Defining Greatness (Part 2)

Today on the podcast, we are finishing our two-part series called Defining Greatness! Throughout this series, John’s been teaching the four areas in a leader’s life that determine their greatness. Last week he taught the first two qualities, and, in this episode, he’ll discuss the third and fourth qualities that determine a leader’s greatness.

Afterward, Traci Morrow will join Mark Cole for the application portion of the episode where they’ll dive deeper into John’s teaching and discuss how to apply it to our own lives and leadership!

Our BONUS resource for this series is the Defining Greatness Worksheet, which includes fill-in-the-blank notes from John’s teaching. You can download the worksheet by clicking “Download the Bonus Resource” below.

Also, please keep an ear out for Mark Cole at the beginning of the episode to learn how you can make an impact with John Maxwell and get a free Change Your World book by joining John Maxwell’s Transformathon! Learn more at join.changeyourworld.com.

READ THE TRANSCRIPT

Mark Cole:       Hello again, Mark Cole here, and welcome to the John Maxwell Leadership Podcast. This week, we're going to dig into part two of our series, Defining Greatness. And once again, I'm going to be joined by my wonderful co-host Traci Morrow. She and I will come back after John's teaching and we will unpack how we apply what John teaches today.

But before we get to John, and before we hear today's teaching on part two, let me just take a moment and share something with you that John, myself, and our entire team are extremely excited about. To celebrate the release of John's newest book, Change Your World, John has created a unique global event called The Transformathon. This is an event that ends with a massive 5k event on January the 23rd. People of all ages, nationalities and levels of fitness have already signed on and has joined John on their walk and will be a part of the January 23rd event.

I want to personally invite you to join John and myself that day as well. You can register for this 5k event, this Transformathon at join.changeyourworld.com. Again, join.changeyourworld.com. And the best part is we will give you when you register, your very own copy of Change Your World, the book that John is releasing. We believe the Transformathon is the launching point for a global transformation movement. This is something that John and our team have been working on for years. Now, we're standing on the edge of greatness and we want you to join us. We need you to lend your hands, your feet to an incredible movement of values that will literally change our world. So head over to join.changeyourworld.com and register today for your place in this Transformathon.

Now let's turn our attention back to this week's episode of Defining Greatness. Last week, John shared how great leaders think and prepare. This week, John will finish the lesson with some other qualities that make great leaders truly impacting. Now, Traci and I will then come back, discuss the lesson, give you some practical application and help you define greatness in your life. I believe going to get a lot out of this lesson, so just grab your pen, grab your paper, let's join John. Here is Dr. John C. Maxwell.

John Maxwell:  ... Number three, How they work. Let's look at how great people work. One, they work passionately. Great people agree with this statement, there is no fun like work. That's why I can't retire. There's no fun like work. Why should I retire and take play away from me? I want you to know that most people in their life, there's a big difference between their work and play. Their work is what they have to do and their play is what they want to do. But with great people, there's very little difference. There's a thin line. There's a line I suppose, but a very thin line between their work and their play.

Warren Buffett said, "I tap dance to work every day." I love it. Let me ask you a question. How many people do you know that became successful doing something they hate? I've never known anybody. I've never known a person when you interviewed him and said, "Could you talk to us about how you became so successful?" They said, "Well, truthfully, I've hated every day that I've worked. And that's what's made me a success." No.

In your notes, those with passion do and those without passion try. "I'll try it." "Okay. I'll try it." Can I tell you something? Long time ago, I quit getting people to try. Because people that try, quit, because they find that life's hard. It's uphill. It's a roller coaster. When I say I'll try, I build in an excuse. If I start but don't finish, I can always say, "Well, I tried." But if I say, "I'll do." I commit to finish no matter what. Does that make sense?

Oh yeah. Passion will make you stand out in a crowd every time, because most people don't have passion. And great people every day do what average people don't ever think is possible. Average people every day, eat the dust of great people who are spinning out, moving forward.

Great people work with Passion. Number two, they work smart. In the 21 irrefutable laws of leadership is the law of priorities, and the law of priorities is such a great law. I remember when I discovered it, when I was working on a business degree, law priorities just teach us that activity is not necessarily accomplishment. The three R's of working smart, what's required of me, what gives me the great return, and what gives me the great reward. You got to do what you got to do, but you want to do, what's going to give you a return. And if you don't love what you're doing, you won't keep doing it. The three R's, build everything you prioritize your life around the three R's.

Number three, greatness, great people, their work goes beyond expectations. It goes beyond what other people expect. Disappointment is the gap between expectation and reality and the greater the gap, the greater the disappointment. We all deal with the impact of expectations in three dimensions, three dimensions. Expectations that we have of ourselves, you have a set of expectations that you have for yourself. The expectations we have of others and for others. And expectations that others have of us. The expectations we have of ourselves will determine our greatness. The expectations number two that we have of ourselves and for ourselves should be higher than the expectations of others.

Great story about my dad, my dad, when he was young during the depression, "John, he said 80% of the men were out of work." And then he would tell me, I've this story a hundred times. He'd say, "But now, during the depression, I had three jobs." Now, how are 80% of the people out of work and you have three jobs? He said, "Here's what I would do. I'd go to a hardware store in town and I'd introduce myself. And I'd say, "I know, times are tough and you don't have the money to hire anybody, and I'm out at work. So I have the day free and I thought, if you didn't mind, I'd just come down here and I'd help you. You don't have to pay me at all. In fact, I don't want anything. What I'd like you to do is just tell me some things you'd like to see done around the store. If you want me to clean something, you want me to sort out things, just tell me some stuff maybe you want to have done. And I'll just work today free for you because I have the day that I'm not working anywhere, I'd just like to work for you today."

And dad said, "I'd worked the whole day for them, I'd do anything they'd want." He said, "And at the end of the day, sometimes they'd say, 'Young man, you did a good job. Let me give you a dollar." And he'd say, "No, no, no, you understand. No, our deal was that I didn't want you to pay me at all. I just wanted to help you. I had the day, I don't work, I don't have a job, so I just wanted to help you today." And then he'd look at them and say, "But if you like what I did today, if you ever get in the shape to have a little bit of money and you want to hire somebody, would you maybe think of hiring me?" He said, "I'd shake their hand and I'd leave. And the next day I go to another store." He said, "In three months, I had three jobs." He said, "One of the places, when I finished the end of the day, the guy said, "I can't let you go out the door. I got to have you."

Now, why would my dad have three jobs and 80% of the people have no jobs? You see, he understood something. He understood that in scarcity, you've got to exceed expectations. Now, anybody could have gone and worked for free for a day, but most people want to not work and get paid for it. My dad understood. My dad understood [inaudible 00:10:28]. Hey, there's all kinds of opportunity out there. Folks, we're not living in a land that's lacking opportunity. We're living in a land that has a bunch of people that aren't creative enough to see it and to seize it.

This is a very difficult time financially, you do understand there are people today making more money than they've ever made before. And I promise you when things are going bad, that's when successful people of greatness step in and say, "Oh man, this is the greatest time for ever, there's so much need around you."

So review, great people passionately, they work smart, they work beyond expectations. How do you do it from one to 10? Let me just give you one more thought on greatness, how they live. Great people live, number one, with humility. John Ruskin was right when he said, "I believe the first test of a truly great man is humility." Humility does not mean you think less of yourself, it means you think of yourself less.

Let me just say something to you, look at me. If you have a problem in this area, get over yourself. Okay, my name is John, I'm your friend, laugh at yourself. Get a great sense of humor about you because everyone else is laughing. Please understand you're not indispensable. Alan Ross says, "Humility means knowing and using your string for the benefit of others on behalf of a higher purpose. The humble leader is not weak but strong, he's not preoccupied with self, but with how best to use his or her strengths for the good of others. A humble leader does not think less of himself, but chooses to consider the needs of others in fulfilling a worthy cause. I love to be in the presence of a humble leader because they bring out the very best in me. Their focus is on my purpose, my contribution, and my ability to accomplish all that I have set out to accomplish." I love that.

Greatness, great people live with humility. Number two, they live with integrity. Tim Irwin in his book, Run With the Bulls. By the way, I've never written that book. I have no desire to run with the bulls, I would fall in front of the bulls. My book would be, The Bulls Ran Over Me. But here's what Tim Irwin said. He says that he looks at integrity as a trustworthiness account in which we make deposits and withdrawals during our interactions with others. He says that integrity can be looked at in two parts, honesty and reliability. Wow, good stuff.

Generosity. Greatness, number three, great people live generously. Einstein said, "A person first starts to live when he can live outside of himself." Let me give you... I'm wrapping it up, we're done, three generosity thoughts. Number one, be a river not a reservoir. Live to give, not live to get. Now let me, before you all get pure on me, you got to get too. You can't give what you don't have. So I love these purists who talk about the fact they have nothing, but if they had it, they'd give everything. I don't want to walk in their life and say, "Since you have nothing, you have nothing to give." Let's get real here. You got to have it before you can give it. So go make all the money you could make, for what you do with it is where the greatness comes in. I've made a lot of money and I've given a lot of money. Can I tell you, giving is 10 times more fun than making. But I'm not opposed to making, because if I don't make it, I can't give it.

Three generosity thoughts, be a river, not a reservoir. Number two, be generous now. Be generous now. Can I tell you something, if you're not generous now, you're not going to be generous when you have money. You understand, I love these people who say, "Well, if I ever had a million dollars, I'd give it all away." You're a fool. If you don't give away what you got now, you won't give away what you got then. You just ain't going to give it away. You see, selfishness isn't a matter of money, it's an attitude. I know selfish people that are rich. I know selfish people that are poor. Selfish is selfish, and you don't get unselfish when you get more money, you get more greedy when you get more money, all of a sudden you think of all the other things you want in life. So be generous now.

And number three, don't keep score. This is one of my favorite lessons to teach. I wish I had an hour, I don't. I got three minutes, I know. Don't keep score. I love what Ruth Smeltzer said. She said, "You have not lived a perfect day, even though you've earned your money, unless you've done something for someone who will never be able to repay you." Okay, don't keep score. Just love to give and love the people you give to and be generous.

Traci Morrow:  Well Mark, part two of Defining Greatness, John kicks it off in a way that is really exciting to me. And I think it is worth diving into, because I think when he talks about how people work and leads off with passionate people, I cannot imagine watching you work and do what you do, I don't even know if you can call it work. You wake up passionate every day. Talk a little bit about how that is because I know you would say, "Oh, I don't know that I would define myself as great." But there's a greatness in you that I see when you have so much passion for what you're doing when you're with your people and you're talking to them and you are casting vision and you are doing all the things that you do and wearing all the hats that you wear. Talk about waking up passionate, and how did you reach that point?

Mark Cole:       Yeah. So first of all, we have a process around here that's called the values exercise. And it's where you list out all of your values. What are the things... So we give people a deck of cards with over 50 values on it. And then your ability to write in values that we may have missed, that's important to you. And in all those exercises, of course, family and faith come at the very top for me. And so many people that we serve, they put that at the top.

And so a lot of times when we're in that, we call those givens. If you don't have those as a value, we got other problems that are the things we need to talk about. So we pull those out, and in my top three values, passion is one of them. Because I believe anything worth doing is worth doing with passion, with excitement. If you don't have excitement about it, check yourself, you may not should do it. I have a hashtag that I use in social media a lot of times, that's the hashtag #lovewhatIdo. And I do, I love what I do, but there's been times that I did not like my current job load or job responsibilities, yet I've always found a way to love what I do.

Because I agree with John and something that he said in this lesson, and that is how do people be successful when they hate what they do? And I don't think that means we have to all love everything that we do. There's a lot of people listening to the podcast today, Traci, perhaps even in your life, we have found ourselves doing things that we would rather not do. But my challenge to anybody that I talked to like that is find a better perspective, find a higher perspective because you need to love what you do. You cannot sustain disliking what you do for very long.

So to your question, I think part of it comes natural, it's who I am. I am a passionate, passionate person. In fact, sometimes as I've talked about in recent podcasts, I'm too passionate because it comes in as too intense. But if I were not passionate about what I do, I don't know how I could handle this number three, that John talks about, how they work is directly proportionate to how passionate they are, in my opinion.

Traci Morrow:  Yeah. And I think it's good to mention that when you said you're a very passionate person and that is a gift, that is something. But it doesn't mean that everybody has to have that gift. You can work towards it, but there's always an underbelly. To every positive, there's an underbelly, a downside. You talked about the opposite of passion or that the underbelly of passion is that you can come off too intense and it can shut people down. But I think a lot of people feel like in order to be passionate about what they do, they have to be passionate about everything they do. And the reality is, you might be listening to this podcast and realize that you're not passionate about anything that you do. And then that's another conversation.

But if you're talking about, I want to be passionate about what I do, but always I don't wake up excited to do some of the hard things. Like the hard conversations that come along with leadership. But every day, I wake up excited. Even sometimes when I have those things on my to-do list that are like, "I don't even want to have to do that today, but it's part of leadership." But I think of, when you're willing to do something before the return... John talks about the three R's in the case. So he talks about what's required of me, what will be the return and what will be the reward. But I find that when you're willing to do what's required of you and even exceed expectation, which John and you, we can get to that in just a minute. You're just so great at that. But will you do it when the return or the reward isn't promised or it isn't coming right away? I think that's what really connects you to your purpose, which is-

Mark Cole:       Yeah. But let me say something about that, Traci. I have never given, even in past life when my comp plans and things like that was owned by others, I've never given someone else the right to choose what I get fulfilled about. Let me explain. Compensation has never been an indicator on whether I'm fulfilled or not. I don't chase compensation. Now I have to provide for my family. I have a family I have to provide and I've had conversations about compensation, but I have learned that the more I put my fulfillment or the things that fulfill me in the hands of other people, the more of a mirage fulfillment really is. You can't get fulfillment if too many people in your life have their hands on the levers of what fulfills you.

So whether I'm working with a difficult leader and I have, or whether I'm working with menial jobs, that does not feel like it's contributing to the big picture and I have, or whether I'm working for a compensation plan that is much less than what I deserve, and I have. Any of those things have not impacted my sense of fulfillment. Because of my sense of fulfillment is something that comes from the deep inner part of who I am, why I was created the day I discovered why I was created. And when I got that clarity at 33 years of age, I stopped allowing indicators of my sense of fulfillment to be held in the hands of others people's decision.

Traci Morrow:  So that's a really interesting one that I would like to have you dive down a little bit too, because you're talking about the passion that comes from within, but you're not driven by the reward or the return. Two of the three R's John talks about, and yet those are the three R's of working smart is doing what's required and the return and the reward. So how do you... I'm envisioning podcast listeners. I'm thinking of people on my team who are passionate about something and they're doing what's required of them, but the return and the reward aren't there yet. At some point, some people have to say, "Hey, I'm not able to pay my bills, what I'm passionate about, and I'm doing what's required of me. It's not providing well." So can you talk a little bit about that?

Mark Cole:       Yeah. So I think you have to make yourself, require of yourself to get some, what gives a rewards in your life. No matter if you're doing things that does not link to reward, they're all requirement, they're all things that are responsible, things that I have to do. I think you still have to have a list of the things that give you a reward. And I have found that at certain times in my life, my reward part of my life had to come from outside of work. Now that's not true now, it had been true for many years. So then I would work hard to provide a lifestyle that I could go do some things that would reward me. Right? But you've got to always have a reward mechanism in your life, if you spend too long without chasing things that are rewarding to you, you will lose the passion. I don't care how passionate you are. It's called burnout, it's called a hundred other things, nervous breakdowns. It's called many things that you and I have experienced with top-notch powerful, even value oriented, passionate people that all of a sudden lost their passion, the fire was gone. Is because they spent too long with not allowing and ensuring that there are reward components in their life.

Traci Morrow:  That's right. And I think John talks about that sometimes of being, then maybe it's just a hobby. If what you're passionate about doesn't bring the return or the reward financially, but it's fulfilling you. Like you might be getting the reward of fulfillment, but not the financial reward. So then that maybe is just a hobby. That's not something-

Mark Cole:       Yeah. As you say that, I'm sitting here remembering a time of working on a team. And I knew I wanted to lead that team, I knew I did. That was clear. I knew that what I was doing at that particular point in my required job description, or job responsibilities was nothing like what I was going to do down the road. I knew it. And I couldn't stand the job responsibilities, I really didn't like who I was working for at the time, my direct supervisors. I didn't like those things. And yet, you know what I did during that time, I remember this just as you were talking, I started journaling the things that I would not do when I got a chance to lead, the ways that I would not lead. And do I had so many models and examples and opportunities to learn. And by changing that and going, "You know what? I know one day I'm going to lead. I'm not going to be here forever. So I'm going to learn right now, what not to do when I have the ability to change the way we're doing things."

Traci Morrow:  Yeah. That reminds me of something that I say to my kids and my team. And that is, "Every person you can learn from, some people you learn how you want to be, and some people you learn how you don't want to be." Which makes me think of leading to the next part, where he talks about working smart. When he said, "Activity does not necessarily equal accomplishment." Oh my gosh, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. But in my personal experience, as I was leading a team, it's funny, if somebody is doing something that is not in their gift zone and they are not passionate about it, and they are out of their comfort zone, it's a disaster. John talks about that all the time.

But I remember we had a tracking system, which you have to know your numbers, right? John talks about that all the time. You talk about that, you have to know your numbers. So we had a tracking system and I had a couple team members that pulled me aside and said, "Traci, we really do not like this tracking system because we have just a lot of zeros on our page. I feel like you're not really... And so we've come up with this other tracking system." Which kudos to them, that's awesome. If I'm off on that. And I looked down and the reality was they doing a whole lot of activity that was never going to bring accomplished. It was busy work. And I think it's kind of a cute story in hindsight, and it came out to be a great conversation of directing and guiding and mentoring. But the reality is how many of us feel our time with activity, and we aren't seeing the return or the reward? We aren't seeing accomplishment because we're filling our life and our time, our most valuable commodity, our time with kind of wasted busy activity.

Mark Cole:       Well, I hate to use these colloquialisms sometime because people roll their eyes when they hear them, but work smarter, not harder. We've heard that. We've heard that. We've heard that, but that's what John is saying right here is what does smart look like for you? And when is the last time you have challenged the KPIs in your business? The key performance indicators, when is the last time you went, "Okay, how long have these been our key performance indicators? Why did they become our key performance indicators in the past? And are they are accurate, most effective KPIs today?"

And most people don't do that. They let yesterday's KPIs determine today's KPIs. And that's why companies like Kodak, Service Merchandise, and some of these things I'm dating myself with some of these companies. That's why they're no longer here because they felt like that tracking how many people were processing film like they used to was still the right KPI, when everybody was transitioning to digital product. You need to challenge your KPIs every single year, every single six months. Are we still managing or working or monitoring the things that need to be monitored, to keep our business relevant.

Traci Morrow:  And you can always change those indicators to fit what you're doing that's not bringing any return.

Mark Cole:       That's right.

Traci Morrow:  You can always do that. Letting yourself off the hook. And too many people... I've done it myself. I've done it myself, where I am busy and I could write out all the things that I did, but what it didn't amount to a whole lot other than busy-ness. So then the next number four, if you don't mind me going [crosstalk 00:28:48].

Mark Cole:       Yeah, kind of. Yes.

Traci Morrow:  Are you ready to go to the next one?

Mark Cole:       Yeah.

Traci Morrow:  Talking about how a leader lives. A great person of greatness, how they live. And I love this one Mark, because it really is about the personhood. Again, I like to do that, I like to take these big ideas and anchor it down to make it really manageable for me to understand, and how do I play it out? And it always, especially with John, it always, always comes back to the person, when he talks about humility and integrity and generosity. And that really, to me is purpose. So if you were to encapsulate each of these point three of today and point four, it's passion and purpose.

Mark Cole:       Yeah. Yeah. So those of you that got to listen to part one last week, you'll remember Traci and I are wrestling with this idea of greatness. And we hashed through that, if you didn't hear that, you need to go back and listen to it. And by the way, if you subscribe, you'll always get an indication, a notification, and you'll be able to listen to all of them. But Traci, I'm not going to rehash that today, but that linked it for me, that put it down for me, that whole wrestling that you and I had on greatness and the bigness of that word. And did I really want to do. John in this last point of how they live, wrapped it all up for me.

Traci Morrow:  Yeah. Absolutely.

Mark Cole:       Because he said this, "Humility does not mean you think less of yourself, it means you think of yourself less." And why do we want greatness? So I do want greatness if I'm really honest. And even last week when we were recording this, I'm going, "I really do want greatness, but it sounds too big. Can I admit out loud that I won't brightness? Is it okay that people know?" Man, I want to be great.

Traci Morrow:  That's right.

Mark Cole:       But I didn't want to say that. So I had this moral dilemma in me to come out saying, "I want to be great, but internally I really want to be great, but I don't want to say it out loud that I want to be great. Well, all of a sudden, just this little teaching, the last point here, John says, "It's got to be with humility." And it's not this humility that says, "Oh poor pitiful me, I'm not worth anything. I talk like this, I act like this. I didn't go here to school." All these things that we do and call that humility, that's not humility. That is seeing yourself less than what you really are.

Traci Morrow:  That's right.

Mark Cole:       And we think we're doing right when we value ourselves less. And John said, "Whoa, wait, that's not humility. Humility is thinking of yourself less." And aren't we all own a quest to be so great that we inspire others to greatness so that a spotlight shines on them?

Traci Morrow:  That's right.

Mark Cole:       And that comes back to, I can with integrity say at the end of this lesson, I want to go after great. I can say that with integrity, whereas last week I was trying to wrestle with that. Now I can say, "Oh, I want that."

Traci Morrow:  Yeah, you're good with that.

Mark Cole:       And it's because I want to generously give influence to other people.

Traci Morrow:  That's right.

Mark Cole:       And John talks here at the end, Traci, about generosity and doing it with generosity, doing it generously. And I got to tell you that we see a lot of times generosity of a dollar that we write a check to give to some charity. And that's good, that's right. Please keep being generous like that. But that's not all that generosity is, are you generous with your fame? Are you generous with the credit that you receive? Are you generous with the opportunities that you receive? You're a leader of literally thousands and thousands of people Traci. You've got a lot going on. You got a lot to do.

And I sit here, and you didn't know this. I didn't warn you of this, but I'm getting ready to put you on the spot.

Traci Morrow:  Oh boy.

Mark Cole:       So get ready. And her eyeballs are as wide as you can imagine right now. You're generous, you don't need another something to do. You've got plenty to do. In fact, in 15 minutes, you're going to be in a car, racing to the airport to get back-

Traci Morrow:  That's right.

Mark Cole:       ... to go be with your family, to go to Portland, Oregon, to be with your parents, your in-laws. You're doing all of that. Why did you come all the way over here, trans-continental, last night, to meet with us this morning, to jump right back on a plane, when you didn't need to? You're set. You're financially okay. You've got a lot of credibility. You've got a business. You've got a family. You love John. John didn't ask you to do this. You love me, I did ask you to do this, but I would have loved you for you to said no.

There's something that you were doing that caused you to say, |I'm going to get out of my comfort zone." Because what you don't know, Mr or Mrs. Podcast listener, I've never had Traci go, "Mark, tell me what you want again?" I've never seen you wrestling to make sure you added value like you did before these microphones were turned on. Like I did today. So what would cause you to stretch beyond yourself, do something like this, jump back on a plane and fly another four and a half hours back just to get on another plane with your family to go to Portland. So what is it?

Traci Morrow:  That's right. Well, I would say the simple answer would be, I want to be a part of something that's helping other people achieve greatness too. And while you and I wrestle with the greatness aspect of it for ourselves, deep down, I too want to do something great. But not because I want people to say, "Boy, she's great. She's the greatest." I don't want it to end with me. I want to take what I've learned and my experiences, my failings, and the things that I've actually done well. And if we don't speak that to one another and share that, every one of us, every one of you listening to the podcast, we all have something to share with somebody else, from our experiences, that's going to help them be great. You know what? I have an exercise program that I do, and the trainer always says, "Now go be great." And every day when we close out with that, I just feel like it is sending me out to the day to go and be great. And why? Not because I want to be great, but because I want to be a part of something great.

I heard a long time ago, a statement that said, "Be relentless in pursuit of excellence." And that sticks with me every day. Coming to this podcast, this is an established podcast, I'm sure so many of our listeners, you could kill it here in my place, but I show up here to represent you, to represent all of us who are learning from John, who are in the trenches, who are building teams and building families and building things that we want to last, and we need to have a voice too. So I come here to represent you, to share with you what I've learned, to learn from Mark Cole, who would pass up some time to spend with Mark and just really bathe my brain and layer the learning of John over and over again. Something that I learned last week, I need to hear it again this week. You need to it again this week, I'm on this podcast, but I'm telling you I'm going to listen to it again and again, after it comes out, because I want to be a part of something great. And I want to pour that into other people too.

Mark Cole:       Brilliant. If you're in the studio with us, Jason's over here smiling, Jake's just smiling. I've got my hands up touchdown as if [crosstalk 00:35:55] has not already ended the football season. I'm sitting here, but here's my big takeaway from what you just said, and this is greatness. You just defined greatness. You just wrapped greatness. So I don't have anything to add, I have one thing to pull out of what you said and close our podcast down today. You said, "I don't want greatness to end with me." And what you really were saying right there, Traci is, "I want greatness, but I don't want it to end with me. It's not for my benefit. I want greatness to begin with me. I want it to begin, and then I want it to flourish in others." Isn't that generosity. Isn't it, when I say I have accomplished something, but not for my own gain so that I can give it to others and they can experience a greater opportunity, a greater responsibility, a greater sense of accomplishment and fulfillment because they stand on your shoulders.

I stand on shoulders today, I stand on John Maxwell's shoulders. I stand on many people that has given us what you and I have today in this podcast, it's a platform. I stand on Jake's shoulders, that's sitting in this podcast. You haven't heard Jake's voice in this podcast. I stand on Jason's, on his shoulders. You've heard him on this podcast, but his content, his pin, we all stand on the shoulders of others. It is not the public demonstration of our influence that makes greatness, it's the width of our shoulders and how many people can stand on our shoulders to reach higher than they've ever reached.

And Traci greatness is not ending with you, but hear me, it is beginning with you. And I love this. I love this. I love this podcast. Oh my gosh. I love what we have just been able to talk about, Defining Greatness part two. Hey, make sure you go to maxwellpodcast.com/great, click on the Bonus Resource button and download the notes now. I hope you'll subscribe. I hope you'll pass this link on to others. And I hope like me, you will begin chasing greatness today. Have a great day. We'll see you next time.

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