Improve Your Communication Skills with This! | John Maxwell

Warren Buffett is right when he said that if you can develop the skill of communication, you will help your self-worth and self-value in any area of work that you're in more than any other skill. In other words, he said it's the number one skill to develop. And for the next hour, we're going to work on helping you develop that skill by sharing with you four of those laws.

One of those laws is the law of visual expression, which just basically says show and tell is better than just tell. Because it's one thing for me to teach you about communication, but it's also wonderful that my team has assembled together clips that will show you communicating from the things that I'm teaching you. And it's so much better to not only hear it but also to see it. So, hey, we're going to laugh together, we're going to learn a lot together. Trust me, it's going to be a wonderful hour that we spend just learning how to communicate. And why is this so important to me? If you can do one thing and do it well, it's learning how to communicate, and that's what I'm all excited about teaching you how to do.

Now, before I'm done, and, and by the way, one of my laws is the law of anticipation. I'm building it right now. Before I'm done, I'm going to share with you four easy ways for you to learn how to be a better communicator. And why am I doing that? Because I am here for you. This hour is about you. It's all about you learning these laws so that you can communicate better and be much more effective in whatever work that you're doing. So I'm very excited about it. Uh, I think you're ready to get started. I know I am too.

And the first law we're going to talk about is the law of connection. And the reason that we're talking about the law of connection is because, honestly, that's the key to the entire book. Because the law of connection lets us know that speaking, communicating, is all about others. Now, you're seeing me, uh, standing here in this empty auditorium. And, uh, I know when you think of communication, you think I'm going to be on stage because that's where communicators stand or sit. But, but I don't really start my communication on stage. I really start here in the auditorium. Because what I need to do as an effective communicator is I need to think not as a speaker, but as a listener. Not as someone who's on stage, but someone who is sitting in these empty pews. And may I say this, if you know how to connect with people, then the pews, the seats that you have, will be filled with people that are going to learn and grow. But if I can't connect, honestly, I might as well have empty seats in the auditorium because nobody is going to be listening and nobody is going to be learning. So I start here. I sit in these seats because I'm wanting to feel what the audience is going to feel when they walk in. I begin to put my mind not on the stage, but out where the seats are.

I was speaking in Canton, Ohio, a few years ago. This is very interesting. And I was in the green room. And there were two other speakers. And, and they had been, the conference had been going on for a few hours. And one of the speakers came up to me and said, "John, you're going to speak in five minutes. What are you thinking about?" And I looked at him and I said, "Well, I'm thinking about the audience." And he was very surprised. He said, "I thought you'd be thinking about your talk." I said, "No, I, I, I know what I'm going to say. It's, it's not an issue of content, it's an issue of connection. How do I connect with the audience?" So I literally, I sit here in an empty, in an empty auditorium before I ever speak. And I put myself in the heart and the mindset of the audience because I know if I'm thinking about them, I'll connect with them.

When I graduated from college, my dad gave me some great advice. He said, "John, if you want to be successful in life, you need to believe in people. You need to value people. And you need to unconditionally love them." And that's what I've done all my life. When I speak, I look at the auditorium. I look at, I look at the people. I look into their eyes. And I'm saying to them visually, "I value you. I believe in you. I unconditionally love you." And as they are in their seats, they receive that message. They begin to feel it. They begin to sense it, which is the first start of connecting and really helping people. Just unconditional.

So people say, "John, what's the key to connecting?" Okay, I told you my name is John. I'm your friend. I'm going to give you the key right now. It's so simple, you're going to get it immediately. But it's so hard. It may take you, like it did me, eight years to practice it and get it good. You see, the key to connecting is you have to get over yourself. Because this is not about me. This is about you. This is about the audience. And when I get over myself, then I can give myself to you. As long as I'm thinking about me and my speech, and am I doing a good job? And do the people like me? And, and are, are they understanding what I'm saying? As long as it's about me, I won't connect with you. It's impossible for me to think about me and connect with you at the same time. So it is all about you.

So I, I sit in an empty auditorium, but I know that soon this auditorium will be filled with people. They're going to come in and they're going to sit down in these seats. And I will then go to the stage because that's what communicators do. They, they do get to the stage, but they don't start at the stage. They start right here in the auditorium, in these seats, putting themselves where the people are. In fact, they're coming in now. Just come on in. I'm so glad to see all of you. Make yourself at home and grab a seat. And, and by the way, this is very important. If you can get over yourself, I can now give myself to the people that are sitting here. But, but if you don't connect with people, honestly, it's like winking at a girl in the dark. Nothing happens. You don't want to do that. When you speak, you want something to happen.

So now, as they come in and, and, and are going to listen to me, "Hi, good to see you. I'm glad you came." Morning. You see, there's a question. There's a question I have to ask myself. And the question is, "Do I want you to be fans of mine, or do you want to be friends of mine?" You see, that's the question I have to ask. Because if I want fans, I will speak and separate myself from the audience because I want them to be impressed with me. I want them to say, "Oh my gosh, Maxwell is amazing. He's so good." Oh yes, I'm so glad I'm hearing him. But it's not about me. It's about you. So how do I turn fans into friends? It's very simple. I close the gap. And so I'm not wanting you to be amazed at how John Maxwell communicates. I want you to be amazed by the fact that what I say, you can apply to your life. That when you walk out, you're not going to say, "Boy, John is amazing." What you're going to say is, "I think I could be amazing." You're going to begin to focus on you. And by focusing on you, you're going to improve your life. And by the way, that's what a communicator wants for the audience.

So when I speak, I start connecting with my audience immediately. Uh, let me show you what I'm talking about. "My name is John. My name's John. I'm your friend. My name is John. I'm your friend." "What's your name?" "Nice to meet you." "On the count of three, give me your name." "One, two, three." "Nice to meet you." Can you guys backstage do me a favor? If you've got a stool, I'd love to have, bring out a bar stool. I'd like to sit down and talk with people. Can you hang with me for, uh, four sessions? Look at your neighbor and say, "Don't miss this." Look at your neighbor and say, "You're about to understand life." Just look at your neighbor and say, "Transformation is possible." Your neighbor and, and tell them, "You're, I'm learning something." So look at the person beside you and say to them, "You can become a better communicator." If, if, if I could just literally come off the stage and, and, and, and I could get real close to you and we'd have kind of like a one-on-one conversation. Oh, thank you. I love this. She just put her tablet in front of the timer. Let me explain something to you. She knows how to read the room. How many of you would like to improve your communicating skills? Let's see that hand. Okay. So look, everybody has got their hands raised. I'm going to talk you in a moment about connecting. And when I saw the guys with the red tennis shoes, I said, "I have got to have some." "My name is John and I'm your friend." If you want to become a great communicator, you need to focus on the people in the audience. In other words, it's not about you. It's, it's, it's not about me as the speaker. It's about the audience. And I have to get over myself. You're going to have to get over yourself. If you get the book, you're going to learn a lot more about the law of connection because it is so essential for your success as a communicator.

Now, the second law that I'm going to share with you is the law of visual expression. In other words, show and tell is better than tell. Okay, I have really taken time in my communication process to learn this law. And, and let me tell you why. I started off, um, standing behind a large podium. And, and to be honest with you, it was so big that if all they could see was from the neck up, honestly, if I didn't have any clothes, they would never even have known it because I'm just, I could just been, yeah, butt naked, you understand? Because all they could see was the head. And, and I began to learn that that's not a good way to effectively communicate with people. So I, I, I advanced slowly. I went to a smaller podium. And then one day, you know, I just started. I stood up and I started walking around and, and, and, and connecting and talking with the audience. You see, body movements, uh, gestures that I do, uh, my facial expressions, all of those things are extremely important in connecting with people.

Now, the reason I've said often already in our teaching that you have to get over yourself so that you can give yourself to the audience is that when it's not about me as speaker, I'm going to have freedom to be very expressive. Now, the moment that I think it's about me, that I'm going to be saying, "Well, I wonder if they'll like this expression. I, I wonder if, if this will, if this will please them." But you become very free when you can get over yourself. And I have a video that I want you to see that has been seen by millions of people of me speaking when the music stand just went bad. And, uh, I wasn't prepared for it. The people weren't prepared for it, but we had a blast. You, you watch this.

"I hate baloney sandwiches!"

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"Heal, heal!"

"I hate cheap music stands!"

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"Especially when they interrupt my story. I'm right in the middle of a great story. Look at this!"

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"Todd, could, could you talk to your dad about this? I mean, we just look at this. Look at, would you take, take that? Oh, give me my, give me the rubber band. Thank you."

[Applause]

"Oh, am I getting the story now? Oh!"

[Music]

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"You got to get something you can depend on. There's your backup. Thank you."

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[Music]

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"The message is on attitude. And I'm doing my best. I'm just doing my best."

Okay, well, I, I hope the music stand really never happens to you. But if it does, if you've gotten over yourself, you can enjoy yourself. And here's what I know. If it's about me, when something goes wrong, the audience becomes a little bit embarrassed for me. But if I'm enjoying myself and it's not about me, then everyone else can enjoy the experience, even if it's going south.

But another way for visual expression, uh, is through word pictures. I can remember being with my friend Chris Stevens, and we were celebrating an anniversary of his leadership. And, uh, there's a huge crowd, thousands of people that night. But during the day, we play golf. Chris is a good golfer. I'm a good golfer. Uh, Chris on the third hole hit a ball about this far from the hole. And, and in fact, I said, "Lay down beside the ball and have your putter there." I took a picture. Lay, picture of him laying there by the green with the hole there, real close. And it just kind of showed that Chris made a very good shot. When I went to speak that night, I brought two pictures and I gave it to the crew. I said, "I want you, when I speak, to show these pictures when I ask for them." The first picture is Chris with the, the, the ball about that close to the hole. And I looked at the audience and I said, "Chris Stevens, your leader, is a fabulous golfer. Look at that picture. That's how good a golfer he is. He's amazing." Now, the second picture was from the 18th hole where I had shot and I hit the ball that close to the hole. Now, I've just got done saying that Chris is an amazing golfer. You with me? This is the law of visual expression. This is how it works. You know, show and tell is just better than tell. So after I bragged on Chris with his putt about that close, I said, "Oh, and, and this was, this was my shot." And they showed it with it. Real. I never said a word. I never, the crowd just erupted in laughter. You see, again, the power, power of visual communication is just absolutely huge.

I can remember one other quick story. Uh, several years ago, when Robert Schuller was still pastor at the Crystal Cathedral, you have to go back really about 20, 25 years ago, when the, when the large video screens started to appear in, in auditoriums. And, and I had never spoken with a large video screen. I, I was used to this kind of eye-to-eye connection where people would watch me. And so when I got up to speak, this really caught me by surprise because the video screen wasn't like behind me. It was about 35, 40 yards to my left. And so when I got to speak, the people weren't looking at me. They were looking over at the screen. And it unnerved me. I thought, "Oh my gosh, what are they doing? They're, they're look." And my first impulse was, "Get up, run over to where the screen is and stand beneath the screen." And, and now you're kind of looking at me. But of course, I couldn't, I couldn't get over there. And so now I'm sitting here, they're looking over there. And guess what happened? I made a funny, it's just a funny expression. And the place erupted in laughter. And immediately I realized they're seeing me. They're visually seeing. In fact, they're visually seeing me better than they've ever seen me before because now my face is not the side. My face is like four, before you know what I'm saying? It's, and, and again, it's just the power of what visual expression will do in speaking.

Uh, how about if I just take a moment and I show you some examples of some of my visual expressions that you'll, you'll laugh a little bit when you see these. They understand. They understand that effectiveness in leadership and effectiveness in communication is based on similarity, not differences. When you have a tough call, gang, here's the way this works. Everything worthwhile is uphill. And if everything worthwhile is uphill, we have to be intentional to go uphill. When you make the tough call, tough calls equal a breakthrough. If I'm a four-star leader, the people I attract to me will basically be threes, twos, and ones. We have a choice as leaders, and that is that we can either let people into our life or we can basically stiff-arm people and keep them at a distance. You don't just get out, out one day and say, "Oh, I got a real tough call. I don't know, you know, should I relocate the organization or not relocate the organization? Well, let me see. Let me get a coin. Heads, we relocate. Tails, we stay." You know, look at this. I, I have no idea. Oh, yes, yes, yes. Here we go. I put it on backwards.

[Applause]

Now, now let me just say something to you. Don't overthink this, okay? I, I'm not suggesting you need to perform a country song with a cowboy hat for, for the next talk that you do. I, no, no. Don't, don't, don't even, don't even go there. I look like a, I look like a dwarf myself with that cowboy hat. I know. But I am talking to you about connecting with people and using visual aids to do it.

S. C. C., who's a great friend of mine, has a video that literally has been watched by over 57 million viewers. And what did he use for his visual? An old-fashioned, hey, flip chart. Okay? I mean, you're just, it, it doesn't matter. What I'm saying to you is anytime you have something else besides yourself to use for visual expression, it just allows you to get the message over and connect with the people. So, uh, I would encourage you to try adding a little visual expression to your, your next talk. And I'll bet you'll be amazed at how your audience responds. Show and tell is better than just tell. And I want to encourage you, if you'll get the 16 Laws of Communication book, you're just going to learn so much more about the law of connection. All I'm doing is giving you just a little tipping point of each one of these laws, enough to encourage you to be a better communicator, but also not enough to encourage you to get the book. You really want the 16 Laws of Communication.

One of my biggest speaking failures was when I was asked to, uh, fill in for another speaker. And, and really, all I have to do is give you his name and you're going to, I'll tell you the story. I was asked, um, several years ago at a huge convention in Boston, I, about 10, 12,000 people, uh, on the day that the convention was happening. I wasn't one of the scheduled speakers at all. In the morning, late morning, I received, received a call from the man who was leading the, uh, that convention. And he said, "John, our, our featured last speaker is not able to speak today. He's not well physically. And would you catch a plane and run up here and would you fill in for him?" And I said, "Sure. I, I'll be glad to do that if, if I can, you know, get the flight and we can make this happen." And then I said, "Well, who is it?" He said, "Christopher Reeves." Superman.

[Laughter]

Fat man is going to fill in for Superman. So I know I'm already in trouble. I'm okay. This is, this is not going to be very easy at all. But so I get up there and, and so now I'm, and I literally get up there about 15 minutes before I was supposed to speak. And so I'm over the side, they're sticking me with the mics, they're doing everything, getting everything ready. And then I hear that they're about to go out and announce to the crowd that Christopher Reeves won't be here. I had assumed that they had done that earlier. I had assumed that they had prepared the people that Superman wouldn't be there, but fat man is coming. They literally went out, announced that Christopher Reeves was not well, he would not be there that day. And before I go out, hundreds of people start to stand up. They're walking out. I mean, they came to see Superman. So as I am walking on the stage, a couple hundred people are walking out. Now, there are 10, 12,000 people there, so I still got a great crowd. But there were two, two or three hundred people said, "Whoops, I, I'm out of here." And so then I walk out. And I had the challenge of filling in for Superman. And the first thing I did, I looked at the audience and said, "I don't blame, blame you. I'd kind of like to walk off myself." And immediately they did what you did. They laughed. And they gave me a chance. And I filled in as best I could for Superman.

Now, the reason I'm saying and giving you that story is because, um, I hear speakers all the time. They'll talk about, "Well, that was a good crowd," or, "or that was a tough crowd." Or, "I always hear them talk about it was a good crowd, tough crowd." It's not about a good crowd, tough crowd. It's all about you as a communicator. In other words, in the law of anticipation, you want to set the table in such a way that your people anticipate what you're about to say to them. And this is absolutely huge. And, and so when I walked out with Christopher Reeves not being there, I let them know I was, I was as disappointed as they were. And I kind of wanted to walk off the stage. And immediately they began to connect with me. And then I began to build anticipation. I said, "Although I can't teach you how to fly, I will teach you how to soar to success." Come on, talk to me. And then we started soaring to success. But you see, I had to connect with them. I could have walked out there, act like nothing was happening when everybody in the auditorium says, "A lot of stuff's happening. People are leaving." I watch communicators many times not watch the crowd, and therefore they missed their leadership speaking communication, uh, cues that would help, help them to be effective.

So let's talk about how do I, as a leader, create anticipation? What I do is, I, I think of this as kind of like setting the table. And I'm, I'm getting ready to set the table. And, and we're about to have a great meal. And, and I kind of want to let you know what's happening. It's kind of like when you're in a restaurant and you say, "What's special?" I mean, I know you got stuff on the menu. And then I'll say, "Well, there are three things here." And, and you really kind of tune in because this is kind of what they're really doing today. And this is maybe something that you really want that wasn't on the menu. There's a way as a communicator to begin to help your audience lean forward and anticipate when you're getting ready to speak. And so I, I use phrases like this. And, and these are what I call anticipation phrases. Again, in my book on the Laws of Communication, I fill the book with these laws, with these practical ways that you can read the law and you can begin to say, "Oh, I know how to do that." Because I'm showing your way. And so let me give you some of my anticipation phrases, okay? And I'll tell you what, you, you kind of judge them, okay? When I give this to you, if it was great, you raise your hand real high. If it was kind of okay, you raise your hand high. And if I didn't build any anticipation, just cross your arms, shake your head, and do, and walk out. I've been walked out before. It's, it's happened before. For example, I'll say something like this: "I woke up early this morning and I, I was so filled with the anticipation of what I'm about to teach you." Now, what's that do for you? Come on, give me. All right. Okay. All right. There are two right here. Went halfway up. You get one more chance. If you don't lie and raise your hand high, we will be kicking you out of the audience. Just trust me. We're, it's going to happen. Or, or something I'll say, say, "Watch this one. How's this for an anticipation phrase? Okay, I'm going to share something with you that I have never shared with anyone else before." Oh, that was good. And look, even the doubters got their hands up. Now, honestly, you could do better than that because when it's really good, you can put both hands in the air, you understand? I mean, we, I mean, you get involved with me, okay? Hey, come on, help me. Oh, like now, now the doubters are raising their arms before they ever hear. How, how about this? "I have created this teaching, this lesson. I've created it just for you." You. How's that? Huh? Is that, is that good? Or, or how? Okay, you're doing so good. It took them a little while, but they're getting better. They're just getting better. Uh, or this one. How about this? "Look at the person that you're sitting beside right now and say to them, 'Today you're going to learn something.'" Huh? Huh? Isn't that good? And guess what? Now you're even expressing what I'm wanting to express. And you're already making, you're making it contagious. Or I'll say something about this, um, "I, I'm going, I'm going to share something with you right now that has life-changing possibilities for you." Does it, does it just kind of fill you up with anticipation? Or, uh, "How many of you are as excited as I am to get going? Are you ready to go?" Huh? Okay. Here now. Okay. I, I've just given you some, not all, of the anticipation phrases that I teach you in this incredible law. I've been setting the table throughout our time together today. I'm sure you've noticed. But if not, just watch this.

So, hey, we're going to laugh together, we're going to learn a lot together. Trust me, it's going to be a wonderful hour that we spend just learning how to communicate. And now, before I'm done, and, and by the way, one of my laws is the law of anticipation. I'm building it right now. Before I'm done, I'm going to share with you four easy ways for you to learn how to be a better communicator. And the reason that we're talking about the law of connection is because, honestly, that's the key to the entire book. Go. This is very interesting. I'm going to give you the key right now. It's so simple, you're going to get it immediately. But it's so hard. It may take you, like it did me, eight years to practice it and get it good. If you get the book, you're going to learn a lot more about the law of connection because it is so essential for your success as a communicator.

So, uh, I would encourage you to try adding a little visual expression to your, your next talk. And I'll bet you'll be amazed at how your audience responds. Show and tell is better than just tell. And I want to encourage you, if you'll get the 16 Laws of Communication book, you're just going to learn so much more about the law of visual expression. All I'm doing is giving you just a little tipping point of each one of these laws.

Let me talk just a moment longer on anticipation because there's a, a mindset of anticipation, which basically says, "How we view things is how we do things." This is huge. So, what I view is what I do. So that's the mindset. But the message mindset, as I'm getting ready to communicate, I just flip that. Because in the message mindset, I look and I, I say, I say to this that, "How I do things is how I view things." And so, so many times in communication, the speaker talks about, as I referred to a little bit earlier in the clips, about a good audience or a bad audience. It's really not about a good audience and a bad audience. It's not about them bringing the best out of me. It's about me bringing the best out of them. And so I, I don't rely on the audience to make my day. I rely on my communication to make their day. And there's a big difference between, "Will they help me?" or "Will I be able to help them?" And this began to really change my life as, as a communicator when I quit looking for good audiences and I said, "Why don't you just be a good communicator? A good communicator will take a bad audience and turn them into a good audience." Does that make sense to you? That's, that's just absolutely important.

Uh, when I speak to an audience, I always believe the best in the people. Remember my father's advice? You know, believe in people, value people, unconditionally love people. And so believe in my audience, and I believe in my message. And, you know, they asked Frank Lloyd Wright one time, who was the great architect and builder of homes, they asked him, uh, what was his greatest masterpiece as far as it, what he had built, what he had, what he had as an architect, form. And he, his words were so good. He said, "My masterpiece is always my next one." And that's how I feel about my talks. Um, in fact, it kind of is a joke with people who know me well because I get ready to speak and I'll say, "This is the best teaching I've ever done. This is going to, this is so good." And, and they'll kind of, behind the scenes, marking, "There comes the best teaching he's ever done." You know. And let me tell something. Somebody said, "Well, is that arrogant?" I don't think it's arrogant. But I do think it's anticipating. And let me just say this, if you don't think the talk you're about to give is the best talk you've ever given, why don't you give the audience a break and not give them one? If, if I can't believe in the message I'm teaching and love the message I'm sharing, why would the people ever believe or love or connect with it?

So let me just talk to you about your next, uh, masterpiece, your next talk that you're going to give. I want to share with you, uh, four easy ways to maximize the next time you get up and speak in front of an audience. And, and they, these four things I'm going to share with you come out of another one of my laws in the 16 Laws of Communication, that is the law of content. Um, the law of content just simply says that when you have something worth saying, people will start listening. Wow, that is so true. Now, when I wrote this law, I, I described speaking and preparing speeches and content like putting a puzzle together. And I talked about the fact that when you start with the puzzle, you, you put in the first piece, you don't know what I mean unless you look at the box top. It, it doesn't tell you anything. And you have to put several pieces together before it begins to make sense. I can still remember, uh, when I lived in San Diego, I would go to the San Diego Padres baseball games sometimes. And during, between one of the innings, on the big scoreboard back there, they would put one piece of a puzzle of a, of a baseball player's face. And, and everybody knows that they're trying to guess who the player is. But nobody can guess with one piece, or two pieces, or three pieces. But everybody, I mean, everybody's watching this. And then about four or five pieces, all of a sudden, people start to put out names. Well, in, in speaking, it's the same way. There, there, there are what I call nine pieces to the puzzle of, of your talk. Now, I, I, I don't have time to give you all nine, but I, I will give you four of them today. And by the way, why should I give you all nine? You won't buy the book if I give you all of them, huh? So, so I'm going to give you, I'm going to give you four of the nine.

And the, and the first one is for you to create a runway for your ideas. When I'm getting ready to express a thought or, or an idea, I, I, I want to give them a runway so that, so that we can really, so that we can really take off and, and, and, and we can connect. So, uh, it may be a current event. You know, for example, during COVID, every time I would address an audience, and I did most of this virtually, I would talk about the conditions and the circumstances. And, and immediately it would relate to where they were because it was a very uncomfortable time for people. So I'm, I'm taking a current event and putting the talk in that current event. And, and everybody says, "Well, he's right with us. He understands what we're going through. He understands all, all the things that we are, uh, we are, we, we, we are feeling in our own life." Uh, sometimes, um, I, I'll, I'll put out a question. I, I'll ask a question of the audience. Now, let me just say something about asking questions of the audience as a speaker. Never stand before your audience and ask them a question that they cannot answer. I watch speakers do this all the time. They'll get up and they'll say, "Okay, how many miles is the moon from the earth?" Well, are we astronauts? I mean, hello. And everybody, you know, we don't know how many miles. And then they'll say, "Well," and then they'll give us the mileage. Now, that's not good communication. That's showing off. What that is, is as a communicator, I'm saying, "I know something you don't know." And what I'm doing, instead of having friends and bringing them together, I'm creating fans. I'm separating them. And now all of a sudden, I'm setting myself apart. You never want to set yourself apart. So never, I never ask a question of the audience that they don't know the answer because it's all about us. It's not about what I know and what you don't know.

I, I saw this, um, I took a, a, a group to, uh, last year over to France. And we went to Normandy. And it was a, a very moving three-day experience. And we had Doris Kearns Goodwin with us, who was a great leadership historian. And she's a, she is truly amazing. And, and so we were at a museum at Normandy. And we had a guy that spent an hour with us telling us about, uh, the, the advancement on the beaches. And, and just basically tell us the story. Here's what I want you to catch. Every three minutes, he'd stop and he would ask our group a question of which none of them could answer. "How many, how many soldiers charged up Omaha Beach?" Well, I don't know how many soldiers charged up Omaha Beach. And then he would, he would say, "7,322." And then he would ask another question. Every three minutes, he'd ask a question. And every question he asked, the audience could not answer. Now, I stood back because I knew he was in trouble. Now, brilliant guy, knew the numbers, really could have given us an enjoyable experience. But it's not enjoyable because every three minutes he's going to look at my group and he's going to ask them a question. And when, when he would ask the question, I stood back and I watched this. Don't miss this. He would ask a question, they couldn't answer. And my group, as soon as he started to look at a certain section, they'd lower their heads. Of course, they're lowering their heads. They don't want him to pick them out because they don't know the answer. It, it reminded me when I went to school. Remember? Come on, remember when you're in school, teacher asked you a question, you didn't know, you, yeah, pass over me, pass over me. You never want to do that. You want to keep your people together. That's what great communicators do.

So I'll sometimes talk about a current event. I'll sometimes talk about maybe a question. Or, or I'll make a heart connection with them. And, and I'll say something like maybe like this. I'll be talking to them and I'll say, "You know, sometimes I just get discouraged. And I, I, I, I, I want to kind of pull myself out of it. Have you ever had a time when you were discouraged?" Well, everybody in the room says, "Yeah, I've had a time." I mean, the only person that doesn't say that is a person that's on drugs. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, we've all had, we've all had those discouraging times. What am I doing? I'm talking about a problem I've had or a situation that's been difficult. And I always start with me. Remember this, in connecting with people, you start with you. And when I say, "I'm discouraged," guess what? I give you permission to say, "I've been discouraged too." But if I say, "You know, I've never been discouraged in my life. It's always been a 10 every day." How do you feel? Well, now you're all going to be liars. You know that's a 10 too. But, but that is, you've got to connect with your people. And those are the three ways that I, I do it.

Now, there are a lot of other ways to do this also. And, and let me just show you a few of them. I don't have time to talk about them, but you just watch the archives here, the footage, and you can see other ways that you can do this. How many of you like to play golf? How many golfers do I have here? Oh, oh, you got a lot of golfers. How many of you would like to increase your influence with your boss? Could I see your hand? How many you like to increase your influence with your kids? How many of you, you like to just have some influence with your kids? How many you know people that talk but they don't connect? Huh? Come on, raise your hand. You got that, huh? Lau Tzu, who is the Chinese kind of philosopher, said, "If we don't change the direction we are headed, we are likely to end up where we're going." So Martin Luther King is doing the great famous speech in the mall steps of, of course, the Lincoln Memorial. You see, the "I Have a Dream" part wasn't in his teaching at all. But he's looking at the mall and he's seeing the people. And Mahalia Jackson was right behind him. And, and it was kind of almost quietness and awkwardness in the mall. And M. Jackson says, "Tell them about your dream, Martin. Tell him about your dream." And that's when he went into, "I have a dream."

This lecture has potential to help you to become a better leader, to change your life. And what I'm going to share with you now is life-changing. And you just don't want to miss this because I'm going to, I'm going to give you some stuff right now. This is pure gold, okay? This is so good, I hardly want to give it to you. But you better start with yourself because if you're leading others and have nothing to give them, then I can promise you, you'll never be what you want to be as a leader.

After you create a runway, the second thing I want you to do is I want you to plan your transitions out. Uh, when I talked a little bit moment ago about the tour guide, you know, there's one cardinal rule for a tour guide. I mean, if you're, if you're, you know, I mean, they always have a way to identify themselves, you know, and they've got a sign, "Follow me." And the one cardinal rule, if you're a tour guide, is don't lose your crowd. You know, you're not a, you know, you know, you're not a good tour guide when you turn around and nobody's there. You know what I mean? And it, it's kind of like my favorite leadership expression: "He that thinketh he leadeth and hath no one following him is only taking a walk." And that's the way it is with tour guides sometimes. And that's the way it is sometimes with communicators. So how do I keep the with me? Now, in the book, I talk about several ways to keep your audience with you. But I want to talk about one right now, and that's what I call the value of the pause. And if you've heard me communicate, you know, I, many times when I talk, I, I have moments where I just stop. And sometimes for three or four seconds. And, and I sometimes I'll, I'll pause and I'll walk away and go back to my chair. And, and, and why? There are reasons why I do that. You know, Mark Twain said, "No word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause." And I know that to be true. And so let me just, this is not all of them, but this is some of them. Let me tell you what a pause can do that will help you to emphasize what you're saying. In other words, what does silence do? Sometimes when you're silent, it just underlines something that you have said that's very important. And, and if we rush through it, they miss the importance of that moment.

A, a pause can also, uh, it gives your audience a chance to catch up. Some speakers speak so fast that you, you, you want to say, "Excuse me, you, you can take a break now. Um, sit down for two minutes. We just like to try to assimilate all the things you said because you just, you just said it." You know, you said it so quickly. I, I remember years ago, Margaret and I were in Germany. And I went on the Autobahn. And I, I, it was so fun because you can go as fast as you want to. And I like to go fast. And, and, and I had a Mercedes. And, and it was in kilometers, not miles. And, and I knew Margaret could not transfer kilometers and miles. And so I just said, "Honey, when you see this, it's, it's like three times faster than we're really going." And so we're going, "Yeah, man, I'm just on there going as fast as I can. I'm going 120. They're still passing me." We're having a blast. And finally, Margaret said, "You know, John, would you just slow down? She said, 'We're going through Austria now, and I'd like to see the country.'" I just like this. Sometimes I look at a speaker. I say, "Would you just slow down? Could you not pause? Could you not, could you not give people a break to just kind of think about what you've just said?" Because communication, it's not a race. It's meant to be a very enjoyable journey.

Another reason that I pause is that, um, it brings the audience back to you. You know, you, you can lose an audience. And when you lose an audience, the quickest way to bring them back to you is not to say, "Remember when you went to school and the teacher would stop talking and because you're all, we're all fidgety, moving around, we'd all finally look at the teacher. When we, or looking at the teacher, she'd begin again." The, that's the value of the pause. A pause can, a pause can do this really good. It can point to what you're about to say. In other words, there are times when I pause and I'm getting ready to, to, to make another statement. And I want to give people time to think about what that statement's going to be. If I'm a good communicator, a lot of times they can anticipate what I'm about to say. When you anticipate what I'm about to say because I paused, it takes that what I'm saying and it just doubles the impression on you because you're saying, "He thinks like me." That's huge. And, and the pause also, it allows the, it allows the audience, it allows you as a listener to, to hear the whisper. And I think this is a big miss in communication. There are sometimes when, when you speak, but there's a voice that's higher that wants to speak to you. And, and, and you just need to hear the whisper. But if I don't pause, you, you don't get to hear that. Henry Nowan said, "Silence is an act of war against the competing voices that are within us." That's an incredible statement. And so I say, "Let's let silence speak for you. Let silence speak above you. Let silence speak beyond you. Let, let, let, let silence speak." This is just absolutely huge.

Now, let me just say this. When I teach this in communication, this is the hardest thing I can get, try to get communicators to do is pause. And I know why. When I pause for a moment, I give up control. In fact, when I pause, guess what? I let you have control. And many speakers.

Are afraid to let you have control because they they want to get it back because they want to make sure they take you where they want and I understand that. So you're going to have to work on this, but I can promise you, you need to give up control. Let people have it for a moment, and when they give it back to you, you will have connected with them, and that's a beautiful thing.

Now, number three, I use phrases that have what I call an echo, and this is kind of what I call word smithing. So, what do you hear me say? I'll say things like, "You have to give up to go up." You have to give up to go up. That's, that's a stick phrase. That, that's sticky. Well, you know, I, I could just say, "Give up," and you're, "Okay, I'm surrendered. I'm surrendered." But if you have to give up to go up, and if you don't give up, you don't go up. So if you want to go up, you have to give up. So the next time you want to go up, realize you have to give up before you can go up. And if you don't give up, you don't go up. Do you see how it echoes? It just acts. Hey, what else do I say? "Pay now, play later." Pay now, play later. That's what my dad taught us when we were kids growing up. You can either pay now and play later, or you can play now and pay later. But you're going to pay. And he said, "If you'll pay now, you don't have compounding interest." He said, "If, if you play first, the longer you wait to pay, the higher the price is going to be." Pay now, play later. If you don't, you can play now and you pay later, but you're always going to pay. So don't think you just get to play. Okay, there echoes, echoes, echoes.

People don't care how much you know. Oh, that was so. Oh, let's do it again. Okay. And I'm going to let you, I'm going to let you repeat it out loud for the, for, for the people. Okay. So people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Yes, I've taken you all on the road with me. I really am. Now, that has an echo to it. So, as a communicator, one of the things you do is you, you look at your words and you just ask yourself, "Are these words that I say going to be repeated?" That's the echo. And if, if, if, if you, here's when you say words, you want them to be remembered and repeated. But the greatest way for them to be remembered is for them to be repeated, because once they're repeated, it sticks more in the mind.

Now, okay, so far I've shown you three tips that will help you make your next talk better. So, so I'm, I'm about to land the plane. Okay, we're about to land the plane, and I want to share one final tip to you on, on basically how do you land the plane? How, how do I come in and make sure that what I have said has had a huge impression? So I'm going to give you an added bonus. I, I, okay, this is something I'm just going to give it to you because I have to, because it's so important. It's in the book, and it's just one of those nuggets. Every time I, every time I wrote one of the laws, because all my life I've communicated, and it's a gifted area of my life, when I would write the law, I would spend time going inside and ask myself, "Why do I do this? And how does this work?" Because I wanted to make it clear to you, the reader, each law, how, how to, to do this. And, and one of, when I was writing, I was thinking about the fact that I always deliver two messages. Now, this is huge, okay? You've never read this anywhere. I promise you. In every law, I put stuff that I've never spoken about, and I don't think that I've ever been spoken about in how to connect with people and communicate with them. And here's what I discovered: that when I give a message, when I'm teaching like this, I give two messages at the same time. I give my best message, and I give what I call the big message. The best message is what I'm teaching right now. I'm teaching four laws of communication. I, and I'm doing my best. I call it my best message because I've given it to you now, and that changes from time to time. Today, I'm doing the four laws. Today, I'll do another talk. Okay, you with me? The best message changes, but the big message never changes. The big message is always the same message, and it's who I am as a person and communicator. It's my DNA of communication. Do not miss this. I'm going to give it to you right now because we're landing the plane. I, I'm bringing it home for you right now.

So when I'm talking to any audience at any time, there are four questions I ask myself that determine my big message. And these are the four questions you need to ask yourself also. Question number one is, "What do I want them to, uh, what do I want them to see?" The second question is, "What do I want them to know?" The third question is, "What do I want them to feel?" And the fourth question is, "What do I want them to do?" Now, I'm going to give you the answers for me, but these answers I give you are my DNA as a communicator. They won't have to be the same for you at all. You with me? But you have to ask yourself the question.

So, what do I, what do I want you to see? I want you to see your possibilities. I am a possibility communicator. Whenever you hear Maxwell talk, he's going to help you reach high. Sky's the limit. Possibilities are all over my talk. Every talk has possibilities in it.

So, what do I want you to know? I want you to know that I value you. You'll always feel valued when I talk. You'll always feel, "Man, he cares for me. He believes in me. He unconditionally loves me. He values me." I, I want you, I want you to know that.

I want you to see your possibilities. I want you to know that I value you. What do I want you to feel? Empowered. I want you to feel when I teach that what I'm teaching you, you can go do. I, I want you to walk out of the room and not say, "John's amazing." I want you to walk out of the room and say, "I'm amazing." I, I want you to walk out of the room and say, "John can do this." I want you to walk out of the room and say, "I can do this." I want you to feel empowered.

And what do I want you to do? I want you to apply, apply, and multiply. I want you to apply what I taught you, and then I want you to multiply it by giving it to others. That's who I am. That's what I do. And that's how I began to land the plane. So, so when you leave, you've heard the best message, but you feel the big message.

Well, today's topic, as I mentioned, we're going to build off of what we did last week. This is the 16 Undeniable Laws of Communication, Part Two. And we started this conversation last week. Remember, the subtitle of John's book here is, "How do I apply them and make the most of your message?" So, how do I apply these laws? And then that will make the most of the message that you're communicating. Uh, last week we talked about Law Number One, the Law of Credibility. Your most effective message is the one that you live. Perry, what are we going to expose them to today? That you kind of dove into this book and we're able to read the manuscript before it got released and, uh, and talk about some of the details behind the content.

Yes, I, I love this. And the, we, as we mentioned last week, everyone could grow as a communicator. It's just something that you need to constantly be working, uh, on yourself and improving your message. We want to reduce any in intention, interpet ation gap. Intention, perception gap. About you intended it one way, somebody else perceived it another. How? And you made a great point that that's the leader's job. Yeah, that's my job is to shrink that gap so that we are, uh, understanding each other.

Um, I will place the table of contents in the learner guide, and so you can see all the chapters. But, uh, just a reminder that, uh, it's broken into five sections around, uh, who said it, what was said, how it was said, when it was said, why it was said. And there are a number of laws under each one of those. And today, I, I wanted to specifically drill down on what would be Law Number Seven, uh, of the, um, 16, um, undeniable laws. And that was from the section on how it's said. And the Law Seven is the Law of Connecting. And the Law of Connecting reads that, "Communicators know that it's all about others." And I'll just, uh, give a spoiler alert. John says, "These are all the laws. They are independent. They stand alone. But this is the, the law that would be the most important of the 16. You better get this one right." Uh, last week we were talking about, you know, uh, about your credibility. Uh, this week is really about connecting. And if you're not connecting with others, so, um, this has been one of my, I think, one of my personally biggest areas of growth over the last 10 plus years as I've gone into professional communications, from in front of audiences, in front of small groups, one-on-ones with coaching, is that, uh, at home, really figuring out that, uh, putting, now, another spoiler alert, is that this is all about putting connection over content. I think that's the big learning for me in this. Is that can you make the connection with the person, uh, superior to the, whatever content you have to communicate? Can you communicate in such a way that you protect the connection? And so many communicators want to put the emphasis on the content. Yeah, "Wait till I tell you what I have to tell you," right? Like that's where they want to go. And they put the emphasis on that, and they believe that that content has more value to those that are receiving the communication than actually the connection. And that's not true. And I've seen this for so many years with John, just being able to kind of sit right there on the front row with him in so many different events. And the first thing that he does is, "How can I connect to this audience?" Or if we're in meetings, "How can I connect to our guests that are in the meeting?" And, and he lives us out. And that's why I could see him saying in the book, like, "This is it. Like, this is the most pivotal part in all of that." And good communicators know that connection is more important than the content. When you listen to somebody who's talking to others, you know immediately, you can feel it, and you can sense it, what they value. And it's either they value themselves and the story about themselves, "Let me tell you how good I am," the content, or the audience. And it reminds me of a, of a story that John talks about, where he had this young speaker communicator come up to him and say, right before John was getting ready to go on stage, like, "What are you thinking about right now? Like, what, what are you going to tell him?" And John just kind of, you know, has been doing this for a long time, sits back and goes, "You know, I, I have an idea, but I'm not sure yet what they want to hear from me. And I, I'll, I'll kind of go where they need me to go because I'm here to serve them." Good. And I know that that young communicator was probably freaking out because he's, it would be completely opposite of what his outline was. So until you connect with the people, there's a barrier right between you and them, and they're not going to be able to to gain as much knowledge or wisdom or just the content. They're not going to be able to hear it unless you be able to connect with them. And so you need to make sure that you're, you are focused on that, and that the perception of the people is that you want to connect with them.

I've also heard John talk about how, and you do this a lot when you're in front of thousands of people, he's communicating to the one individual at the table to the right, and then he moves over here, and he's connecting and communicating to the one individual over here. And, and it's just amazing to watch, and how the, he just draws the entire audience in through that connection. Well, he says that without, in the book, I was interested, said, "Without connection, others may be interested, but they'll never be inspired." And you've heard John say many, many times that, "People do not care how much you know until they know how much you care." So again, going back to that, uh, individual connection with people, let them know that, that you care, and I'm doing this for you, and making that connection.

Welcome to Minute with Maxwell. We're still talking about the 16 Laws of Communication. And Law Number Two is the Law of Observation. And the Law of Observation just simply says, "Good communicators learn from great communicators." When I wrote this chapter, I was so excited because this is how I really learned to communicate. When I was young and realized that speaking would be a way of life for me, I very quickly said, "I need to watch other great leaders and great communicators communicate." And every time I watch them, I'm going to ask one question: "How are they connecting with the audience?" I can tell you, over a span of maybe 20 years, I sat and I listened to hundreds of people that would speak, and I would evaluate how they were connecting with people. And as I look back now, it was truly life-changing. I learned passion from Winston Churchill. I learned connection and closeness from Walter Cronkite. I began to watch all of these leaders and observe them and began to ask myself, "Can I do what they can do?" Sometimes I couldn't. Sometimes their speaking was so unique to their personality that I couldn't really adopt it to my way of of communicating. But more often than not, there was something that they did that allowed them to connect with the audience that I would come away with and say, "That I can do." I'm probably known in communication for the power of the pause. I can still remember watching E.V. Hill, one of the great black communicators, as he would pause during a sermon, take a few steps, look into the eyes of the congregation, and deliver the essence of what they were hanging on, leaning in, waiting for. Yes, I learned a lot from people by observing them. And I want you to do the same thing. Start watching speakers, not only listening to what they say, but watch how they connect. When you do that, the Law of Observation will begin to change your communication life. Trust me, it'll make you better.

I'm working through again the 16 Laws of Communication. Law Number Three is the Law of Conviction. What a great law this is. The stronger you believe it, the more people feel it. This is a chapter and a teaching about passion. There's something incredible and something very contagious about being in the, um, environment or being in the auditorium and listening to a man or woman not only teach with clarity, but be filled with incredible conviction that you can just tell that this is more than a lesson that they're passing on to you or me. This is a conviction. This is a life that they live. And the Law of Conviction basically says that our greatest communication is in areas where our life has been changed, where our life has been touched, where we look back and say, "I became a different person at that time." Here's what I know about the Law of Conviction: When you hear what someone speaks with with passion, conviction, heart, it draws you to them emotionally. You come close. You admire them. If you get real close, it'll be contagious. And when it's contagious, it will become powerful. That's why I often teach, "Who mentors you is as important as what they say." The person, the man or the woman that lives the life becomes contagious to the people that they mentor. And you walk away not only knowing something, you walk away feeling something and becoming that person. That's the Law of Conviction.

My name's John. Thanks for coming with me today on Minute with Maxwell. We are each day looking at a different law in the 16 Laws of Communication. And today's law is the Law of Preparation. This is a great law. It basically says, "You cannot deliver what you have not developed." When I was a young pastor and a young communicator, I realized that I was gifted in communication and I began to be tempted to do what I call "wing it." Wing it means that I didn't prepare very much. I just put together something quickly and then let my "woo" kind of carry the day for me. And I was at that time pastoring in a very rural country area where there were a lot of beautiful people, wonderful salt of the earth, far farmers, and they just loved my preaching. And the problem was, if I would wing it and only prepare for an hour or two, they seemed to be very happy. And I became very tempted to to wing it instead of work for it. Now, I'm glad that I resisted that temptation and continued to prepare, prepare, and develop and work for it, because that allowed me not only to be a much better communicator, it allowed me to be a much greater writer, because I wrote everything out word for word. Now, the Law of Preparation basically says this: "How you prepare shows how much you care." If you prepare a lot, it's because you care for your audience and care for people and want to make a difference. If you prepare very little, perhaps you've got a, a values problem with the people. So next time you're getting ready to deliver a lesson or a teaching, give it a little extra, extra preparation. And here's why: If you wing it, you can perhaps be successful. But if you work for it, instead of landing in that top 20%, you can land in that top 2% and set yourself apart as a communicator. That's what the preparation's all about. Thanks for being with us today on Minute with Maxwell.

We're looking every day now on Minute with Maxwell at the 16 Laws of Communication. This is Law Number 10, the Law of Simplicity. Which basically says, "Communicators take something complicated and make it simple." I often tell people, although I have an education, I'm a communicator, not an educator. What do I mean by that? Educators take something simple, make it complicated. They just do. If you can understand it, they're not too happy about it. And communicators take something complicated and make it simple. And when I teach, I try to do what I say. When I use the phrase, I try to put the cookies on the lower shelf so that everybody can reach them, everybody can touch them, and everybody can obviously eat them. So, in the Law of Simplicity, I basically talk about keeping your lesson, keeping your message simple. I say things like, "Get to the point before people start asking, 'What's the point?'" Wow. I talk about repetition. Say it again and again and again and again. I talk about the fact that if you can't explain it simply, you probably don't understand it. I was being interviewed, and, um, the person that was interviewing me, I, he was talking about one of my new books that had been released. And I kind of had the feeling that that he really didn't care for me too much. But one of the things he said in the interview was, he said, "John, he said, 'I've read your books, and they're very simple.'" And I said, "Well, yeah, they are." And he said, "Why are your books so simple?" I said, "Well, I, I just want people to understand them and apply them to their life." And as he kept pressing me on simplicity, I finally said, "Well, you know, my books are simple as far as to understand, but it takes effort and energy and action to apply those laws." And that's exactly what happens when I get up to speak. I ask myself two questions: "What do I want the people to know? What do I want the people to do?" Those two questions, "What I want them to know" is all about simplicity and explaining and teaching things. "What do I want them to do?" I want them to know and understand the content in such a way that they can go out and they can apply it to their life. Less is more. That's the Law of Simplicity.

Thanks for joining me today on Minute with Maxwell. We're looking at the 16 Laws of Communication. Law Number 13 is the Law of the Thermostat. Basically, that law says, "Communicators read the room and then they change the temperature." Once in a while, I'll hear somebody that is a communicator and they'll say, "Wow, that was a tough audience." I want to say to them, "The audience shouldn't control the communicator. The communicator should control the audience." We have the ability to look around the room and, if needed, turn the temperature up. However, let me just tell you a personal story quickly where I wasn't able to turn the thermostat up at all. I was in Nairobi, Kenya, and I was getting ready to do a large leadership conference. And it was to be held at a hotel. And all of a sudden, they realized that the registrations exceeded the, uh, maximum people that they could put in the room. And so, at the literally last minute, they decided to have me teach in the massive lobby of the hotel. Oh, my. One look at the lobby, and I knew I was in trouble. There were six big pillars in the lobby. There were four elevators going up and down. People were coming in, people were going out, baggage was being transferred continually, announcements were being made over the system, people were mingling, some of them were sitting reading, some of them were watching television. And I have to communicate to about 2,500 people in this room. I knew I was in trouble. In fact, I couldn't even see all the people. The pillars were in the way. They couldn't see me. I'll have to say that it was kind of a low time in my communication life. But let me tell you about one person who read the room and turned up the thermostat. He's my good friend, Tom Mullins. He was with me on this trip. And he immediately saw I was in trouble. The lobby was not at all conducive for any type of good communication. It's my turn to speak. I'm not wanting to speak. I'm not in the mood. But I get up to speak, and Tom picks up his chair and moves it to about six feet right in front of me. Sits the chair down, gets out his pen, gets out his paper, looks up at me, and says, "John, just teach me tonight. I can hardly wait to learn. I can hardly wait to hear. Give it to me, John. Give it to me. I'm ready. Come on, John. Give it to me." I smiled at Tom. Oh, my gosh. That's what a good friend is, right there. He read the room. He knew that we were in trouble. And he turned the heat up on the thermostat by becoming a person that would say, "I'm going to get in front of John. And if he can only see one person, that person's going to nod, that person's going to encourage, and that person's going to take notes." That night, Tom Mullins read the room and turned the thermostat up. All great communicators do that. But sometimes it's also helpful to have someone in the audience help you out, just a little bit.

The 16 Laws of Communication, my book, which each day we're looking at a different law. Law Number 15 is the Law of Adding Value. The Law of Adding Value says, "People may forget what you say, but they will never forget how you made them feel." When people add value to you or they add value to me, we feel it. There's something special about being special. There's something special about somebody thinking that we're valuable enough that they would take a little extra time to do a little extra through extra effort to do something that adds value to us. I love this chapter. And great communicators always are adding value. In the chapter, I say one thing I want to give to you in our Minute with Maxwell today: I teach, "Focus on sewing, not on reaping." If you're going to add value to people, you cannot be a person every day that gets up in the morning and says, "What am I going to receive today?" 95% of the people who live every day look for something to receive for themselves. They're in the reaping season of their life. But there's a problem. They've never sown. We all know this. If you don't sow seeds, you don't reap a harvest. So the first thing you do is not wait for something good to happen to you. The first thing you do is you sow seeds. You add value. You take the effort to put something in the ground that you know won't give you a return for maybe many months, but it's okay because you know that if you sow continually, it's only a matter of time till the harvest is automatic. Now, here's what I want you to know: If you don't sow, you don't reap.

So let's, let's finish our time with the Law of Results. It's Law Number 16, sure. And that says, "The greatest success in communication is action. Getting something done." As a next step, you, you make a statement here on page 285. You said, "If your motive for speaking is anything other than adding value to people and moving them to take positive action that will help them, you're missing the boat totally." Why do you say that? Why are you putting so much, uh, emphasis on that? Because it's true. Yeah, because if your, if, if your motive is not to add value to people and have them take action, you are missing the boat. Because think about it, why are you spending all your time and where all the people coming and spending all their time to hear you? If it's not to improve their life? You know, Mark, there just is no success without action. I mean, there just isn't. So, you know, as a communicator, what am I asking myself? "What do I want them to know? What do I want them to do?" And if I just ask, "What do I want them to know?" there's no success perhaps in just knowledge alone. It's always in the action. Action takes knowledge and makes it worthwhile and meaningful. And so, as a communicator, yes, I, I, I think the test, if somebody's saying, "What, how do you, what's your final exam as a communicator?" I think it's very simple. What I taught, I connected with the people, and they applied it to their life. And when that happens, I think I, hey, success. Just as if they didn't apply it to their life, I think we all wasted our time. Because we don't need another message in life. We need to have positive change in life. And, you know, action, it's, it's a word that we know and hear so much. But you, you have to act to succeed. There, there's no person that ever thought their way to success. Nobody ever hoped their way to success. They had to act. They had to move. So yes, I, I want them, when I'm done, I want them to do something. I think great communicators lay it out on, "Here's what you do." I mean, I, I, I think they even make that action part, you know, like step one, step two. Well, and you, you said this, "What do you want them to know? What do you want them to do?" You ask these three questions. You talk about another part of the book on your question that you ask before you talk, during the talk, "Am I impacting them? And did I create an impact for them?" You're constantly assessing. Yes. And you're not using enthusiasm. So many of us, we use, you said this, you said, "Your enthusiasm and excitement may cause people to think about their dreams, but it won't be sufficient to move people into action." So, just to cause them to think. How do we as communicators, whether it's in a small group or in a big, big auditorium, how do we ensure that we move people to action? It's certainly not the emotional. It's a great, great question. And I think the mistake we've made for so long is that we equate an emotional response to the fact that they're going to do it. And yet, how many times do we know people who in the moment are emotional and they feel it and they say, "Yes," but it cools off by by the time they're the car and the park a lot and they're pulling out, it's a "maybe." And by the time they're home, it's a "sometime." And, and I, I think that people don't take action based on emotion. They base, take action based on conviction. I take action when I am convinced that this action is going to help me. It's going to make me a better person. And that's not emotional at all. That, that's somebody who has connected with me in such a way that I related to them and they said they did, and how I can do it seems to be palatable and compatible. And so, therefore, I, I, I, I really do it. Um, I would rather have, uh, um, my pauses and my silence and let people absorb and think. I think a thinking person, when they take action, that action is much more solid than an emotional person, even if they take action. Because if you're emotional, you take action. The moment the emotion wears off, you're back out of the game. Yeah. And I, I, I, I just want to, I just want to help people. I want to help people come to the conclusion in their life that this is best for them. It's not even come to the conclusion that this is what I want for them, but this is best for them. And any way I can communicate that, Mark, to them, that's going to have the return that we're looking for, buddy. Yeah.

You know, there's so much more. I have so many more questions. We're going to, we're going to wrap. But I do want to say, I'm going to give you a chance to just kind of wrap the impact and what you hope from this book. I do want to ask you just one quick follow-up. When you are assessing how well you did at connecting with the audience, and you're, you're one of the most intuitive communicators I've ever seen. You, you're sitting up there, and you notice when somebody wipes their nose. You will notice when somebody checks a text message. You notice. So you're intuitive at reading the crowd. How do you know at the end that you've really added value?

Well, I think that because I can't go home with them, I don't think I could ever know for sure that I added value until I got to see if they took action on it. But I think the answer that I can give you, because we don't get that privilege, I don't get the privilege of getting the car and going home with them. So when you ask, "How do I know?" Here's what I do. I know when I communicate something to people when they buy into it. Yeah. And they buy into it not just by a scent. There's a, there's a sense that what I'm saying is true and real and right. And, and I can tell when, when, when they have bought into it, which tells me that the odds have increased that they're going to do something about it. I'm responsible to people. I'm not responsible for people. So as a communicator, I'm responsible to give them the way to succeed. That's my responsibility. If I, if I fail to deliver that, I've come short. And I want to do it in such a way that although I'm not responsible for them, I have nudged them in that direction. But they're responsible for themselves. And I, I'm sure there have been times when I thought people bought into a lesson I gave them, and they didn't go out and, and, and finish off. And I'm probably sure that there's been sometimes I thought, "Boy, I don't think it did very well there," and they did. So it's, it's hard to, it's hard. The communication has to live in the moment. What I see and what I experience right now. You know, three weeks later, the communicator could have a readout on whether that the people really bought into it or not. Because, because if you don't take action, you didn't buy into it. Yeah. Yeah. That's why I say, "Ask for commitment." The only time you know when a person's the real deal is if you ask them for commitment. And, and that separates the players from the pretenders at all time. So I'm doing everything I can to get them to that point of commitment. But I'm responsible to make it as good as I can. But then they're responsible to make the commitment.

How much do you care about the environment and what are you thinking about in order to make a connection with the person sitting on the other side?

Was a great question. Well, I, there's a law in the book called the Law of the Thermostat. And the Law of Thermostat just says, "Communicators read the room and change the temperature." And, um, it begins with going, when I can, I don't get to do this all the time, but when I can, if I'm ahead of where the crowd is, if I'm, you know, I do go out of the audience and I sit in the seat. Um, I, I, I, I started that as a pastor. Every Sunday, I would go and sit in the auditorium for a little bit and think about the needs of the people and why they would be coming today. And could I, uh, connect with them where they are? And, and so it's been a practice for a very, very long time. It's, it's physical for me because if I sit in the, if I sit in the seat, it really forces me to think about the other person. But if I'm in a car and I'm getting ready to go do a speech, I, I've got to ask myself one simple question: "What am I doing the speech for?" I mean, am I, am I doing the speech because I need to do a speech? Am I doing a speech because it's Sunday morning? Or I mean, you, why am I in this game? And I'm in the game for one reason: that is to add value to people, to help them. And so, therefore, that's the reason I'm in the game. I better make sure that's where I am, that I am, that I am where they are. And I think one, how many times have I heard speakers say, "That was a bad crowd. That's a tough crowd." Wow. And I want to, I want to say to them, "I don't know if there is a tough crowd." I, I, I, I, I think there are only crowds with great potential. I think that, when I think it was a, now, there are crowds that are more responsive than others, of course. But, but it's not, when it's not, not about me, then it's not about me. In fact, this is kind of fun. In Nashville, there's a, a huge writing company there. The guy that did the writing company, uh, got a hold of me and said, "I, I built my company off of you, 20 years ago, and now it's, I think it's the largest writing company in Nashville." Anyway, he gave me an idea. He said, "John, why don't you put, write songs to the that are about your books?" And of course, I, I'm a songwriter. And although I write poetry, because to all of my children and grandchildren on their birthday, I always send them a birthday poem that's about them. And so, so I do kind of like poetry. So long story short, I went to Nashville, got in the studio, and with, with real, real, real songwriters. I have a statement that says, "When you're at the head of the class, you're in the wrong class." Well, I wasn't at the head of the class in that room. I, hey, I want to just say this, sometimes when you're at the bottom of the class, you're in the wrong class too. It's kind of, "What the heck am I doing here?" But they were so good to me, and we, we were in there for seven hours, and we wrote a, a song. It was so much fun. It was so much fun. And, uh, it just came out on Spotify or wherever you get your music. It's called, and, but the title of it is, uh, "I Have Get Over Myself." "I Got to Get Over Myself." "Got to Get Over Myself." And, and the whole thing. And I did it out of this book, out of this book. And basically, I said, I gave them what I call my credibility journey. How, how did I get to get over myself? Well, you got to find yourself to know yourself. Got to know yourself to be yourself. Once you can be yourself, then you won't have to improve yourself. And then once you start improving yourself, hopefully you'll get to a mature stage where you can get over yourself. But why do I get over myself? So I can give myself away. It's good. And in fact, that's the course on this on this song. And I don't know much. It's been out for 10 days, but they've said they've got 30,000 hits on it already. So I think it's doing okay. I don't know. I, I don't even know what that means. I don't even have Spotify. Shows you what I know. But, but the point, but the point, be, um, you really can't give yourself to others until it's really no longer about myself. And I think that I think that focus needs to constantly be before you. And I think it takes time to do that. But I think the moment that you can, can cross that line, everybody in the audience really begins to know now that they truly care, that you truly care for them. And, uh, and I just think, I just think that's absolutely essential. You know, "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." You know, you know, we're, we're, we're leaders of value who value people and add value to them. And, and that, that's the great communication message. Once you know I care for you, Craig, honestly, you're really ready to listen. And, and the subject can be varied. It doesn't really matter. Once the, once the communicator is the connector, then all things begin to, all things begin to go well.

Well, I agree 100%. If, if a communicator, they don't have to be polished, they don't have to be powerful. If I, if I know they're here to try to add value to me, that's going to, that's going to win me every single time. And, uh, I think that's, that's so important. And I want to ask one more question about that. And I'll kind of trail what you said because I want to try to keep it really practical, as your book is incredibly practical. And for our listening audience, uh, when I go to a place, I want to, I call it "feel the room." Meaning like, I want to walk, I want to know, I want to know how the sound carries. And so I'll choose a different microphone if one is stronger. I want to know where I'm going to stand on the stage. I want to sit out, if I can, like you. I want to be in the seat and try to feel what it's like to be sitting where they are and really put a lot of time into that. And then I, I want to talk and ask you about one more practical point before we get into some of the technique behind the communication. But let's say someone's about to walk up and they have that panic moment where your heart rate beats so loud that you almost feel like they can hear it or see it. Your hands feel weird. You're having a hard time getting your breath. At that moment, you're probably thinking more about you than them, I'm guessing. How do you talk yourself through that? And what do you do to shake that off so you can get into the talk and be you-focused?

Well, I think we all have those moments. I mean, even as a veteran communicator, there are times when, uh, maybe a lot's on the line, or, uh, I, I remember I was in a, a wonderful church in Atlanta, and I was, I was preaching three times. And I walked out, just getting ready to speak on the second service, Greg. And I looked out, and it seemed to me like a lot of the audience was familiar, like they were in their first service. So I leaned over to the pastor and I asked him, I said, "Would some of these people, you know, would they have been in the first service too?" And, oh, he said, "Yeah, he said, a whole bunch of them like you, so they want to come for the second service." And I'm, I'm one minute away. And I said, "Well, then, do, do I need to preach a different message?" And he said, "That, he said, that probably be, that would be good." I, I literally was walking, walking up in my mind, figuring out what I was going to speak on. I mean, I was, I was three seconds, four seconds, completely what? And I can remember the, the panic and the thrill. I, I, I just thought, "I'm not even sure I can pull this off." But if I do pull this off, it's going to be an incredible story to tell. But I think that, that, that I think we need to see humor in our situation. The way I do it more than the other way is to just kind of look at myself and say, "You know what? What you may feel a little bit panicked right now, but there are very few people in the world that really care. And that there are very few people in the world that really, really know. And there are very, very few people in the world that are ever going to hear about it." So it's just, you, you, you have, you're, you're living in a very, very, very small world. So John, just smile and, and, and, and get over it. I think I think we have a tendency to take what we do too seriously. I think we have a tendency to, even worse than what we do, is who we are, take it a little bit serious. So, so I kind of, I, because humor is kind of where I am a lot of things anyway, I, I just kind of look at this, the, kind of the humorous side, say, "Well, this will be interesting. You know, this, this could be my last talk. You know, maybe, maybe this is the day they stone me. I don't know." Or throw tomatoes at me. Once you begin to make comments like that to yourself, which they're not going to do any of those things, it begins to reduce the situation down to a place where I think it causes a lot less, what, panic or nervousness. Just, just because if you can make fun of the situation, you almost always do two things: you reduce it, and you bring it to its proper sense of light. And, uh, being serious about things does exactly the opposite. It makes it way too big, way too important. And, and all of a sudden, you just think it's bigger than life. And really, it's not. It's really not.

I agree. And if you can talk yourself to that, it helps a lot. And then if you do, even what I found is, if you say something dumb or make a mistake, if you laugh about it, it doesn't cause them to like you less. They love you more. They love you even more. So it's not, we're not shooting for perfection. We're shooting for connection. And people tend to connect with real people, not perfect people. And so I appreciate what you're saying. I, I've jumped in on that. Just like, if I could just jump on, just, I've told people before, I said, "You know what? I'm a little bit nervous about this. I, and, and just, you know, I shouldn't be, but I am. But I'm glad to see you, and you're helping me already." And man, I'm telling you, they just lean in. They just lean in. They're pulling for you. And wanting. I think it's very wise a lot of times to let the people know exactly how you feel or where you are. I, I think that's how they identify with you. You know, success is a terrible separator and keeps us from the people. But the moment we become honest and authentic, I think it, it narrows that gap real, very, very quick. It's a bridge, for sure. It does. Yeah.

One of the quotes we say a lot on the podcast is, "People may be impressed with your strengths, but they connect with you through your weaknesses." I love that. So being, being yourself matters.

In my book, The 16 Laws of Communication, I talk about Law Number 16, the Law of Results. Welcome to Minute with Maxwell. Today, my name is John. And the Law of Results simply says, "The greatest success in communication is action." That's why when I teach about the big message in this book on the Laws of Communication, I say to myself, when I ask myself, "What do I want the audience to do?" I want them to apply and multiply. I want them to apply what the message says for them. And then, because I love leadership, I want them to multiply it through others, because that's what leaders do. That's why I add value, which is one of the laws of communication. I add value to leaders who multiply value to others. So let me just give you a quick story. I was teaching one day on the value of personal growth and having a plan for personal growth. Growth is not automatic. Getting older is automatic. Getting better, that's not automatic at all. At the end of my speech, my talk, my communication, a gentleman came up to me. And, and I had a couple minutes. And he said, "Would you mind explaining to me what your plan for growth is?" And because I had just a little time, I explained to him how I intentionally personally grow every day. I gave him my personal growth plan. I'll never forget, he looked at me, much to my surprise, he just said, "Well, I, I don't like your plan." Okay. I said, "That's all right. You don't have to like my plan. I said, "Tell me, what's yours?" He said, "What? I don't have a plan." Oh, my gosh. I looked at him and said, "Well, okay. I like my plan better." Let me tell you something. I like anybody's plan better if they take action than anybody else's plan that has just intentions without action in it. So remember the guy, the next time you're kind of wanting to sit and think and reflect on what you've learned, but you're hesitant to apply it and take action. Just remember, in the word "traction" is the word "action." To get traction, to move forward, you have to take action. There is no success without it. And that's what the Law of Results is all about.

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