Tag Archives: John Maxwell

Spring Leadership 2011 in Review

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Wow, I’m constantly amazed at how World Wide Group does things and this year’s Spring Leadership was phenomenal as was the last.  The most impactful things for me this year was John Maxwell’s talk on “Developing Teams – The Laws of Teamwork” and the non-denominational service on Sunday morning that is also led by John Maxwell.  There were a lot of great talks by upline Diamonds as well as Double Eagle Rubies (of which our direct sponsors/coaches were speaking) that were there to teach, uplift, motivate and inspire everyone. 

I know I speak a lot of John Maxwell, so much my wife likes to think I have a man crush on him.  He’s an amazing leader, teacher, inspirational speaker, preacher, and best of all he endorses what we do with World Wide Dreambuilders, that is very awesome.  I’ve been reading so many of his books over the last few months and with each book I absorb so much however nothing is as impactful as seeing him live and getting to meet him in person while getting a few books signed. 

This Leadership could not have come at a better time as it gets you fired up, motivated, inspired to move on and help our team move on as well so they can reach whatever goals they have.  I’m excited to take the teaching from John on Laws of Teamwork and apply them to our business and to our team.  We are very fortunate to have such an amazing person to tap into as I’m sure it would cost much much more to get this kind of teaching from him on our own.

Some good quotes from John were:

“The greatest gap between successful and unsuccessful people is the way they think”

"You are responsible for your attitude” Duh! So many people don’t realize this however.

“People with great attitudes have a teachable spirit”

One thing I did not know about John Maxwell and his organization Equip with the help of World Wide Dreambuilders, is they were the first organization on the scene of the Polish Political Tragedy to help with the massive loss of leadership.  They were in there helping out with the lack of leadership and equipping the leaders left over for the crisis and how to help rebuild what was lost.  That’s pretty damn impactful and I’m proud to be part of an organization that helps out in that way.

There was so much more at this event that I could go on and on, but the only way to take in the full experience is to actually go and find out for yourself.  Looking forward to next year’s already!

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John Maxwell and Me

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John Maxwell at Sunday Service
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John Maxwell Speaking the First Night

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Nameless person (cause I don’t have his permission to post him) and Me sitting on the floor looking back at the venue

Spring Leadership 2011

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Spring Leadership 2011 is almost here and we are getting the final touches on organizing all the bus’s that are heading down to Spokane from Edmonton and Calgary.  I know last year there was 14 bus’s, this year I’ve heard 18 or 20 bus’s. I won’t know until after Spring Leadership but that’s growth for sure in this market,  even if it was one or two bus’s more than last year.

I love Spring Leadership more than any other major function because for one it was my first official major function as a business builder.  However what I like the most about Spring Leadership is exactly that, Leadership.  I’ve always been surrounded by leadership and as I grew up in school and hockey I was always a leader and took on that role.  It just came natural to me I guess and probably one of the reasons why I’m involved with World Wide Dreambuilders today.  Sticking with the theme of leadership, John Maxwell who is world renowned as the foremost expert on Leadership just happens to speak not once but twice at our function.  Then for those who decide to come to the optional non-denomination service on Sunday will hear him preach which for those who have never heard him preach is pretty amazing.  I can tell you the cost of our function pales in comparison to what you’d have to pay to hear John Maxwell in any other leadership conference. 

Not only do we get to hear John Maxwell speak we get to hear our sponsor’s speak as Founders Double Eagle Ruby, which is THE hardest pin to reach within Amway (Founders Ruby).  They are one of the most consistent hard working people we’ve ever met and are setting a great example for us which we are on pace to achieve as well.  Lastly we get to hear our new Edmonton Emeralds speak along with many other successful people within this amazing organization that is World Wide Dreambuilders.

Two more days and we will be on the convoy of bus’s that will hammer the Spokane area with fired up people taking ownership of their lives and getting around success minded individuals.  Its more than I can say for any other ordinary weekend that would happen otherwise.

 

JohnMaxwellTwitter

John Maxwell’s public tweet from last

Sunday at Spring Leadership Las Vegas

Possibility Thinking

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We got back earlier today from Saskatoon where our new Emeralds Dean and Marcie Whalen did their very first regional in the test market of Saskatoon.  Saskatoon is booming right now and because of that World Wide Group has decided to test it out with a regional.  I’ve never heard Dean teach or do a boardplan so that was one of my biggest reasons for going, I wanted to get around one of the fastest moving leaders in World Wide Dreambuilders.  The way Dean teaches and talks with such boldness yet everything is from the heart is pretty cool, definitely took some nuggets away from Saturday that I’ll be applying to our business.  Dean and Marcie are perfect examples of possibility thinking which leads me into the topic of my discussion and just happens to be backed up by one of John Maxwell’s great books “Thinking for a Change – 11 ways Highly Successful People Approach Life and Work”.

I just happen to be reading this John Maxwell book right now and I’m getting a ton out of it, the biggest chapter that really hit me this week was called ‘Feel the Energy of Possibility Thinking’.  There is a section in this chapter that discusses how to have possibility thinking working for you and they are:

  1. Stop Focusing on the Impossibilities
  2. Stay Away from the “Experts”
  3. Look for Possibilities in Every Situation
  4. Dream One Size Bigger
  5. Question the Status Quo
  6. Find Inspiration from Great Achievers

All six of these are pretty self explanatory on their own and really make sense if you put them into practice.  If you want more details on those you need to go buy the book but I’ll summarize a few in my own words and also some of what I took out of last night as well.

We tend to always focus on the impossibilities, those “wish”, “maybe”, “hope”, or “can’t”.  We pretty much need to remove these words from our vocabulary.  I hear all the time that people wish for this or that, how about put a plan of action together and go out and get it.  Stop leaving things to chance and grab control of your life and just DO IT!  Nothing is impossible if you think with success, pick up this book or any other success books and you’ll see I’m not making this up. 

Negativity, oh this is a fun one.  We’ve had a few postings and some great “discussion” on this before as well as on other sites out there on the interwebs.  Removing the negativity from your life isn’t something that comes from “Amway” or from “World Wide Dreambuilders”, it’s a bloody success principal.  Half the books I’ve read all talk about negativity and removing it from your speech, your thoughts, and removing it from your association.  I get a kick out of people who say “we” teach people to stop all negative thoughts and so on and so forth.  We didn’t make it up, pick up a book and read it yourself, as I said it’s a success principal.  Negativity is something you can control, you control what you read, listen to and associate with, if it’s negative get away from it and or dismiss it and move on.  If you happen to be in a negative situation why not try and find the positive in it, there always is.  See successful people don’t dwell on or associate with negative things or people and that goes for all walks of life be it building this business, building a traditional business, working for a business or just hanging out with people.

Dreaming bigger, I love this one yet its the hardest one to do.  You actually need to constantly work at your dream muscle because for the most part people don’t dream big enough, we dream small.  Get out to events like the Edmonton Boat & Sportsmen’s Show, or the upcoming Edmonton Motorshow and check out the high end cars and boats.  Work the dream muscle and start opening up your brain to possibilities.

"Make your plans as fantastic as you like, because 25 years from now they will seem mediocre. You will wonder why you did not make them 50 times as great"
— Henry Curtis

Set huge dreams and goals, even if you don’t think they are possible (remember this is about possibility thinking so anything is possible), if you do it will cause you to grow in ways to achieve what it is you want.  This kinda takes me back to a post I wrote during the 2010 Summer Blogging Challenge about dream stealers.  Who cares what others think about your dreams, fight for your own dreams.

Keep the “Possibility Thinking” at the forefront and you’ll be a heck of a lot more successful than if you are always saying it “can’t be done” or any other negative connotation words.  Again these are success principals that we apply to our life and just one of the many things we love teaching to our team.  It’s not something we made up, but it’s something we apply because we are inspired buy great achievers in our lives both in this business and outside this business.

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Your Association

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Don’t take my word for it, check out John Maxwell’s teaching on your association.  If you want to succeed in specific areas of your life, make sure you surround yourself with people that have those things, surround yourself with greatness.  Great teaching here from John Maxwell, just one great resource that we in World Wide Dreambuilders get to tap into during Spring Leadership coming up in April.  Cannot wait to hear what he has to say there. 

On another note, I highly doubt someone like John Maxwell would put his integrity and reputation at risk by associating with World Wide Dreambuilders, you know considering he’s the worlds greatest teacher on Leadership.  But what does John know eh?

 

“Birds of a feather flock together”

Conferences and Motivation

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TENA2011_L_AttendingToday I booked myself into the Microsoft Tech-Ed 2011 conference in Atlanta later this spring.  This comes on the eve of Spring Leadership and had me reflecting again on the value of World Wide Dreambuilders functions. Now every company I’ve worked for has either sent me on optional conferences that I’ve asked for to help increase my knowledge or has sent me to motivational events also that I’ve asked for.  There have also been some mandatory courses and training that I’ve been on because the company has their own view of where I fit into their corporate training plan.

All of this corporate training and conferences that I’ve been on have all been worthwhile and while some of it’s applicable to what I do at work, some of it is not but I sit through it anyway.  You’ll never be able to apply everything that you learn in these events or retain everything you hear or see.  I believe the stat says you only retain 10% of what you read or hear.

I look at the motivational and teaching conferences that World Wide Group puts on and I get excited when tickets go on sale.  I get excited because I love the association and atmosphere of the whole event.  I have no idea what the numbers of attendees will be at Spring Leadership this year because there is a new function site out in Minnesota.  That’s a clear sign that people in World Wide Dreambuilders are growing.  Next year Canada will have their own function site I assume because of the amount of growth we are seeing.  I’m excited to hear John Maxwell teach on what he teaches best, Leadership.  After all it’s called Spring Leadership for a reason.  For those who don’t know who John Maxwell is, if you search for the top leadership guru’s you’ll find him at the top.  Check it out here –> Top 25 Leadership Guru’s.

Just to listen to John Maxwell speak for 20 minutes via a webinar in your city will cost you $90 dollars.  I know because when my wife was still working for those broke financial advisors that’s what it cost the company to send her to that event.  With that I take a look at the costs of what Microsoft Tech Ed is where there are some inspirational talks in regards to IT as well as a lot of training in various Microsoft products.  The cost of that is $1,995 USD and after February jumps up to $2,195 USD.  The cost for Spring Leadership is $125. Pretty significant price difference and the value for me personally is 10x’s more in the $125 event that WWDB puts on.  I’m not including travel or hotel costs because that’s a given for each scenario.

Many will say “oh well your company pays for your expenses”, yeah your right they do. But guess what, my business I’m building with my wife also pays for my expenses.  I’m very cost conscious and so is this group in Alberta, so with that in mind we organize coach bus’s to minimize the travel costs so people don’t have to fly or drive themselves.  That is a significant cost savings which helps our newest business builder SPLwhich is always the focus, how can we make this affordable for the newest business owner?

Either way I see training, conferences, motivation the same if it’s my day time job, or my part time business.  I know I get more value out of WWDB events as they help move our business forward and help motivate us for the next three months.  We need motivation, every one does, so what’s so wrong with that?  Many people make some good money with motivational speaking and I’ll gladly pay for that if it gets me moving.