PNTV: The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John C. Maxwell

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to Philosopher's Notes TV. Today, another great book. The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John C. Maxwell. The 21 irrefutable laws of Leadership Subtitle Follow them and people will follow you. This is the 10th anniversary edition of one of his best selling books. It sold over 3 million copies at the time of this re edition republication rather of the 10th edition. John Maxwell. I'm a big fan of him and his work. We covered the 15 laws of growth which are fantastic. And I think he's written over 50 books which have sold at the time of this book over 13 million copies or something like that. One of the world's leading authorities on leadership. This book is awesome. Read it in preparation for my class I'll be teaching soon on Leadership. 101 Philosopher's Note. Bunch of big ideas. I do a really quick overview of each of the 21 laws and then focus on a few of my favorites. Let's take a look now. So law number one is the law of the lid. The law of the lid. The basic idea with this is if you want to reach your highest potential, be able to impact the world in the most powerful way, you. You need to realize that your lid on that potential is your leadership capacity. If you cannot influence others and inspire them to take action in the direction that you believe to be noble and wise and impactful, you're not going to have a large impact. So that lid exists to the extent you have not optimized your leadership ability. So the book is all about, well look, this is how you go about doing it. No one's going to do all 21 laws perfectly. No one needs to. But we can get better at each of them and as a result lift that lid. Which is related to the fact that leaders are learners. I think this was the third law. He calls it the law of process. The law of process says that leadership and leaders are not created in a day, they're created daily. Right? This is our whole idea of plus 1%. Just get a little bit better today. That's what leaders are all about. Leaders are learners. They're not thinking they're going to get to a place where they're exonerated from all future work. They lean in and they celebrate and they try to get a little bit better today. They lock in the progress they made before. Very important point. They don't let themselves slip back and lose the gains they earned. Right. And they strive to get a little bit better. Plus 1% plus 1% leaders do that, whereas followers are kind of like, oh, whatever, I'm good enough. And that's a pain. I got to keep on growing. No, that's exciting. That's the opportunity to grow, to become more impactful. Leaders are learners. Embrace the law of process. Leaders are not created in a day, they're created daily. So what can you do on a daily basis? What thing do you know you could be doing? I ask this question all the time, and I ask myself the question all the time because this is the essence of the law of process. What thing do you know that you could be doing more consistently? That if you did, it would have the most positive impact in your life? What is it doesn't need to be huge. What little thing could you do that would give you a little plus 1% gain? Think about that and do it. Then the opposite is always, what's the thing you need to stop doing? Well, stop doing that and get that positive gain. Leaders are learners. They're learning about themselves and optimizing consistently and incrementally. Second idea here is the foundation of leadership is trust. So if you want to create a strong, ultimate sense of potential via your leadership, it all starts with the base. He says, the law of solid ground, the ground of leadership, the foundation of leadership is trust. People will not follow you, you will not influence them if they don't trust you, period. It's just a reality and a fact of leadership. He says, well, why do people trust you or anyone else? He says, character. They trust people who have character. And he highlights three ways we can build our character. We'll find some room and put them up. The first thing is integrity. And again, remember, the word character comes from the Greek word chisel. To create your character, you're literally chiseling away, creating the statue that is you, chiseling away at things that are in the way of you expressing your highest self. Integrity. And then we have authenticity, and then we have discipline. So integrity in this, the way he describes it in this situation is be honest. Be scrupulously honest. Never tell a white lie. Don't fib, don't exaggerate. Be. Be honest, period. Be in integrity such that what you say is truth as you see it, period. Authenticity is the second aspect we want to cultivate as we cultivate our character. That's basically don't pretend to be anything other than who you are. No politicking, no playing games, just be who you are. One of the first quotes, actually the first quote I ever memorized, which I've shared before Shakespeare says, to thine own self be true, and it must follow as the day the night. Thou canst not then be false to any man. For some reason at 16, precocious little me, I suppose, decided that was the first quote that I should memorize. I remember writing it on a little note card. To thine own self be true, and it must follow as the day, the night. You can't then be false to anyone if you're being true to yourself. But if you're not being true to yourself, then you are not true to anyone else. Right? That pretense we want to get rid of. Be authentic. The third aspect of cultivating our character discipline, basic idea here is do what you say you're going to do, period. Whether you feel like it or not. We talk about this all the time. It needs to go identity. This is who you aspire to be a great leader. Then you take actions in line with that identity. The feelings follow. Most people go the other way. Oh, I don't feel like it, so I'm not going to do it. And oh, I don't feel good about myself. Start with a strong identity. Do what needs to get done whether you feel like it or not. And paradoxically, you'll feel great. The foundation is trust that's built by character. Third Big idea is a really good one. He says that leaders are both visionary. We know that, right? Leaders see a vision and they're able to get people excited about it. And they're practical. They're visionary and they're practical. They're able to connect. This here's my big vision of what I want to do. It's awesome. And I can hold that dynamic tension between the vision and my current reality. I'm really practical as well. In the note, I share some stories of my own integration. I've been pretty good for a while at having a big inspiring vision. I've raised over $10 million to finance a few businesses to bring visions to life. And I've had modest success and returned value to our stakeholders. But I never reached our potential because I leaned a little bit too far into vision side of it. And these days I'm all about the practical showing up, turning pro, getting the business solid, profitable, such that we can build on our success and be in the game. So visionary and practical. Think about. And I talk about that more in the notes. So check that out for more. Check in on yourself. How do you show up? Do you tend to lean into the vision and forget the fact that you've got to actually execute the vision sustainably over the long run? Or are you just so practical that you're not inspiring yourself or anyone else with a vision of what you want to see in the world? Think about that and remember Nassim Taleb's barbell strategy. You want to be anti fragile by being both super aggressive and super conservative, super visionary and super practical. That is an important law. Fourth law, I think it was number 15. The law of victory. The law of victory. He says, why is it that some teams and some groups and some leaders win and others don't? He says, it's the law of victory. We need to look at the fact that how we arrive or how we show up in challenging times often determines our success or failure. And he says that leaders have a tenacious commitment to victory. He quotes Winston Churchill. As Churchill was rising and really demonstrating his leadership in the face of Hitler and his Nazi regime. Winston Churchill says, you ask what our policy is. Our policy, I can tell you in one word, it's victory. We will do whatever it takes for however long it takes to win. Period. Nothing short of that is going to work. The passage that he shares is just astounding. Victory. Great leaders absolutely hate failure. They hate losing. Now, of course, there are times where you need to pivot and you need to choose even to quit a particular path. But great leaders are really, really attuned to the fact that as Nike founder Phil Knight says to himself, don't stop. And remember, Nike is named after the Greek goddess for victory. In Greece, Nike meant victory. So Nike was the goddess who delivered victory. Awesome brand, awesome name, right? And Phil Knight shares his own story of he mentored himself when he was super young of don't stop. People will call you crazy, but don't stop, don't quit. Even if you don't know exactly where you want to be, don't quit. Just keep on going. Victory. Where we want to go. I share another story of my own entrepreneurial journey where a mentor of mine, former CEO of Adidas, after the market crashed, we had brought him on to replace me as the CEO. We planned to go out and raise 10 million, $20 million and do some really, really cool stuff right when the market crashed. And as you can imagine, that wasn't pleasant. We were spending a half a million dollars a month at a time when investors were no longer financing the kind of companies that, that we were all about. That was not a very fun time. And I vividly remember this is almost 20 years ago. I vividly remember him telling me, brian, it's not how you start something. Starting something is easy. It's how you finish it. It's how you finish it. It's not how you start something, it's how you finish it. He didn't use the word victory, but that was the basic idea of we're going to finish this strong. We wound up doing so, selling it to one of our two competitors. Our stakeholders got a great return. We achieved a lot of the goals we wanted to achieve in a different way. But victory is so important. So check in. Are you giving up too quickly again? There are times where it makes sense to shift and pivot and even quit on a particular venture. But we want to hold that tenacious commitment to victory in the big sense. The best leaders among us follow that law. Then the fifth big idea here we started with law number one, which is lid the 21st irrefutable law is legacy. Legacy. What legacy are you going to leave? And he says Maxwell does think about it in two different ways. One, when you contemplate your legacy, and he says great leaders do contemplate their legacy, think about what people are going to say about you when you're gone at your funeral. What will people say about you? He says, that may seem like a weird thing to ask, but it's a really important question. Most people never ask themselves that question, but great leaders do. What am I going to dedicate my life to? What pursuit is worthy of me? And what do I hope to be remembered for contributing to the world? What's your legacy? Another way to frame it that we talk about a little bit more in the note is you have the funeral exercise and then you have your one sentence. I forget the woman's name at the moment who shared this, but basically said that great leaders can be summarized in one sentence. Says every great leader has a life sentence. JFK had his. Roosevelt has his. What is yours? If you were going to summarize your life in one sentence, what would it be? John shares his and I share it in the note. My sentence is I want to help people optimize their lives so we can change the world together. That's my entire life. How do I help people do that? It's via this wisdom. There's some other stuff we're working on that we're very excited about. What's your sentence? What are people going to say about you when you are gone? What's Your legacy? The 21st and final law of leadership. Think victory. I love that. And be visionary and practical while you secure the foundation of your leadership via building trust. Be worthy of trust by having deep character. We're going to develop it 1% improvements in our integrity and our authenticity and in our discipline. We're going to blow the lid up and off as we embrace learning. Leaders are learners. We want to get 1% better, incrementally optimize, aggregate that and compound that over time to give our greatest gifts and greatest service to the world. That is a quick, passionate look at the 21 irrefutable laws of leadership. I loved it. If you enjoyed this, I think you'll enjoy the book. Thank you John for your wisdom and your efforts. And there you go. Think about the idea that most inspired you and how you can make it a more integrated, practical part of your life and have another awesome day. See you. Isn't it a bit odd that we went from math to science to history but somehow missed the class on how to live? For some wacky reason, optimal living 101 never made the schedule. Of course, it's too late to go back and change that and you're too busy to read full time to catch up. Yet. If you're like us, you're all about optimizing your life and actualizing your potential. So imagine this. Imagine having someone read the best books on optimal living and pulling out the big ideas that can truly change your life. You know those sections you asterisk and underline and mark all. Then imagine that guy me connecting those ideas to other great books and helping you apply them to your life today. Well, that's what I do with something we call Philosopher's Notes where I break down each great book into a simple 6 page PDF, 20 minute MP3 and 10 minute Philosopher's Notes TV episode. Then imagine me taking the absolute best big ideas from those great books and sharing them with you in fun, inspiring, super practical optimal living 101 classes on stuff like purpose 101, confidence 101, business 101, meditation 101, that sort of thing. You got a personal trainer? I'm kind of like your personal philosopher. Ancient wisdom plus Modern Science plus Common Sense plus Virtue plus Mastery plus Fun. That's what our Optimized membership program is all about. We'd love to have you join us. Check us out at BrianJohnson. Me join.