There is a Leader in every one of You! Believe in yourself, work on your skills and inspire as many people as you can around you!!!

What a great inspirational book for every person with the aspiration of becoming a leader or a better one, to help his team and company achieving greatness.

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John Maxwell is at his top in this masterpiece of Leadership book, defining 21 simple laws every leader needs to follow to make him better, and help and inspire others.

Starting with a well-known example of McDonald, where the first founders, Dick and Maurice MacDonald brothers were really successful but only at their level of leadership. But unfortunately they were not great enough to see the potential and lead their organization to the Top. Because if you want to have a bigger impact you need to practice the law of the lid. You must bring people together for a higher purpose, higher business.

You need to be the leader of your success. And this book can help you focusing on the laws of leadership that you need to improve. But a statement before following, each of us is at a different time of his journey, some are maybe already steps ahead, but no worries, we all can be better and improve ourselves. So now let's get deeper why this book could help you being the great leader you will be.

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Leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less, and as Stanly Huffty said : "it doesn’t matter about the level or the position you have, because it's the leader that makes the position". So if you are in a company, you can influence your customers, but not only, you can influence your partner, spouse, peers, friends!!!

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How?

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You need to discover their needs and challenges all the time and find a way to help them. And I am sure you will. Dale Carnegie, and his so famous masterpiece How to win Friends and influence people, is telling that perfectly, by finding the true purpose of the others, and helping them to achieve it, you will influence them positively in their life, and your influence will skyrocket, and people, customers, your partner will follow you more and more.

This law of influence is perfectly illustrated by the following names " Mother Teresa, Ryan Kroc, Elon Musk, Gandhi, but we can also mention…. Hitler, Mussolini, Kim Jung Hill… obviously some are voluntarily controversial, but it is only to show that anybody can use the law of influence and make the people follow them for a higher purpose, positive or negative…

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As you know, if you are following those articles and posts, education is key for you growth and self-development, and the best leaders have this amazing capacity to always learn, develop and apply. It remind me a previous discussion with one of the Top Leader of the software I am working in, a big influencer on leadership topic, and he was telling me he was reading every week a book, some articles, on many different topics, to allow him to be more open minded, have a better vision and take the best decision. But this comes through a process. It might be difficult for you to start directly at this rhythm. But you need to commit to it.

Your development is a process, a long process. You will not be a leader from a day to another. But by being focused every day in learning, building strong mind and body, you will overachieved your life and be successful as you have never dreamed of. So let's start the process of growing together. Commit yourself to learn new things every day.

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One of the advice I will give you is to read also Miracle Morning from Hal Elrod. It has been clearly a game changer for me, and I am sure it will be for you too. This will help you to build a personal process in your life, to be more efficient from early in the morning till the end of the day. It will be the topic for another article!!!

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And because of this process, you will have the possibility to have a vision, a plan to succeed for your leadership journey. So from now on, take a pen, a book, sit at your desk, a coffee bar, in a library and ask yourself where you want to be in 10years from now. Then start your navigation plan and put all you steps to reach it.

?Now that you have your steps, each day, work on it, make small baby steps every day to reach your long term goals. It will be way more concrete rather than only having BHAGs and not being able to reach it as there are too far away from weekly actions. So plan every step, and you will be successful because of your navigation plan.

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Add value to your peers, colleagues, friends, talk with them, discover what passion they have, what transcend them, and help them lighting the fire withing them.

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We already mentioned this book before, but it can help you so much in building your path to help people : How to win friends and influence people from Dale Carnegie. The principles are that you need to put interest of people before you anytime, because for finding a way to serve them, you need to be a giver everyday. If you do so, it will pay you back a million. Indeed we are all the time focus on ourselves, it is like egocentrism is at the heart of our society. But at the moment we add value to others, we start to change the world, improve others life. Take the example of Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela. They were all the time focused on other to improve their life, conditions. Obviously not everybody will be like them, but we can make small actions to help 1, 10 , 1000 people and make a difference. I want to bring value to people and help them grow and develop by reading, sharing their experience.

I want to transmit you this mantra : Be true with yourself, your values, and embrace it. If you talk about greatness, helping others, sharing, do it, be the example in your day to day life. But if one day you make a mistake, apologize for it ASAP. Your team, or followers will understand and forgive you.

Nobody is perfect as they said in the movie : "Some Like it Hot". (I am definitely not perfect and I am trying every day to be better Man than yesterday!!!)

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The chapter on the Law of Respect is a tricky one for my point of view and don't interpret it negatively to impact your motivation for growth, as if you would never become a level 10 leader. You can work on your leadership, gain it with experience and dedication, being mentored by better leader to help you grow. The example of Michael Jordan is priceless. He is probably the GOAT (for me he is) but he needed a coach, Dean Smith, the first one to help him realized his leadership level. Without this coach before getting to the NBA, he would probably has remained a great player with great ability, but never able to bring with him different groups of players to win 6x rings with a doble three pit.

So we are not all Michael Jordan obviously, but surround yourself with people who naturally are better leader than you. You will then be obliged to learn and push yourself to go at their level, and become a 7, 8, 9 and hopefully a 10x Leader.

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What often separates the great leaders from the merely good ones is the law of intuition, which base the success on facts plus instinct plus intangible factors as employee morale, organization and relations with peers. This allow the great leaders to get a vision on a situation that no one can see, it allows you to see the future, to take the right decision, based on fact you are able to interpret. And don’t be too hard on you, for some leader it comes naturally, but for others like maybe you or me, it is a learning process, that comes with our experiences. So keep educating yourself and try new things to learn something every day.

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Magnetism… It is quite an interesting law!!! Indeed, everybody has it, and this one probably at the same level for each us! Ok you will certainly tell me: "Come on Damien, Elon Musk has more law of magnetism than me, we cannot compete"

Sorry my friends, but you are totally wrong. It is just because you haven't achieve the same successes, he has more magnetism, because he is driving with him more people than you. What is similar is how you can attract people and which kind of people. If you are negative, be sure, only negative people will surround yourself. Be an entrepreneur, positive, athlete, high achiever, and you will be surrounded by same kind of people. It is perfectly natural. So now, don’t allow yourself to complain, but be a solution provider, or facilitator, focus on your happiness, tell yourself you want to be successful, and like a magnet you will attract the same kind of people. It will help to be the best version of yourself, and you will become a success.

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Connection : no matter where you are this is an obligation!!! If you are buying bread, (yes I am French) or cheese (still French) or wine (OK I will stop with the French connection…). My point is you will connect every day in your life with people. And practice it might not be natural for everybody. For instance I know some people who has some trouble sometimes to connect because it cost them to be interested truly in people. It can come with your character, or even because you had a bad day, you are tired to connect. But as Chris Voss is saying for negotiation, in "Never Split the Difference" connection is anywhere, anytime, with anybody. Then practice, practice, practice and be really interested to people, you will see how positively it will impact your life. To come back to my example, those persons are practicing everyday this law, and start to enjoy doing it. And again being interested in people, by connecting brings you so much goodness for your day. A shot of happiness!!!

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Mother Teresa : "You can do what I cannot do, I can do what you cannot do. Together we can do great things"

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Surround yourself with great people to make yourself greater. Here John Maxwell is talking about US Postal Team and Lance Armstrong in Pro Cycling… despite their real controversial story, we need to recognize the power of the Team. You can also look at many other sport, and not only Team sport, but also individual sports to see the importance of Inner circle. Let's look again at Michael Jordan, the real GOAT, it should have been impossible to accomplish a double 3pit, without Scottie Pippen, Steve Kerr, Denis Rodman, Luc Longley…

Tom Brady, GOAT with 7th Superbowl is a supreme leader, but his first declaration after winning with the Buccaneers :

"Thanks to all the guys, we are a great Team and without them it should have been impossible" And this works also for individual sports as I mentioned. When you think about Tiger Woods, Roger Federer, Martin Fourcade, Usain Bolt. All of them were all the time supported by amazing coaches, physio, mental coach, nutritionist and many others. You cannot win alone. Same at work in your office. The lonely wolf will be able sometimes to make a catch, it is the pack that will make your company overachieve your goals. So be sure your Team is the greatest ever because this is the only thing that will make you successful!!!!!!

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Damned, empowering people at the beginning is difficult. You have the feeling you are losing control by letting somebody taking responsibility, or if you have the habit to be self-performer and believe you make a better job than others, it will be even more a challenge… No guys, stop now, it is totally the opposite. By empowering others, you will demultiply your power of actions. And remember people are better than you in many aspects but your duty is to surround yourself with talented and gifted people and let them do their magic. Steve Jobs was always saying : "Why hiring brilliant people to tell them what to do… Let them do what they want because they are brilliant!!!".

Moreover, in every entrepreneurship book, or millionaire/billionaire mindset book, you will find this empowerment law. It will be called delegate, power of leverage… this is the only way to accelerate in your development, to let other do task at 80% of your potential achievement, to let you focus on higher valued tasks. To know more about this topic, I advise you 2x books. First one : Traction by Gino Wickman, on entrepreneurship, and 2nd Who Not How by Dan Sullivan, on leverage your time with other people to become an overachiever of your goals.

Moreover, by giving more responsibility to your Team, peers, colleagues, they will take credits for their actions and be even more involved and willing to do the extra mile.

Empower your people, push them to overachieve, take actions and get the credit for it, and you will create a trusted relation to move mountains.

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When we are talking about leadership, we are obliged to talk about our parents here. They are the pictures we are following since we are born. Some of us have the chance to born in a family who is already having entrepreneur mindset, made of successful people or leaders. They just need to do a copy paste of this picture and follow the right track to be successful. But some of us are not that lucky, and no matter if our family is rich or poor,, because I am not talking about money or income there, but leadership mentality, financial freedom, entrepreneurship with BHAGs. And unfortunately, none of our family might have this kind of spirit, and as we will picture our parents behaviors, we will of course reproduce it… As a personal example : my parents have always told me if you want money, get a job, work hard, save money, and you will get a reward. Good but not great unfortunately. And I am sure 99% of the people who read those lines, had felt the same at a time. If I had follow only this family moto, I should not be here today, hoping to inspire people. I had to reeducate myself, changed my blueprint, work really hard, learn finance, challenge myself and find the light to ignite my fire with leadership. So challenge your parental picture, read, open your mind to overachiever, and follow their path. You are at the corner of the street of your success, keep growing and taking actions and you will overachieve all your goals.

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"The leader finds the dream, and then the people. The people find the leader and then the dream"

Phil Jackson, Zinedine Zidane, Bill Belichick, Steve Jobs, Jack Ma… And I could go on and on. Successful team or companies have great leaders at their top, and the people buy in their leadership more than their vision. For instance, Zidane is probably not the best tactical coach, but he is a great leader who brought with him a Team to a 3 pit for Champions League. Same for Steve Jobs, OK probably the best tech leader of all time, before Elon Musk arrived, who led his organization from being far away from Microsoft, to the biggest company in the world, having the vision and the leader at the right time. Make the people buy in you, and they will be more keen to buy your vision.

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Leaders who practice the law of victory believe that anything less than success is unacceptable,… Waouh!!! To be honest this is a mentality I have since a kid, coming from all the sports I have practiced. Losing has never been an option, and when it was happening, I was so sick of it. This could be a topic for an entire book, I will certainly write in the following years, because I find the "Will of victory in Enterprise" so interesting. But let's come back to John Maxwell's book : You all have had this moment in your life where you were filled with motivation, power, greatness, to face a challenge, a competition, and you told yourself : "I will succeed, I will win no matter what!" At this time in your life, there was no other option than victory. Then imagine if you could have this feeling every day, every minute of your life. How motivating for you could that be. SO empower yourself, embrace this mentality, practice in front of a mirror, to make this law of victory yours, to breath it and you will see how motivated every morning you will be. And if you succeed every morning, you will certainly achieve and even overachieved your goals.

Another advice for reading, Miracle Morning. I strongly advise you to read it, and embrace the challenge of early miracle morning. If you start to practice the SAVERS, you might be able to reach the Law of Victory.

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Momentum… Big word, many, too many time used in unproper way. But if you look truly to company or sports team, you will see some amazing events that had happened. You will understand how difficult it is to create it but when the MO is there, it seems like nothing is impossible. As French, we had the handball French team, which seemed impossible to defeat during years. 2 gold medals at the Olympic, World Champion, European champion, no game lost. Same for individual judoka, Teddy Riner. He hasn’t lost any combat during more than 5x years!!! You had the feeling when both French handball Team and teddy Riner were entering into the pitch or dojo, the competitors had already lost. Fear bleeding from their eyes. But this is not happening from a day to another. It took multiple years for handball team to realize and release their potential starting in 1995 with their first bronze medal, to only arrive to gold Olympic medal in 2008. Teddy Riner, incredible athlete, lost few fights till he understood he needed to train even more and take more care of his body and specific technics. This is a long process but when the momentum of victory happens, you are unstoppable. So find it, work on it and make it happen.

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Focus ? Pareto ? Time management ? Productivity ? Indeed, everything is connected and the best leaders are the one managing perfectly the law of priorities. Many great examples are used to illustrate, such as Jack Welsh. I am a huge fan and recommend to read his book, even if some people are saying his management style is a bit outdated, but for me his six sigma strategy, and business management are some example to follow. Refocusing your business on your best products / solutions to improve the quality and profit is a great strategy.

Other example, totally different area : Tom brady, 43 years old, only one priority : Win the Superbowl's. He already won it multiple times, and could be satisfied, but no, never… Remember when he left the Patriots, nobody would have thought he could have won again a Superbowl's with a brand new team, and specially at 43 years old, I take advantage of this moment to say hi to my friend Dimitri ;).

But being committed every day on your priority, obviously with outstanding skills, has made him overachieved his goals year after year.

So now ask you the questions : What can you prioritize in your life to improve your day to day job, or 10X your goals for your company. Ask yourself the question: What positive actions or strengths provide me the best ROI, and put 80% of your time on it. Let the 20% others to no important tasks.

Same 80/20 principle, when you will have to hire somebody: if he is able to do at 80% something you could have done, let him the job, and focus your time on something more valuable.

The law of priority is a core law for the overachievers.

My mentor once told me after a discussion, where I said I was expecting to handle everything in the real estate investment: "Damien, take a step back and analyze the situation, how much do you evaluate your hour, your time? If you find somebody who can make it for less money at 80% of your expectations, hire him, and focus on bigger actions, it will be the only way to scale your business and be successful!!!"

Love this feedback.

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Sacrifice. Sacrifice everything to get to the Top. Obviously if you want to be the number one, it will not be accomplished by sitting on the couch, scrawling on instagram of tiktok, watching TV, playing video games (unless you are a pro player) or just thinking you will change the world without taking actions, and never execute your ideas.

Sacrifices will be necessary for you if you want to create your company while you are still working on your W2 job. Sacrifices will be necessary if you want to become the #1 professional athlete. Sacrifices will be necessary if you want to rise and grow within your company, and become a leader there. But sacrifices must be taken every day and during years if you want to get to the Top. How many professional athletes we know, who were extremely talented, gifted to be the best in their sport, but after a time were not motivated enough, or lacking of commitment, thinking being on the Top should allow them to be comfortable. Pro cycling athlete Jan Ulrich, soccer player Ronaldinho, tennis player Marcos Bagdatis, and the list can get pages… So skilled, talented, won a lot of trophy, but could have been even greater. Do take a look at the mirror and define what you want in your life, want you want to achieve, and make the sacrifices for it and achieve greatness. It is 8am this morning, and I am already writing those words since 1hour, after having read and done my miracle morning routine. You need to work and commit daily!!!!

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And to make it even more successful, you need to get the right timing, because "only the right action at the right time will bring success."

Timing is key for a leader, you can be experienced having great skills, many followers who trust you, but if you take the right decision at the wrong moment, it will obviously be chaos, nightmare, or whatever terrible word to illustrate that. I love taking the example of sport to illustrate timing. What a better picture than the last seconds of NBA Finals with the Bulls. Each time Phil Jackson took the right decision, the right play, at the right time:

93 NBA Finals - Game 6 : 3pts of Paxson with 3x seconds to play

• 97 NBA Finals - Game 6 : 17 footer shot of Steve Ker with 5x seconds to play
• 98 NBA Finals - Game 6 : Jordan took a memorable 20 foot shot to give 1 point advantage with 5,2 seconds left to play. But Stockton missed the 3pts last shot for the win.

It was the 2nd 3pit for the Bulls, last MJ game for them, last Phil Jackson game for them. What a great timing!!! Definitely, you can tell me, they were the best players, team , coach, but they needed to be also together at the right place at the right time. Law of timing.

So you also must ask yourself when you will take a decision, will it be the right moment to take it? What would be the consequences of this decision or not taking it?

In that way you will certainly reduce the risk or increase the efficiency of the decision hoping you will have the same success of the Bulls.

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Scale will be the key for you to influence more and more people in your organization. It could be fearful to get such a huge goal, but it is necessary if you want to become a multiplier. Oe of my previous Managers, was indeed challenging me regarding my leadership and wanted to find ways to not only impact the 8x persons I was managing in my team, but also other people within our organization. This is challenging indeed, but this will be the only way to accelerate the changes of our organization. So question is : how was it possible to that?

Writing and educating myself to share with the most people I can is a part of the process. I think by sharing with you the more I can, showing you that educating yourselves and focus on your growth, impacting you to make changes in your life and giving you the envy, the will to help others. This is now one of my goals I want to pursue in my Life.

So now, look again into the mirror and ask yourself how will you be able to impact 1, 10, 1000, 1M, 1B people and give them also the envy to share their experience with again 1000, 100k, 1M, 1B people. You are the ones who will influence others. So start now.

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Legacy: after our ashes will be gone forever, what will remain of us? How will you have impacted the life of others to remain forever in this world? So think about what you are doing every day, what actions can you take to help other people, save our planet. Impact positively the life of others? The majority of us will probably not become Martin Luther King or Mother Teresa, but certainly some of you have the heart for it, you are just missing the motivation, the drive and commitment to do it. But all of us have the power to do something, to start to change ourself and then others, your spouse, your kids, your friends, your colleagues at work, your peers, your organization, your company. You have the power to do it.

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It reminded me one call with one of my Sales representative I managed only for few weeks, before she was promoted to another position. She told me I probably impacted strongly her life by offering her the book "Miracle Morning" of Hal Elrod. She had already started to implement the miracle morning processes and was immediately seeing the benefits in her motivation every day.

Damned I have felt that energized and motivated to empower other people, impact them in their life, to help them grow and develop. It gives me the envy to impact 1, 10, 1000, 1million, 1Billion people.

But the most important": What will you do?

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