45 Minutes of Leadership Gold With John Maxwell

[Music] 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, um, 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, uh, icons on the stage of leadership, uh, the one and only John Maxwell. New York Times bestselling author, coach, speaker, more than 100 books because he writes about one a week. Um, have been translated into more than 50, uh, 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 in, uh, at the Entre Leadership Summit in May in Denver as one of our speakers. And, uh, 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, trading barbs like that for many years. Denver is May 18th through 21st. If you want to join us, go to entreleadership.com/summit. Welcome back, my friend. It's always good to hang out with you.

Oh, this is so much fun. I look, I woke up today and said, "Oh, Ramsey and I get to have fun together and help people too." It's kind of a good gig, is it? It's a good gig. It's worked out good. God has blessed us beyond our wildest imagination. The new book is High Road Leadership. I want to talk about it for a minute, uh, before we go and start taking our first few calls. By the way, if you want to call in, the number is 844-944-1070. Bringing people together in a world that divides. The content on this has, it's very timely. Yeah, in a, uh, divisive world that we live in today. But it's also the, uh, the some of the best teaching on leadership is to teach people the nobility, yeah, that you're called to when you're called to be a leader. To totally. It's, it's, 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, you know, vision for lunch. And so I'm very excited about the book because I think that, you know, vision is what we see, but but culture is what we do. And culture is our behavior. And and it, it's really 12 behaviors that high road leaders have that if that 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, it's, it's basically sit your team down, and these are 12 behaviors of of a high road leadership team organization. And, you know, look, look at it and see what do we need to do to get there?

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 hear, listen to them in my car. This 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, 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, 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. Yes. And if you weren't okay with it, I was okay with you not being okay. Kind of finally. I didn't need to, like, pose. I didn't need to do that. And and, you know, it, when I did that, the attractiveness of our whole organization went way up. And you, you know, you're calling it, and I agree with this phrase exactly: Embrace authenticity. Absolutely. In fact, when you said that, when you gave that example, Dave reminded me of a statement I made several years ago that if you need people, you won't lead people. And 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 a, a justification while 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, 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.

Yeah, thank you. Well, I mean, that means a lot coming from you. The, 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. Of course. You know, I really am going to add, 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 you're, you know, when family members got cancer and you need a little time off, we're going to be there. We're going to do, we're going to treat other people like we want to be treated, as Jesus said, right? Golden Rule. Yeah. And, uh, it changes, changes everything. So let me just say something about authenticity. I think a lot of people think that that people want a perfect leader. I don't think they want a perfect leader. 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. Once you know, we love the eagle, wants to soar. But I said, I also have a hippo in me. And the, and the hippopotamus said, "Me, Dave, I don't want to soar. I want to go find some mud hole and stand in there and feel sorry for myself for, you know, for a few hours. And please don't disturb me. I'm not wanting to fly today. I'm wanting to soak in mud." But, but the point being, every person has a hippo in them. Every person has an 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? Release the hippo and soar with the eagle. I like it. I'm going, you and I could probably write a country, we're in Nashville. We could do a little country song on that, huh? And if you and I wrote it, it would be bad. It would be funny. 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, Kentucky. Lillian, uh, your question for Dr. John Maxwell and I?

Hi, Dave and John. Thanks for having me. Sure. What's up? Sure. I'm the owner of an embroidery business. We've been in business for 13 years, and we currently have 33 employees. M. Our revenue last year was $3.6 million. Goodness. Way to go, girl. That's it. That's embroidery money, Dave. That's serious money. That's a lot of stitching. 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?

Well, Lillian, first of all, you don't promote people because they're senior leaders or that they've have tenure. Nope. 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, uh, what I would suggest because you have a still a beautiful but 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, you've got to let, 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 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, 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. And if the expectation, you said you use 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 distribute leadership skills, not because they breathe there 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. Yes, absolutely. 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? Oh, I remember the book. Soon as you said the Peter Principle, I do exactly what you said. What, what was amazing is the book was written in the 1970s, and still people are doing the Peter Principle. It's kind of like we're, we're talking about 60 years ago, 50 years ago, and come on, let's learn that. Let's learn that we just don't promote people just because they're on the team. Yeah. And, 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 and, uh, 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, uh, 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've 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 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 Entre Leadership Podcast.

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Dr. John Maxwell, good friend and, uh, mentor and, uh, 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?

Yes, sir. I appreciate you guys having me on. It's a pleasure speaking with you. Sure. 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 $2 to $2.5 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. Uh, 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 burnt out, but I'm becoming increasingly aware that the more I do, the less efficient we are, and the less we accomplish as a company.

Yeah, you just took on a second full-time job, Bubba. Yeah, absolutely. Wow. Um, so, so my question, um, 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? You know,

uh, 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, I talk sometimes about the three Rs, um, and the three Rs will really help you to prioritize yourself and what you should be doing. The company, you know, uh, what gives me the greatest return? I mean, there are certain things that you do, certain, 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 going to give you. So you got to give what, what, what's giving the greatest return? What's required of me? What are there? What, 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 burned out, perhaps, but you're kind of getting a little tired, you're tired. Well, the reason you're tired is you're not doing the things that give you the reward that you need. And and so the reward takes care of the, the getting worn out a little bit. In leadership, the requirements keeps you just absolutely in the in the lane that you need to be in. In the lane as the leader. And then, of course, the big one, I always say, is where's that return? Where's when I, when I do something, it just helps the company. I mean, the bottom line is better. And and, you know, I basically in my work, I only do about three things. But all three things I do, when I do them, it, it, it, it, it rains, and we make money, and we help people, and do our best to, you know, change lives. So I, I think when everybody says, "Get around, they start set talking about, well, 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.

Exactly. Yeah. What you've done is, uh, you said, uh, six different ways in the, in the, 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. There's some other people that 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. You know, I got 400 programmers that do software engineering in this building. I have no freaking idea what they do. And it's, 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.

You know, can I just jump there? Because the word measure 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. Absolutely. So when you're talking about measure, don't miss what he's saying. Yes. I'm going to let you, you run, but you just don't run without having to measure what you're doing and us be 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, 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.

Well, and because that way, we're at least on the same team. We aimed at the same thing. Absolutely. Because sometimes they're accountable to the wrong measure, 'cause we didn't make the measure clear. Correct. And so they're running off over here to the left, you think they're supposed, they think they're doing awesome, and that we thought I wanted them over here on the right. And that's why as a leader, you have to have upfront expectations. Exactly. 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." 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 then 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 knock them down. Yeah. Or take a bowling, then take, have no pins. So when you roll the ball, you're like, "Oh heck, what did I do? I didn't see anything move." So, and I, 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 to the end, then in a few seconds, you know whether you did well or not. And you got to, but you got to have, you got to have bowling pin measurement. You got to let people know whether. And it's accountability. Totally. It's accountability.

So I put a golf simulator in the new house. Oh, did you? How's that going? It's really hard to cheat. And I play golf with Dave, and and Dave's handicap includes cheating. Hey, but no, no, it takes one to know one. Takes. I was going to say, Captain Foot Wedge here. Okay. We do have some good times out there on that course. We laughed until we cried every time we play. It's always good. Uh, but yeah, we're not, we're not playing in the PGA. But it's, uh, it's a different level of accountability. We know exactly whether you're hitting, 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 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 all the time. 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, 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. Everything else. And you know what that includes? Our old friend Zig Ziggler used to say that the home team, the home team, home team has to be balanced too. Absolutely. And so there's times when, uh, the ox is in the ditch at work, and I got to work. Yeah. And so guess what? Guess what Sharon Ramsey did? Guess what Margaret did? They took care of the home fires. That's right. That's. And that's what I'm talking about. It was not a full-time thing. It was just for a season. Yeah. It's, it's a ditch, but you're only in there for a short time. If you're in the ditch for all season, then then you've missed. You don't understand seasons. That's not a season. You need to get up the ditch. But, but if it's, you know, like we do a book tour, you and I, right? I'm going to be gone. Yep. I'm going to be gone for a while. And when I get home, we'll go do something fun. That's exactly right. And all that stuff. And with the money we made from the book tour, and that's where the wife says, "Go have, go, go, hey, go, go have a good book tour, please. Go to work." Absolutely. And don't come back until it's been a good book tour. Her. Yeah. Don't come back and 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 Entre Leadership Podcast. Thanks for hanging out with us, America. My friend, John Maxwell. Dr. John Maxwell. Just John. Just John. Yep. Just John is with us. And, uh, just John, one of the number one leadership experts in the entire world. Over 100 books on leadership. And, uh, my favorite, still, and I guess probably still your best-selling, would be 21 Irrefutable Laws. Best-selling, yes. I wrote a forward. Y'all allowed us to license it. We have a Dave Ramsey version of 21 Irrefutable Laws. So wrote the forward 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, uh, in a small company, what we did is we just started forming reading groups. Yeah, that's good. And said, "Hey, hey, we're going to go, we're going to grab John Maxwell's new book, High Road Leadership. We're going to go through it together and discuss it." Yeah. 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. Yeah. You know, which that's a problem. If you're not a reader, you're not a leader. And we did the very same thing. And when you do that, because that, Dave, just gave you a great, uh, a great tool. But when you do that, don't go into this reading center as a teacher. Go in it 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, uh, 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 and and and so you discuss it. But 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, I love the facilitator approach more than the teaching approach. I, I, 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, 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. Absolutely.

Andrew is in Little Rock. Andrew, your question for John Maxwell?

Hey, Dave and John. Uh, just wanted to say how grateful I am to be speaking with both of you today. It's a true honor. Um, I'm the CEO of a group of manufacturing companies in Arkansas. We'll do about $6.5 to $7 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?

Wow, that's a great question. What is, let me tell you a mistake I made, uh, when I was a young leader. And I would, I would go to, 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, 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, it's, 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 you 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 on to 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 nth 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 moment we get it, 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.

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 different in some way, gives you a unique insight into solving the problem that we're all here to solve. Period. True. Very. Not, not, you are unique and you get to be treated special. No, you got to. 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. This is who we are. And so that's why we, that's why we love people. I mean, John, we've hired people from everywhere. I mean, I even hired a Florida fan. That's hard for a ten. I walk through here the other day and I saw an Alabama. Oh, come on. Guy in here. I can't believe it, man. I got everything. That shows you're expanding. No, no, that you wouldn't have done that 10 years ago. All that does, Grant, shows that Dave's leadership has expanded. All of a sudden, you're really growing. I mean, when you said Alabama, I said, "Oh my God, either either you're growing, or God has done an incredible transformation work within your life." I can tell you that. Or, or our HR department, just a slip on the filter, that's all it is. And they said, "How?" And Dave goes, "How did they get in here?" How did they get in here? But it's, but you know, 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. Nope. 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 got to work on, and he's going to 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: "Hey, 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." 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 that smart people don't want to hang out like a sheep. No, no. They don't want to be a lemming going over the cliff by a cult leader. They don't want to follow blindly. The better leader, 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. It's going to be no doubt about it. No doubt about it. No doubt. Some bad things are getting. Bad things happen. Bad things.

John Maxwell is with us today. This is the Entre Leadership Podcast. Hey guys, my marketing budget for this show is, you know, 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 on YouTube or your platform that you're listening to is 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 eight or 10 of my buddies going, "You got to hear what Max was 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. I want 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's with us today. And Trevor is going to be with us in Houston, Texas. Hi, Trevor. Welcome to the Entre Leadership Podcast.

Thanks for having me on. I'm a big fan of you both, so thank you for everything that you do.

Thank you, Trevor. We're honored. Yes. How can we help?

So yeah, I own a franchise video, um, marketing firm. And, uh, 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 day-to-day, I would say, but even a further step back and bring in someone, um, 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 to thinking like that? I'm 34. How long's this been open? I've been filming since I was 13. No, dude. I mean, you made $1.3 million. How long from zero when did you start making a living doing this? I mean, like three years, I would say about 2020 is when it really took off. Yeah. Okay. Three or four years. Okay, good.

John? Well, first of all, I, I think you're too early. Let me just say this. We, you use the, you don't want to be irrelevant, and you don't want to be that, but you do want, but you do want to be replaceable. And there's a different, there's a difference. If you're relevant, of course, you're going to be doing things that people don't even care about, so you're going to lose your business very quick. But also, you want to be able to build. You need to build team members. And I, 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 a 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 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 to do it." 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. An equipping process. It really 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. You know, so I, I do it. Then I do it. Those that can't do, shouldn't teach. But, 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 do it, 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 best way for you to know if you're doing it right or not. And you're going to find that out because if, let's say you spent 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, if you get one good leader out of that system in a year, you probably really improved your bottom line and has probably gotten you where you want to go yourself.

Exactly. So, but, but I really suggest that you're, you're, you're not experienced enough to turn that over to somebody else yet. And you're, 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 going to find out it's not really working. The team is pulling 90% of their energy from you at this stage. Of course. And if you unplug and go sit in a tower and call yourself a visionary, there's no power left in the building. No. Yeah, because you're the power source. You're the power source. So I appreciate that. 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 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, more mature version of a leader, servant leader, than you were at a million. You're a more mature. So all you're doing is growing these attributes, not, 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, they're going the people," right? And the church isn't going to be built. Exactly. They're get, getting ready to, uh, getting ready to go a million, 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, that scripture that you need to remember is not "where there is no vision," that PE, it's, it's the perish part. Yeah, where there's no vision, the 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, um, you know, visionary, installing an injection of that energy. No question about it.

And, and let me say, when I was a young leader at your age, I had 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. Oh yeah. 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, play later. It's just hey now.

Here's what, 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. It's so, it's, I mean, I graduated that class. Think about it. When you, when you had just a few people, Dave, 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 it. But the bigger you get, you got more people, you got, you got more possibility of miscommunication. I mean, it's so what you do is in leadership, 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, 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 nobody else is making below you. So everything gets harder. So you get, you get better, not so you don't work, you get better so you work better.

And, 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 respect and more gravitas in your leadership, which is going to allow you to build that company. That's exactly right. Well, that's gold. That's gold right there.

I, it occurs to me listening to you that that what felt really, really hard with 10 people, I still feel the same hard, yeah, but it's just 1100 because I've got bigger muscles. That's to it. It's a, 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. Well, and, and if the strain goes away, you've lost the, the heart. You, I mean, in other words, the, 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, if you just remember, you, 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 started out together in the garage, and so we're going to keep doing this, right? And so there you establish a, 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 going to receive from the people that is going to give you a greater return than anything else that you can have." Yeah.

It's, um, well, we're fighting together. I mean, we're shoulder to shoulder with warrior poets. Yeah. And we've won together. And we've won, we've won big games together. Yep. That's it. And so the next time a big thing comes up, we go, "We killed a lion and a bear. Philistines? Nothing. Bring on the big boy." Yeah. Bring him on. Let's go. Bring on Sha, Goliath. Come on. Bring him on. 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 Entre Leadership Summit, May 18th through 21st. You'll hear from him, me, and, um, 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 on 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. Right back at you. Don't we love doing stuff together? We have a blast. We don't do enough of it 'cause we have so much fun. It's a good thing. I love it.

Hey folks, be sure now remember, it's better to be 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 Entre Leadership Podcast.

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