8 Lessons In 20 Minutes With John C. Maxwell

I was recently in Los Angeles for the Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT) 2018 Annual Meeting. Now, this is a convention where more than 15,000 people from all around the world have come together for four days of learning. It's an amazing event! It's a conference where I recently had an opportunity to present a talk called The Secrets of Networking Superstars. However, that's not what I'm here to talk to you about.

In this conference, I attended a session by John C. Maxwell who is a global authority in the area of Leadership. He gave a 20-Minute keynote session and these are the 8 key lessons that I learnt from him. Now, all of these are extremely valuable but some of them resonated so much with the message that we try and give out to the world, as Networkers, and it was an absolute privilege to be hearing this. So, here are these 8 Key Lessons for you:

Lesson No. 1: John said, "No one gets to the top accidentally. Getting to the top has got to be intentional." We need to have an intention of getting to the top, breaking the odds, keep going on.

Lesson No. 2: John said, "Everything worthwhile is uphill." So whatever you want to achieve in life is going to have struggles. But then he continued and stated that we have a problem which is, "We have high hopes and bad habits." How true! We all want to achieve greatness in life but if we have got bad habits, we cannot be disciplined. So high hopes and good habits will take us up.

Lesson No. 3: John says, and this is absolutely true, "Most people don't lead their life, they accept their life." How true!

Lesson No. 4: Be intentional in your growth, in your personal development. Now, John gave a very interesting example where he said, "We don't have to any intention in growing older, it happens automatically. But we need to have an intention in getting better." Getting better is completely intentional, that's something that we have to carry every single day.

Lesson No. 5: He stressed on the value of having a personal growth plan. John said something very interesting. He said, "Intentionally grow every day. Every day do something that grows you just a little bit higher."

Lesson No. 6: No one can make you happy, only you can. And this is an attitude, and having this attitude is again, intentional. We need to have an attitude of making ourselves happy and that attitude also comes through intention.

Lesson No. 7: John goes on to say that there is a successful life, and there is a significant life. Also, he defines that success is what you do for yourself, and significance is what you do for others. Selfishness and significance are not compatible. He stressed on the value of living a significant life. A life that is bent towards others. A life that is successful but at the same time, significant.

Lesson No. 8: The last thing that connected so much was this. John said, "Have an intention of valuing people and then add value to their life." Figure out what you can do for them, no matter how small, no matter how big. However, he said, that till the time you don't have an intention of valuing people, you cannot add value to them.

This was just a 20-minute session by him and so many powerful learnings, and I really thought that I should come out and share this with you. Think of these and let me know what you thought of these lessons.

About Paritosh Pathak

Paritosh Pathak is an expert Networking Coach, International Speaker, and Trainer. He is the author of ‘The Conscious Networking Revolution’, a bestselling networking handbook. To know more about him, visit his website.

Follow Paritosh on Social Media:

LinkedIn: Paritosh Pathak

Facebook: @pathak.paritosh

Twitter: @paritoshtweets

YouTube: ParitoshPathak