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We live in an era of self-absorption. We do not often see examples of people investing in others around them. In order to gain influence with people and make a significant impact on their lives, you must take the focus off of yourself and begin investing in others. One way to do that is to enlarge them. You need to help them grow and become a better version of themselves. You need to water and fertilize what is already in their DNA.

Most people do not recognize their potential without others pointing it out. For some reason, we mostly downplay ourselves, but we often magnify what others can be and do. Because of this, you can gain great influence with people by identifying the potential you see in them and by helping them take steps to turn that potential into reality.

This process is mentoring. It is committing your time and energy to invest in someone that you see potential in. This may be a family member, a coworker, a friend, etc. Spend some time considering the people around you. Who do you believe has the potential to do greater things in their lives than they are currently experiencing? The people that come to your mind are prospects for your mentorship.

In Becoming a Person of Influence, John C. Maxwell and Jim Dornan share three key things you do for people when you invest in them:

1. You raise their level of living
2. You increase their potential for success
3. You increase their capacity for growth

Each of these contribute to a better life. Each lift people up and make a significant impact in their lives. You can do this for people! You can enlarge people and become a person of influence in their lives. But you can’t do this if your focus is solely on yourself. In order to enlarge others, you must become others-centered. Mentoring cannot effectively be done by a self-centered person.

If you desire to gain greater influence in the lives of those around you, become an enlarger. Look for potential in people and invest in them to help them reach that potential. People need you to do this for them because they often don’t see their true value.

Be Intentionally Great today!

As a certified member of The John Maxwell Team, I would be honored to assist you in your personal growth and that of your team or organization. If I can be of service to you, please contact me for a free 30-minute consultation at [email protected].

“It doesn’t matter whether your business is creating computer software, selling books, serving food in a  restaurant, building houses, or designing airplanes. The key to success is understanding people.” – John C. Maxwell and Jim Dornan

One of the greatest challenges in leadership and gaining influence with people is that we are all unique. We cannot have a “cookie-cutter” approach to working with people. We have to customize our approach with each individual. This makes for quite a challenge.

I saw this principal in play through my oldest son’s soccer team last season. His coach was able to turn a B-level team into an undefeated team in their regular seasons and they won four out of seven tournaments. I watched closely all season to see how this was happening. I recognized at one point that he was customizing his coaching based on his players’ strengths rather than trying to force them all into one style of playing. By doing so, he took a team of moderately talented players and turned them into an almost unstoppable TEAM. The team was far stronger than the sum of its parts. I give credit to the coach for his coaching approach.

To help people achieve their potential, you need to look at who they are as individuals. You need to understand what makes them laugh, sing, and cry. You need to understand how to help them maximize their strengths and delegate their weaknesses. You have to PAY ATTENTION to people in order to understand them! As leaders and managers, it’s easy to be so task-oriented that you lose sight of the people involved in the tasks. If you truly want to gain influence with people and grow to be a stronger leader, you must learn to understand people better!

John Maxwell and Jim Dornan give us four great questions to ask about people in Becoming a Person of Influence:

• Where did they come from?
• Where do they want to go?
• What is their need now?
• How can I help?

If you can answer these questions about the people around you, you will be able to gain incredible influence in their lives. You will be able to help them achieve things they never thought possible. When they realize you care enough about them to understand them, people will begin to follow you at new levels. To be a person of influence, make it a priority to understand people.

Be Intentionally Great today!

“You can make more friends in two weeks by becoming a good listener than you can in two years trying to get other people interested in you.” – Dale Carnegie

How would you rate yourself at listening to others?

If you’re like most people, you find it much easier to talk than to listen. Listening requires a lot of energy and self-control. It requires us to put other people first. It demands that we engage with people on a level that doesn’t feel natural. It’s work!

The great thing about listening, though, is that it gives you greater influence in their lives. People are not used to being deeply listened to. Even when we’re not talking, we’re often thinking about what to say next rather than listening to what is being said.

In Becoming a Person of Influence, John Maxwell and Jim Dornan suggest the following nine things to become a better listener. Evaluate yourself on each one and choose two or three to intentionally work on.

1. Look at the speaker.
2. Don’t interrupt.
3. Focus on understanding.
4. Determine the need at the moment.
5. Check your emotions.
6. Suspend your judgment.
7. Sum up at major intervals.
8. Ask questions to clarify.
9. Always make listening your priority.

While listening isn’t natural to many of us, it is a learnable skill. Being a better listener will gain you greater influence with people. I encourage you to make the effort to listen to understand, not just to hear. You might be amazed at how you can help people when you hear their deepest needs. Listen for what is not being said, as well as, what is.

You can do this! You can become a better listener, but you must be intentional about it.

Be intentionally Great today!

If you want to become a better leader, I would love to serve as your coach or train your team. If you would like to discuss how this would work, please contact me at [email protected] or 770-715-8280.

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation, and go to the grave with the song still in them.” – Henry D. Thoreau

“Faith in people is an essential quality of an influencer when working with others, yet it’s a scarce commodity today.” – John C. Maxwell

The antidote to the problem written by Thoreau is found in Maxwell’s quote. Many people have hopes, dreams, and desires that go unrealized because they don’t have people in their lives encouraging them to step outside their comfort zones and go for it. If you desire to grow in influence, you must have faith in people. You have to believe in them and let them know it. Sometimes you have to let them borrow YOUR faith in them because they don’t have any of their own!

In John Maxwell’s book, Becoming a Person of Influence, he writes the following acronym for the word BELIEVE. Following this guide will help you demonstrate faith in people.

• B – Believe in them before they succeed
• E – Emphasize their strengths
• L – List their past successes
• I – Instill confidence when they fail
• E – Experience some wins together
• V – Visualize their future success
• E – Expect a new level of living

When you believe in people, you fill their mental and emotional tanks. You give them a vision (maybe for the first time) of what their lives could look like. You give them hope.

Napoleon Bonaparte said “Leaders are dealers in hope.”

• Are you dealing hope to those you lead?
• Are you raising the lid of those around you by giving them vision for what they could become?

If you want to grow in influence, begin having faith in people. Show them and tell them that you believe in them. Point out their strengths. Help them get some quick wins. Walk alongside them as they step outside their comfort zones to try something new that they wouldn’t do on their own.

“Bravery feels like fear, but it looks like courage.” – Ashley Wilhite

Who can you help to be brave today? Who can you begin to have faith in?

Be Intentionally Great today!

My mission is to help people discover their purpose and equip them to achieve it. If you need help discovering your own purpose or how to achieve it, I would love to be your coach! If your team needs training to go to the next level, I would love to assist you. Please contact me at [email protected] or 770.715.8280 and let’s get going on the pathway to greater results!

If you want to have greater influence with people, caring for and nurturing them is a “must.” It may be cliche, but it’s true that people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. If you do not show that you care about people, your message will not be heard. However, if you demonstrate a genuine concern for others you will gain influence rapidly.

This may sound “soft” for the business world, but nurturing your team is vital for developing great team chemistry. The more your team knows you care for their well-being individually and collectively, the more they will follow you. They will trust you more. The more they trust you, the more efficient and effective the team will become.

John C. Maxwell states in his book “Becoming a Person of Influence” that when you nurture people, they receive the following benefits:

• Positive self-worth
• Sense of belonging
• Perspective of their value
• Feeling of significance
• Hope

Nurturing others makes a huge difference in their lives. Many people are not receiving positive affirmation at home or work. When someone steps into their lives to encourage and care for them, it can refuel their emotional and mental tanks. When that happens, their spirits are lifted and they are going to achieve greater success and feel a greater sense of significance.

You have the power to make a powerful impact on the lives of those around you. Be intentional with showing you care and helping others achieve their goals. Being a person of influence is about valuing other people and helping them become all that they have the potential to be.

Be Intentionally Great by nurturing others and watch your influence soar!

To learn more about gaining greater influence with others, sign up for my upcoming “Becoming a Person of Influence” tele-seminar by clicking HERE.

Developing and keeping your integrity is an inside job. While many external factors affect our daily lives, integrity affects our character and relationships. Having integrity gains trust and influence. Lacking integrity will cost you dearly.

In his book Becoming a Person of Influence, John C. Maxwell says “The need for integrity today is perhaps as great as it has ever been. And it is absolutely essential for anyone who desires to become a person of influence.” We live in a world and culture where people of high integrity are becoming harder and harder to find. If you desire to have greater influence in the lives of those around you, developing and maintaining high integrity is of critical importance.

To have integrity, consider the following:

• Integrity is revealed in how you handle the small things.
• No position or title can substitute for a life of high integrity.
• If you take care of your integrity, your reputation will take care of itself.

5-Session Tele-Seminar Offer!

Above are just a few key points regarding integrity found in John C. Maxwell’s book Becoming a Person of Influence. I want to invite you to join me for a 5-week teleseminar study of this book lasting from March 21-April 18, 2016 from 8-9:30 pm each Monday night.

Click HERE for more information and to reserve your spot. Not only will you receive in-depth teaching on this book’s key topics, but I will also provide a one-hour 1-1 coaching session to help you develop an action plan to intentionally become a person of influence personally and professionally. Don’t miss out on this great opportunity. Register today!

Everyone wants to be a part of a successful team. However, many teams are loaded with talent but don’t find themselves experiencing the success they desire. As a team leader, it’s important to find ways to help your team grow so they have the chance to succeed.

How do you grow your team? The answer may surprise you.

You as the leader must grow first!

If you are growing as a leader and helping your team members grow, you will start to see the team achieve greater results and climb to new heights. If you don’t make growth a priority, you will see your team become stagnant and eventually start to deteriorate.

In John Maxwell’s book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, John teaches “The Law of the Lid” which states that “a person’s level of effectiveness is determined by his leadership ability.” The same is true for a team. The team’s level of effectiveness and success is determined by the leader’s leadership ability. If you are a growing leader, then the lid for your team will rise, which means the effectiveness will increase. If you are not growing, you are being a lid on the team’s potential.

Are you raising the lid for your team or are you holding the team back?

Are you growing and helping team members grow or are you stifling the team’s growth and results?

If you want to grow your team, it starts with you as the leader. There is no way around it. In order to recruit the high-level team members you desire, you have to become a leader that attracts such talent. If you are a 5-level leader (on a scale of 1-10), you will attract 3s and 4s. To attract higher level talent, you must become a higher level leader. You will only be able to attract and retain leaders by being a leader they desire to follow. A level 8 leader will not want to work on a team with a level 5 team leader. Even if they come on the team for a season, they won’t last long. They will grow frustrated with your level of leadership ability.

Make a commitment today to grow. Also make a commitment to help your team members grow. As you raise the lid for yourself bring your team along. Share with them what you’re learning. Model greater leadership ability for them. Leadership is more caught than taught. Be an example of a growing leader and watch your team climb to new heights.

Be Intentionally Great today!

It’s been said that experience is the best teacher. However, that’s not completely true. If experience is the best teacher, then people who have accumulated loads of experience would be much wiser than those with less. However, we can see in our society it’s not true. Many people are no different today than 20 years ago.

Instead of having 20 years of experience many people simply have the same experience 20 times over. The former have learned from their experiences and keep growing to improve. The latter repeat their mistakes and often wonder why their lives are no different year after year.

One of the best learning opportunities is from our failures. We try to avoid failure at all costs. However, when we take risks and fail, we can learn lessons to apply to our next attempts. Every failure has the potential to teach us valuable lessons.

The next time you fail, take some time to reflect on the following questions:

• What went wrong?
• What part did I play?
• What was out of my control?
• What can I do differently next time?
• What is the key lesson from this failure?
• What will I do differently next time?

When you take on the posture of learning from failure, you will fear it less and be willing to take more risks. Failure isn’t final if you learn and grow from it. If you adopt the mindset of growing through your failures, you can keep moving forward in your life and be stronger because of the lessons you learn. Don’t let failure paralyze you. Learn from it and let it help you become the person you were created to be.

Be Intentionally Great today!

John Maxwell’s “Law of Influence” states that “Leadership is influence – nothing more, nothing less.” This definition of leadership should encourage everyone! Everyone has influence with someone in their lives whether at home, work, or in the community. But influence requires connection.

Connection is critical because to have influence, you must earn trust. To earn trust, you must connect with people. To connect, work to implement the following practices from John Maxwell’s book Everyone Communicates, Few Connect:

• Connectors connect on common ground – find commonalities with the people you are communicating with
• Connectors do the difficult work of keeping it simple – make sure your audience can understand what you are saying; don’t speak over their heads or make things complex
• Connectors create an experience everyone enjoys – find ways to engage the person or team in an enjoyable or memorable way
• Connectors inspire people – find ways to give your team purpose that will motivate
• Connectors live what they communicate – be a model of what you expect from your team

Evaluate yourself using the following questions:

• Where are you strong?
• Where are you weak?
• What can you do to become a better connector starting today?

Regardless of where you rank in connecting currently, you can improve. Connecting is more skill than natural talent. Make the decision today to improve at connecting and watch your influence increase.

Be Intentionally Great today!

In our culture today, it’s easy to want instant results. Like a quick snack or a fast meal, we want our development to be microwavable. Unfortunately, growth is a lifelong journey. It is a process.

As we prepare to begin another new year, many people get wrapped up in making resolutions that don’t last. If you want to be successful over the long haul, your commitment to growth must be long-term rather than a weak resolution that will be forgotten in a  few days or weeks.

As a huge sports fan, one lesson I’ve learned from watching great teams over the years is that they look at each season as a process. They don’t expect to be great at the beginning of a season, but they focus on building each day to become better and better. They want to start strong, but they are more concerned about ending strong. They want to be the last team standing holding up the championship trophy. To get there, they develop a process to work on throughout the season.

Your life should be viewed similarly. Look at your life long-term. How do you want to be described by those closest to you at the end of your life? When you take a long view perspective, you can achieve many goals along the way, but you will always be a work in progress on your growth track.

To accomplish this, start with the end in mind.

• Who do you want to become throughout your lifetime?
• What do you want people to say about you at your funeral?
• What goals do you want to achieve along the way? 

Look at your growth process as a marathon, not a sprint. Pace yourself. Set intermediate goals along the way, but don’t become content just because you accomplish them. Look ahead to the next one and keep moving forward. Enjoy the process. Trust the process. Be intentional about the process.

Be Intentionally Great by committing to a lifelong growth journey. You’ll be glad you did in the end!