John Maxwell Notes from the 2013 Leadership Forum (Ohio Christian Unversity)

Recently, I was privileged to attend the Leadership Forum at Ohio Christian University.

Dr. Mark Smith has been someone who has spoken into my life in several ways in the area of leadership.  At his invitation, I attended the Forum and the Executive session with John Maxwell, Cal Thomas, Kevin Myers, & T. Mark Miller.

Let me take a chance to say "Thanks" to Dr. Smith for his investment in my life.  It has been an inspiration to me to invest in others, to pass on what I've been given.

The next few posts will be my notes from those sessions.  I was privileged to sit on the front row, right in the middle, so I was in the firing line and typed as fast as I could. :-)

So, you may find some unfinished sentences, hanging thoughts, dangling participles and other faults and foibles in my notes.  Think you'll find some good stuff, though.  Enjoy.  I'll post from each speaker in a different post.

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John Maxwell

Topic: “If I could spend a day with you…”

Questions he asks during a learning lunch:

1.     What is the greatest lesson you’ve ever learned?

·         From this question, you get wisdom.

2.     What are you learning right now?

·         From this question, you get passion.  That’s where the energy and joy comes from.

·         College is sometimes boring because profs teach from old notes.

·         When you learn something, teach it immediately.  The greatest teaching comes from something you’re learning now.

3.     How has failure shaped your life?

·         The great value of failure is that it teaches you things that success never will.

·         The only things that teach you are the things that touch you.

·         Some leaders leave the scene of the accident as quickly as they can. Don't. Stay and learn.

Experience is not the best teacher.  Evaluated experience is the best teacher.

·         The older I get, the more I like to talk about my failures.

·         One of the greatest contributions you can make to another person is to share openly about your failures.

·         If you’re highly successful, you create a gap (the success gap) between you and the younger people.  Financial gap, opportunity gap. 

·         Success separates from others.  You don’t intend to create that gap, but it happens any way. 

·         There are two responses to this:

o   There are some people who really like it, and use it to their advantage.  When you use the gap this in this way, you create FANS. 

o   There are some people who want to bridge the success gap.  You can’t CLOSE it, but you can BRIDGE it.  They work hard at being vulnerable, they share the bad side. 

o   When you do this, you create FRIENDS.  There’s a lot of difference between people that walk behind you and people who walk beside you. 

·         As I’ve grown older I’ve gotten very uncomfortable with success. Wish they could see me when I started.

·         The first time you do anything, you’re not any good.

·         If you want to build the bridge, you have to let them see you as you WERE, not as you ARE.  If you like the gap, you want them to only see you as you ARE, not as you WERE.

If you want to impress people, talk about your successes. If you want to impact people, talk about your failures.

If you only talk about successes, you slowly leave the people.  You can’t say goodbye and help people at the same time.

If you’re alone at the top, you’re not a leader, you’re a hiker.  You have no right to go to the top without people.

Walk slowly through the crowd.  Visually close the gap, so that by the time you’re speaking, there’s no gap. There’s just a guy, who is your friend and wants to help you.

4.     Who do you know that I should know?

This is a great networking question.

5.     What have you read that I should read?

98% of the books I read are recommended books from other people.

·         What’s the title?

·         Why should I read it?

6.     What have you done that I should do?

Life experiences

7.     How can I add value to you?

This is how I can express gratitude to them for helping me.  Always express gratitude to those who bless you.

The mentor never pays.

Some people, I owe them so much if I bought every meal for the rest of my life, they

Gratitude is the least expressed of all the virtues.

*At this point, the emcee flagged that he had only 5 minutes left.  John noted that he hadn't intended to spend so much time teaching on the questions that he asks in a learning lunch.  So he changed his topic to: 

What I would say if I could spend 5 minutes with you:  

1.      Get a personal definition of success.

Don’t accept the same definintion of success that other people do.  Define it as God would have you to define it. 

Knowing my purpose and doing it.

Growing to my maximum potential.

Sowing seeds that bring success to others.

God will only give to you what He knows will flow through you.

2.      Select your inner circle carefully.

These people will determine if you reach your potential.

You cannot reach your potential by yourself.  It’s impossible.

You can limit your potential by other people….

3.      In giftedness, work on your strengths.  In your choices, work on your weaknesses. 

Your strengths will give your greatest rewards.  

But in your choices, work on your weak areas. We all have weaknesses.

4.      Improve your thinking, and you’ll improve your life.

The greatest gap between successful people and unsuccessful people is their thinking.  Successful people think almost entirely differently than non-successful people. 

5.      Live your life by embracing the eternal. 

Never lose the focus that this life is brief compared to the next. 

Little sign in my parent’s home: “Only one life, ‘twill soon be past; Only what’s done for Christ will last.”