognizes God as our source for everything that we had. And that came from early on realizing that it was people's generosity. So to this day, I don't know if this is hoki for some of you or not. It may be southern that is it. But to this day, every time we go out to eat, we expect every one of our kids and grandkids to say thank you when we get in the car. Every time we get done eating at home and Stephanie has cooked, we have a discipline of everybody

17:36goes around the table and say thank you. And often we go, what are you grateful for? What was your favorite part that you appreciated me may fixing tonight? What was your favorite meal at that restaurant? In other words, it's not just thank you for the food. Thank you for taking us. We want to go deeper. But let me tell you, I take it a step further, everybody in our family. If you don't say thank you, you stick out like a sore thumb and penelope, our four-year-old granddaughter will go, hey, Emory, you didn't say thank you. We call each other out. We self-police gratitude. But I take it a step further because when Stephanie, as she does every time she says thank you, Mark, for the meal. And I go Stephanie, thank you for the meal. Now, some people go, well, I'm the earner, I'm the breadwinner. She provides a home when I come home and she cooks with her busy schedule. I should say thank you to her. But when I pay for it, I should be the one thanked. No. I should be thanking somebody in our family that makes it possible too. So every time you can ask Stephanie this, you can verify it. When our family finishes up a restaurant, she says thank you to me.

18:38I say thank you to her. I'm modeling to our kids that everybody should be grateful and nobody should think they are the single source of any blessing that we have because all of our blessings come because of something else. I should call you sometimes and thank you for the meal because you work hard that I can have a company. I just thought about that. I should do that. Let me give you a professional experience that I do. Every year in November, I love Thanksgiving. Now, I appreciate Easter. I appreciate Christmas. I appreciate Memorial Day. I appreciate Labor Day. I got all of them with kids. I don't appreciate Memorial Day and Labor Day as much because they get off school. And I want them to be at school. But that's another story that I need to learn. Gratefulness too. Every November, my office, every day of November, finds somebody on our team that has helped us that year to achieve what we've achieved. And Kimberly or I will write them a text, send a note, pick up the phone, but every day

19:43of Thanksgiving, every day of November, I find somebody to be grateful for that has impacted my office, my leadership office every single day, every single year. That is a discipline of ours that we are going to find specific things, not general, specific things to do to be thankful. Now, you know what I just thought? You didn't make the list this November. You did the previous November, but I'm saying you're going, how did I miss school was? I just checked out completely. If you're watching, you're like, Christmas stumped over there. He just did, like I did it this December. He just didn't make the list. Yeah. I want to go back. I know you tear up my sample, pull that back. I know you want to go to another example, I'm going to tell you a little bit more, but what I love about you said is, don't we often, I mean, the entitlement, just tell you how quick the entitlement can jump in. It's not like you go, hey, I'm never entitled. Mark just gave us a really quick example that I think I've thought before, no, I know

20:43that I thought before, well, I paid for this food and like, why are we, like that is such a quick, it is such a threat down to a negative path. And so you have to continually fight that as leaders. And the other thing for me, I think the older that I'm getting, the more I just realize how fragile life is. And because I'm having the opportunity to be here yet another day and do what we love to do, why would I not show gratitude for that? Because it could be over in a second, right? And so when you think about the big picture, Chris really doesn't matter much, no matter what Chris accomplishes. And I shouldn't be entitled at all. Our flesh will jump in there in a heartbeat. But I appreciate you sharing that example. You want to share another professional example? So you know, most of you know this story of how I got to Maxwell leadership. I was washing trucks. My life was broke, messed up. And I got this opportunity to come to this company that was recognized as a leadership

21:45company that I had been following as a leader to make me a better leader. And all of a sudden, now I got the opportunity, the invitation to be on the team. And it blew me away. It blew me away. Even though I was a telecells representative, the fact that I was on this team blew me away. And to this day, I still go, wow, the God David Hoyt gave me a chance to come in and be a telecells. Now, telecells was about four pay grades less than what I had been making. It was about 10 grades less of the amount of responsibility I had carried. But it was an opportunity to be on the team. And a longer commute. And a long commute. It was about an hour and a half commute. But I had a full circle, full circle moment recently about, and you were with me. I got to meet many of you that don't know Andy Stanley and his leadership podcast. Go check it out. It's incredible. It's one of my favorite go to leadership podcasts. A guy named Andy Stanley, huge communicator here in the Atlanta area.

22:46He and John Maxwell got together and decided that they were going to start an event called Catalyst for next generation leaders. And so we were going to use Andy Stanley's venue and Andy Stanley's voice and content and John Maxwell's influence and voice to build this thing called Catalyst. You were in the first room brainstorming. Yes. Thank you, by the way, because you're brainstorming and deciding to do it gave me my first job with my leadership. I became a telecells representative selling the event catalyst. Well, just a few days ago, Chris Goady and I had a chance to go into Andy Stanley's office here in Atlanta and help him figure out how to use his content and his leadership thinking at a different scale. He's hugely successful. It's funny that he needed a different scale, but he wanted a different scale. And so he brought you and I in as kind of the expert, the person that's been there, done that for John Maxwell to help Andy Stanley how to do that. And I had this full circle rotary moment to go, I'm sitting in the office.

23:51That's amazing. Helping the guy expand his influence that made a decision to even give me any amount of influence. And you saw it. I just got overwhelmed with this appreciation. I said, Andy, I got to tell you, I'm sitting in this office today attempting to add value to you because 26 years ago you sit in a room and made a decision to do something that gave me an opportunity. And it just truly, Chris, blew me away. In fact, I paused right here in the podcast and I just asked you, real quick, who has made what you're doing today possible? And when is the last time you took a moment to create a gratitude experience for them and for yourself to stabilize the success that you're experiencing today? What Mark's talking about is his experience was, yes, giving back all that he's learned over the last so many years to a guy that was part of what he started.

24:52What was awesome is we walked out of that meeting and the first thing Mark said, I mean, he was bouncing, I mean, he has high energy anyway. He's ready to go. And it was at the end of the day and we all had a long day and he goes, man, that was fun. You guys want to do that again? We're like, it was so much fun. Maybe not right now, but like you can just tell the energy that he had from being able to lead that meeting to be able to pour back. Can I say something on the energy and gratitude? I believe again, we're talking today, John gave great content on stabilizing success with gratitude and resisting the propensity of all of us after success to start filling entitled. And I will tell you, entitlement is an energy, energy, trainer, gratitude, and gratitude is an energy lifter. It gives you more energy when you take time to express gratitude every time. Authentically. Yes. Right. And that's the key to it because you can just see it in other people. Let me ask you this question.

25:54A little off the path here about gratitude. Do you think in human beings and leaders it's a, it's a natural trait for them to feel gratitude? Or do you say, no, it's something that's a skill set and you got to, you got to practice it in order to be able to be a person of gratitude? I think it's, I think it's both. Yeah. It's like, John, when he gets asked the question, do you think leaders are born? Or do you think they're made? And I think there are people born with natural abilities to lead you were. You let on football field, you let as a coach, you let in company, you're going to rise to the top because you have this innate ability to mobilize people. But how you arrive at the top, how quickly you arrive at the top and how long you stay at the top is dependent on developable or developed kind of traits. So I think it's the same thing with gratitude. I think that I am absolutely a grateful person because of my dad, because of genetics, of my dad, my, his dad, his dad's dad.

26:57Every one of them have this trait of just absolutely looking for ways to express gratitude. I'm grateful because of my upbringing. I ate because other people were generous. I was able to eat because other people were generous. So I have some natural, I have some learned, I have some adapted, but I have some disciplines that makes me better at it. So I have some things that I can do. Yeah. And so that's right. That's exactly where I want to go. I want to talk about the system and the discipline. You talked a little bit about it earlier in our session today. You said, when I get ready to go into a meeting, I'm thinking, man, I'm just so grateful to be sitting at the table. Like that's one of the things you mentally do going into that. But can you give us some additional handles of that system that you have and that process that you go through in order to make sure that you're staying in that grateful mindset? Yeah. So I'm going to give you two systems and these are systems. They feel like just habits to you, perhaps. Other systems. I'll give you a personal one.

27:57Again, I'm kind of on a personal journey here. Our personal bent here today too. And I'll give you a professional one. The personal one is, I, Stephanie and I are privileged right now to be very, very involved in our four grandchildren's raising and their, their wellbeing. And they've had, they've had some things given to them in life. It's just, I couldn't even handle if it happened to me. So watching these kids having to wrestle through a lot of that. And so there's some emotional outburst at times in our home. If you can imagine it, maybe even more accelerated than other homes I've been a part of because of all they've been through. And before they get frustrated with their sibling and they, they'll get frustrated. I'll say, how old up? I'm going to let you express the, I'm going to let you express the frustration. I really am. You're going to be able to have it out and scream and yell like you were just doing. But stop the screaming yelling for just a moment. Tell me something you're grateful for for them. And then I'll let you express the frustration. And I've watched them all the time forget what they were frustrated about because they

28:59have to sit there and think about something they're grateful. And I won't let them. If you can't, you, you get to, they, they just slapped you in the head. This happened last night. They just slapped you in the head with a sword. Okay. I got it. Shouldn't have had a sword in the house. Got all that, got all that. Popped in the head. Got a mark to prove it. And you're getting ready to tell your brother how frustrated you are with him. But before you do, tell Emory what you're excited about. What you're grateful for. And I watched this last night was Robert. I watched Robert go, Paul, I'm not. I said, yeah, you are. There's something you're grateful for. And he said, Emory, I'm so thankful that you play with me. I said, now tell him what you're frustrated about. He said, never mind. And it just worked. Yeah. It worked. Now, in the professional world, this is more of a personal discipline. I carry a good bit as you do as most of our podcast listeners viewers do. You carry a lot. I know when I'm having a bad day, all these leaders that a bad day shows up and they go, man, I don't know what was wrong with having a bad day. Well, what was wrong is as you didn't discipline yourself to one, be aware you have an

30:02a bad day in number two, challenge yourself to get out of it. And so I have a discipline that when I'm feeling especially frustrated, especially stuck or especially exasperated that I'm having to carry somebody else's stuff, do something for somebody that they're not doing for themselves. I have to stop and write down something I'm grateful for before I continue on. And it changes my attitude more than half the time. I get a change in my attitude because gratitude is the stabilizer to the success of the frustration that we have. That's awesome. There's different handles for each of you out there to do that. And I love the awareness piece first. And then come up with a habit or a system or a process that works for you. Let me ask you this. When you think about your journey, the success road that you've had over the years, what do you do to keep yourself grounded? So this is going back to a little bit of the entitlement, but it's still being grateful.

31:04Are there things you have in place where you go, man, maybe it's a gratitude experience of it. But what keeps you grounded from being successful? So that I think when you do that, you can be more grateful. Well, one of the things I do to be grounded, I'll just spell it for you. S-T-E-P-H-A-N-I-E. My wife. Her name is Stephanie. And she is my grounding mechanism. I didn't ask her to do it. It's not assigned to her. She just decided. She did ask me to ask that question though. So that was completely up. I've decided that she is the grounding source for my life and reminds me quite often of all the stupid, dumb, ignorant things that I have done with my life. Now I'm not being funny, although that might be funny. I think we have to get people around us that cannot read us our press clippings. I think we need it. People around us that kind of look at our social media pages and go, yeah, that's not the

32:04real story. And so that's not saying anything negative or nasty about loved ones. It's saying that we need to be reminded that we're just simple human beings that probably some of us for sure me has been given way more privilege than I deserve. Way more opportunities that if somebody else that's just as hardworking, that's just as intelligent as I am, would be given that same opportunity. They would have exploded what I tried to accelerate. And so I think having people around you to keep you grounded, I think the second thing really is what we're talking about today, having an attitude of gratitude, having a commitment, a discipline that I am going to be grateful before I am going to be celebratory before I'm going to be critical. I must be grateful. I think the final thing I would say on the question, though, Chris, that I hope is the

33:06biggest part of being grateful. I'm never satisfied. Now that can be a bad thing. There's a dark side to that. There's a greedy or unhappy or an aspiration always, always always more and ever enough. Got all that. I got all that and I work with that too. I look for stabilizers with that. But I'm going to tell you, I'm never satisfied with yesterday's success. Steve Jobs quote that says yesterday is the enemy yesterday's success is the enemy of tomorrow's opportunity sticks with me all the time. And if I think just because I reached a CEO level or an owner level or a podcaster level that I have arrived, I think that is the enemy. And so it's always this anticipation and this gratitude pursuit that there's more to be grateful for. There's more there that I think keeps me grounded in that. All right. I want you to wrap up, but I'm going to throw it to you with a question that, by the way,

34:09is right off the cuff. So he doesn't know it's coming. But as a leader, as an individual, someone with influence, we're all going to face adversity. You're going through it. And if it doesn't happen daily, one of the things that I think gratitude does is that it allows you to interpret the adversity that you're going through in a different way. And the reason I'm bringing this up is I see you do this over and over and over again. Company gets into a situation. Family gets into a situation. You in job, whatever. The adversity is showing up. And because of your posture of gratitude, I think you interpret, I know you interpret that adversity and that challenge much different than most leaders do out there. So talk to us a little bit about practicing gratitude and how it impacts as a leader when you're facing adversity. I was struck by a, a Justin Lee was his name, a LP, LPGA, a PGA member.

35:18We played golf with at the Pebble Pro Am and then John played in the Pebble Pro Am with Mr Lee. And I remember him telling, we went to dinner with him one night and we said, hey, what's the greatest lesson you learned in golf? And I was waiting for him to talk about something he did with Jack necklace because he had paid with Jack necklace, he had paid with Arnold Palmer. He had played with some greats. And I couldn't wait for this lesson, a question, the answer to the question that John asked that night. And he went, came from my mom. And John and I both said at the same time, you're mom played golf? He said, never because of the off-loving life. And he said, well, what was the lesson? She said, he said, she taught me how to always embrace the ball. Always embrace the ball. Okay, you got to tear that down. He said, well, I had such a head case in my life, in my golf game, that when I shot an errant ball, I would get so frustrated at what I had done that by the time I got to my shot, I was so frustrated that I would head another bad shot.

36:23I would shank another ball. And he said, and my mom looked at me one day and she said, have you ever just been grateful that you found the ball no matter what condition it's in? And if you will learn to quit frustrating at the ball, rejecting last shot and just go, I found my ball. I've got a chance to hit it again. And if you will embrace the ball, your mindset will change that you have an opportunity to swing again at the sport you love the most. I'm just going to tell. That's amazing. Rock me. So there's been oftentimes I'm sitting at the leadership table and the problem is huge and the challenge is greater than I even know how to solve. You have to sit in some of these rooms with you and I'm going, I don't know what to do. But rather than get frustrated, I go back to my 33-year-young self where I said, I long to be at the table where leadership decisions are made in John Maxwell's organization. And when I'm sitting down at a table and the problem is huge, I welcome the table. I'm sitting at the table. This, I'm here.

37:25I'm in the moment. I am in the seat that I longed for. And so I welcome the table. I don't welcome the problem always. But I'm thankful that I'm at the table where this problem is going to be solved. Yeah. One of the things, when you do that, when you live that out, and I'll just close with this and let you wrap us up, John says, and this has been a statement that has impacted me most recently in the last couple of years, especially his dad in different places, where he says, oh, legacy is not what you leave for people. It's what you leave in people. And I think when you come with a sense of gratitude, both from not being entitled to giving back with gratitude experiences all the way to when adversity hits, no matter the size of it, you're thankful that you found the golf ball. Yeah. Like that's amazing. And so just think about all of the people from your standpoint, Mark, of how you do show gratitude that you've left in people and modeling it because leadership is a visual sport.

38:26People are watching you all the time. And if you model that with true authenticity, like you do, and that ends up in people that are in your network, that will have a lasting impact on them. Yeah. Speaking of gratitude, thank you all for listening, for paying attention to this, letting us come into your life and be a part of your life and your leadership. Chris and I, our team never takes that for granted. And I'm really grateful. In fact, we'd love to ask, answer questions for you. We have a place wherever you listen to, the podcast, wherever you view the podcast, there's a place for you to make comments, write questions. We monitor those pages. We would love to offer what little bit of advice and what a whole lot of experience that we have to help you in your leadership journey. The other thing that I wanted to just remind you of today is, I have an episode that we did, we did a several episodes back called Succession, a leader's lasting value. We're going to put that in the show notes. That'll be another little value ad for you.

39:27My challenge for you today is two, four, one, find somebody I said this earlier, find someone that has been a huge contributor to where you are today. Pick up the phone, send a text, write them a note. You remember how we used to do that? And let them know how important they are to you and how grateful for you are for them. The other thing is, if you want to make your life about something more than you, John wrote a book called Change Your World. We created a digital resource off of it. We'd like to offer that to you for a third off. So like, I'm sorry, two thirds off. So $99 off of a $300 product, we'd like to make that available to you. I think it'll make a difference for you and it'll give you a period, a sense, a responsibility to gratitude so that we can stabilize all that success you have with a chance to give gratitude and do something significant for others. Thanks for joining us today. We desire today and every day to add a tremendous value to you

40:29so that you can go do powerful positive change in the world around you because everyone deserves to be led well.