Mark Sanborn
The Coffee with
Leaders Podcast
In this episode of Coffee with Leaders, Jamin Baxter and John Barrett talk with Chris Robinson. They discuss the importance of treating all people with respect and valuing others. Chris shares personal stories, including one about leaving a VIP room to interact with the audience. They also discuss Chris’s approach to reading and how it helps him solve problems in his life. Chris advises leaders to always have a book with them and use audio at higher speeds to consume more information. The conversation touches on topics such as failure, the leadership event called Exchange, and the importance of having hobbies as a leader. Chris Robinson discusses his current work and preparations for upcoming International Max Certifications, including revamping the certification process and creating a new online platform. He emphasizes the importance of being a John Maxwell Certified leader and encourages listeners to attend International Max Certifications. The conversation concludes with Chris sharing advice for leaders to be more intentional in pursuing their goals and visions.
Topics discussed
Leadership: (00:00:00 – 00:19:52)
In this episode of Coffee with Leaders, Jamin Baxter and John Barrett talk with Chris Robinson. They discuss the importance of treating all people with respect and valuing others. Chris shares personal stories, including one about leaving a VIP room to interact with the audience. They also discuss Chris’s approach to reading and how it helps him solve problems in his life. Chris advises leaders to always have a book with them and use audio at higher speeds to consume more information.Failure, learning from failure, hobbies, leadership development: (00:19:52 – 00:29:57)
During the meeting, the participants discussed various topics. One person talked about how failure has shaped their life and the importance of not letting failure stick to them. They also shared their experience with participating in a leadership event called Exchange and recommended others to attend it. The conversation also touched on the significance of having hobbies as a leader to provide an outlet and find balance in life. The importance of encouraging team members to have fun and pursue their own hobbies was also emphasized.International John Maxwell Certifications, preparation for upcoming events, revamping certification process, online platform development (00:29:58 – 00:34:49)
Chris Robinson, Executive Vice President of the John Maxwell team, discusses his current work and preparations for upcoming International Max Certifications. He mentions multiple talks he has to prepare for these events as well as revamping the certification process and creating a new online platform for the certified team. Chris emphasizes the importance of being a John Maxwell Certified leader and encourages listeners to attend International Max Certifications. The conversation ends with Chris sharing advice for leaders to become more intentional in pursuing their goals and visions. The hosts express their gratitude and admiration for Chris’s wisdom and inspiration. They conclude by promoting their YouTube page and podcast.
Potential actions
Explore legacybc.net for information about their services and offerings.
Emphasize the importance of treating all people well and valuing their contributions.
Adopt a personalized approach to reading by focusing on specific problems and passions rather than general recommendations.
Consider implementing the concept of “grow on the go” in our work.
Embrace failure as a learning opportunity and not let it hinder progress.
Cultivate failure and learn from it rather than constantly starting over.
Explore a hobby for stress relief and enjoyment.
Encourage team members to prioritize hobbies and find a work-life balance.
Emphasize the importance of intentional choice and daily actions to move towards personal goals and dreams.
Transcript
Thank you for joining us for this episode of Coffee with Leaders. It’s the podcast about Leaders for Leaders, sponsored by legacy business consultants, improving employee performance development and engagement. You can find all the information about legacy business consultants at legacybc.net and your social media channel of choice.
Welcome. My name is Jamin Baxter and I’m joined with one of the best in the business. He’s a leadership office. He’s a coach, he’s a speaker and he’s been helping people across the world level up their leadership for the last 20 years. Mr John Barrett. Welcome my friend. Thank you.
It’s good to be here. I’m excited to be a part of coffee with leaders today.
We’re gonna have coffee and good conversation today, John, I don’t know about you, but there’s been times I’ve been in conferences, I’ve been watching things on social media seminars, virtual things.
And I’ve thought if I could just talk to that person. Yeah, I could just spend a second, not a second, a half hour, 45 minutes. I take a second, a cup of coffee with that person just to pick their brain. Have you ever felt that way.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, we hear speakers and presenters from the stage that are kind of giving their talk and, you know, it’s polished and it’s good, it’s great stuff. But to be able to sit down in the trenches with them and just talk real life and behind the scenes would be invaluable. So that’s what this is all about is getting kind of behind the curtain and getting some raw, just conversational content from people.
And I think it’s gonna be really helpful for us, John, when we were talking about who we wanted our first guest to be on coffee with leaders.
There wasn’t a doubt in our mind. The very first person we thought of was Chris Robinson. I want to tell you a little bit about Chris. Chris is the founding partner of the Maxwell Leadership Certified team. He’s the executive vice president, which is over leading 40,000 speakers, coaches and trainers. He’s an international speaker and he’s currently the executive vice president of the Maxwell Entrepreneur Solutions. Welcome to the Table, Mr Chris Robinson.
Oh my goodness. I tell you what, what an honor to be the very first guest on the show, you know. So thank you. I mean, that’s a big deal when you’re coming out to the world and you are asking for a very first guest. I mean, I get that privilege. Nobody else gets to be the first.
We’re so thankful that you agreed to do this. So we’ve talked a little bit about in our, in our preshow teasers about why we’re doing this. You want to talk about that?
First, John, our framework is our mentor, Dr John C Maxwell, talks about just leaders being prepared when you’re with people and to really glean as much as you can from them and we want to do that. And so John has a framework of seven questions that he talks about that he asks every time he sits down with leaders so that he can just glean from them.
And that’s our framework here. So we want to go through some questions with you, Chris kind of, this is a conversation, just kind of behind the scenes, raw kind of conversation.
We’re just gonna kind of go through and let you just kind of unload some of those answers to us and we’ll kind of unpack those as we go and oh yeah, but let me get a little bit of preface here because of these questions that you’re getting ready to ask.
I’ve seen John ask these firsthand at dinner. John Maxwell is one of the absolute very best at actually being more interested than interesting. And he does that by asking questions and the thing that you have to know about questions that the quality of the questions that you ask determine the quality of the answers that you get, but it also qualifies you or disqualifies you for certain relationships. And so this framework of questions that you’re getting ready to ask me, I, I’ve
seen firsthand and I’m telling you, I’ve seen John have a table many, many times over and over again in the palm of his hand because he’s just asking questions, asking questions and you’ll be surprised at a dinner table with John. Very rarely do you get John talking? He’s asking questions and people walk away going, man. I feel good. John is the best and he didn’t say a thing. He didn’t say a thing.
I love it. What I, I love that about him that he’s not, he doesn’t make himself the center of attention. He makes them whoever he’s with and the center of attention, it’s all about him.
He really does.
That’s awesome.
Chris. First question. What is the greatest lesson that you’ve ever learned in your life?
Yeah. The greatest lesson that I’ve ever learned I really think is about consistency. And if I had to boil that down to a a people aspect, it’s treat all people well because you never know who they’ll become because of consistency. And so over my years, I’ve watched, I’ve seen people that were low on the totem pole become high on the totem pole.
And how you treat people at a low level will determine how far you can go at a high level. And so if I look back at the greatest level, something that I’ve really learned is treating adults like adults and people like people and treating people like how they’re go where they’re gonna be versus where they are because you do not, you do not know who’s gonna become that next person.
As I’ve gone throughout my career as a coach, you know, I would be inside of organizations and I would be working with the leadership teams and I’ll be working with some aspiring leaders and some aspiring people that are high potential in the organization. And then what would happen is they would get disrespected, they would get fired, they would get put in wrong shifts and, you know, a year or two later, sure enough, what happened is I’d get a call and say, Chris, I remember how you
treated me, then I own this company now or I’m in this position now. I’d like to have you come in and that always taught me over this past decade. It’s just like treat all a ll all people well because you never know who they’ll become.
That’s good. I love it. I, you know, that reminds me and I may butcher this. There was a great story years ago where a professor was in a group of with this class and teaching them and I think they were aspiring leaders and that, and they had been learning all these principles and at the end of it, at the end of the test, at the final exam he said, and this, this is what your grade is going to be dependent on. And the question was, who was the janitor here in the facility?
And, and the whole, the whole thing was, you know, kind of an illustration of as a leader, you’ve got to be aware of everyone and everyone has value. And so, you know, it was just a lesson that they never forgot. And that, and, and I love that Chris, what you said, just valuing people, right? That’s our motto, right? Is to value others, add value to them. So that’s great wisdom.
Yeah, and valuing people again like the janitor that not are in a position of power or not in a position or in a position that could help you. And I’ve seen John Model this again firsthand. I’ve spent a lot of time with John over the years and I’ve seen John Model this firsthand. when we play golf, you know, typically at a golf course, who would you tip? You guys? Give me some examples of who you would tip at a golf course.
The caddy, maybe I was gonna say the caddy, the person, the person at lunch.
Yeah, perhaps. Yeah, that’s it. Now again, I’ve seen John Maxwell value all people. We will be on a hole. There’s a guy cutting the grass, he’ll walk over, pull out his pocket hand, the guy cutting the grass $100 saying, man, thank you for keeping this place so incredible. This place look great without you. And it’s just, again, you can go to the guy that’s cleaned the cart.
You can go to, anybody out there, the guy to clean the car. Hey, Joe has been here for so many years. Chris Joe always does a great time serving us and I mean, he just encourages and edifies Joe and Joe is just feeling great and, he’s just done it for nominal job of adding value to all people, not just people who are customarily supposed to add value.
And I’m, I’m curious, Chris in your life of, you know, that greatest lesson that you’ve kind of learned was that natural to you or was there kind of a moment in your life where that turned on where you saw that?
Yeah. Well, so you learn things two ways, it’s either taught or it’s taught. And so I think it was a combination of both about reading on adding value to people and all people. You know, if you go back to how leaders gain respect, it’s, you know how individual treats how a leader treats those that are not in position. I remember reading that and going man that really opened up the thought of adding value to all people. But then also having models in my life life where I’ve seen tangible
examples of how you treat the A V person, how you treat the person behind the camera. Right now. That’s recording you guys, you know, hey, shout out to a man back there. I don’t know your name but Mike. Mike, it’s not happening without you. These guys are good but they’re, they’re no good without you, Mike. OK. And so I think it’s a combination of it being taught and it being caught of how that became truly a part of my life.
That’s good. I love it. That’s so good. Yeah, that’s II I love hearing those stories about John and even even your own experience, but just seeing that example of valuing people and always acknowledging them, not dropping our head and missing an opportunity to value people and to recognize their input. Love it.
Yeah, let me go. Let me go one more on that example because I really want people to catch this because this is a big deal as a leader. People are watching how you treat other people. There was an event that I got to go speak at in Long Beach California. It was inside an arena over 5000 people inside this arena. I mean, I was so excited to be speaking at this event.
This was a big deal. Well, I go back stage where they have this incredible VIP room for the speakers and the top people of this organization. I mean, they’ve got shrimp, they’ve got ice sculptures, they’ve got steak, they’ve got the whole shebang back here. And I say to my host I was like, oh man, this is awesome. This is great. I look around and I said, hey, I wanna go out there and I want to meet the people.
And so I’m walking around this arena, I go around the bottom bowl and I’m just shaking hands. People don’t know who I am. And I’m Chris Robinson. I wanna be a speaker but they, they don’t know who I am. I’m shaking hands with everybody. I go around the lower bowl and I’m like, hey, let’s go to the, the center bowl. I go around to the, the second level right there and I’ve still got time and, and I said, man, I’m looking at the very top rafter back there and I said, hey, let’s go back, let’s go
up to the very top. And I wanted to shake hands up there. So I go around the whole bowl, shaking hands in the very top row. These people have no idea that in three minutes, I’m getting ready to be on the stage and we got to the third level and we’re going back down to the elevator. My cup is just filled because I’ve just got a chance to interact with the people. And the lady and the gentleman that are hosting me and follow me around are both in tears. I said, hey, what’s wrong? I said, Chris, we
have been doing and hosting people at this event for over 20 years. You are the first speaker that has ever left the VIP room to go and reach the people. Wow. And their respect, their, my influence had grew significantly in what it is because, you know, again, I’ve been around a lot of speakers, a lot of big names and sometimes there’s a gap between who they are on stage and who they are offstage. And I close that gap for them because of that, of adding value to all people. I love it.
Well, I think that speaks to also you being our first guest on here. Well, I’ve met you, but you probably wouldn’t recognize me. You’re right. I mean, it’s been a long time ago and, and we call and we say Chris, it would mean a lot if you would be our first guest and you’re giving us your time right now to make a difference for us in this podcast, right?
Hey, I know where this podcast is going. This is gonna be a number one podcast on the list. This is gonna be a top of the line,
your, your lips to God’s ears, brother. Hey, Chris, I’ve sat in some, in some, seminars with you and you’ve talked about how much you read. What, how much do you read right now?
Oh, my goodness. I don’t even know. It’s not something that I track. I think when you’re trying to develop the habit, there’s like a kick out of, hey, I’ve read a book, a week or a book a month. And, and I remember, man, when I thought, man, if I could read a book a month, that would be incredible. I thought, oh, I would be on top of it. But then I got around people that were reading, a book a week and I was like, man, 52 books in a year.
But how do I figure that out? I got to that level and then I got around people that said, yeah, I read about the equivalent of a book a day. And I’m going, man, how do you do that? And so what happened was the biggest shift in my reading life really came where I stopped asking people what they read and I begin to ask people how they read and that changed everything for me because I don’t know about you.
But we probably all have asked a question. We get around someone of success and say, hey, what would be a great book that I should read? And then what they do is you could say all these books are great, right? But if I pull out this book right now, Patrick’s and I say the advantage is the book right now, you may go and say, hey, Chris is a successful person.
If Chris read the advantage, he said I should read the Advantage and you go and read it. Now, the dilemma is, is that this book, the essence could be a great book. There’s a great book, but it may not apply directly to your life. And so I begin to shift how I read. I begin to read in two areas of my life, in my problems, and in my passion, in my problems and then my passion.
And then what that did was that allowed for me to filter books instead of just getting a recommendation, I would now ask them for a recommendation, specific topic, which would be a problem for my passion. And so now when I’m reading through the books, I moved through them a whole lot faster because it’s helping me solve something in my life versus getting the book trying to figure out how it correlates to my life because I, I, you know, John said it was a good book, John’s successful.
So I need to read this book and then I never get through it because I can’t find that direct application. But to answer the question, I really don’t know. I, I would say on average maybe two per week. if I’m really trying to get through something or learn something, I mean, I could do maybe 234 in a day. you know, on a weekend with the kids and I’ve got the time and I can just kind of jam through them.
I was setting that up to ask you, what are you learning right now? What are you reading now?
Yeah. Yeah. That’s a great question right now. What I’m reading right now is a book right here. I’ll pull this up by Juliette Font. Juliette Font is actually one of our keynote speakers at an upcoming event. And we just recently had her at speak for us internally as an organization. And the only reason I opened up to this book because again, I mean, they’re in problems or passion, but this is all about creating space in your life so that you can do more.
This had a little bit different twist on not time management because initially, when they told me, hey, Chris Juliette is gonna be speaking for her. She’s gonna be working with this. And I was like, it’s a time management book is what they told me. I was like, no, no, I’m a time management machine. I don’t need that right now.
It’s not a problem or a passion right now. Right. Right. Right.
And so, but then, you know, she talked about, you know how bridging time and creating gaps. And I was like, oh, yeah, well, that’s a problem that I do have is that I don’t create margin. I burn through my days. And so this book is on my list for this weekend to get through. And we took her, we had a keynote with her and A Q and A with her two days ago. So that was next up for me.
And then also I continue to read on communication. I’m out on the road right now doing some city tour events and getting ready. Over the next six weeks, I go to Romania, I go to Panama, I go to Chicago, I go to just came out of Houston to Atlanta. And then in Orlando and John’s got a new book out the 16 Laws of Communication. So gutting that book.
But then also taking another course on speaking and continue to just enhance my communication skills because again, that’s a passion and something that I want to get better. At every time I see John Maxwell, I gotta go back to the drawing board and go man. This guy is just too good. I mean, what am I doing with my life?
Oh, that’s good. I love it. You know, I think there’s a lot of leaders. I, I’d be curious, Chris just like a small nugget of advice or what would you say to a leader that says I want to read, I wanna grow, I want to develop that. They, they know that but they’re just having a hard time finding the time, kind of like you said, making the space for it. What would you just tell a leader that’s struggling to really develop themselves to actually take the time to do it?
Yeah. Well, there’s a, there’s a method I teach. I actually did a, a whole webinar on how to read, because I came up with kind of my own reading system of how I get through content. I can give you two things from it that would help anybody today. the first method is what I call Ahab. And that is always have a book. Always have a book. Ok. Now, for me, I’m a hardcover book guy.
I love hardcover books. Got a map library in my house. I gotta have it because I like to write it in. I like to jot it in, but it’s always have a book and when you always have the book with you at all times in the car, at the baseball game at the practice, if you always have the book instead of picking this up and you pick this up, what it, what’s amazing is that 23 pages at a time in those gaps of times instead of scrolling adds up big time if you always have a book and so in the car you’re away and
you’re stuck. I mean, you just, you’re sitting in the parking lot, hey, if you’ve always got it with you, you’ll find the time. So it’s filling those gaps with this. Instead of filling those gaps with this could be a big difference maker. The second way to get through content. Now, this is not a opt out or a cop out for reading, but a way to consume more information is through audio and not just audio at regular speed, but there’s a little button down there.
If you look at one X two X three X is progressively work your way up in the speed of which the audio is played. And so that, that way you can consume more information. So I play everything on double speed, 2.5. So that way it gets through it. Now, initially you click straight up to double speed, you’re gonna go this, this sounds crazy, but your mind is actually strong enough to retain about 500 words per minute.
And the average person speaks at about 100 and 20 to 100 and 50 words per minute. And so as you build that muscle, you’ll be able to consume more information. But that would be two quick ways for leaders to consume more information.
I love it. That’s such good advice. I love ahab. I love that. I’m gonna use that here. I’m gonna throw an idea at you. Copy. I know, I know but hey, I’m gonna get back to you Chris real quick right here. I’m gonna give you a concept. I’ve been thinking about this and that but hey, you can steal it, you can have it because you’re awesome. Here it is. Grow on the go, grow on the go, right? So as you’re going be growing, so grow on the go. So anyway, right there. So I love it.
That’s so good though, Chris, you’ve had a lot of ups in life.
You’ve had a lot of downs in life as we all have. It’s human nature. Right. That’s just life.
But how has failure shaped your life, man?
That, that’s shaped everything. you know, I think about, you know, it’s been the best gift and the hardest thing to deal with in life. But I think back to a time when I had just came out of a very successful career as a, a sales manager, I had a really great job, started making a six figure income at the age of 21. And I did really well thought I had the modest touch and, you know, I went out and started my own business and it failed.
I mean, life corrected me. I’m going, oh man. But I had stepped out and I knew I’d had that desire inside of me. But I had to make a choice at that point in time. That choice was either to go back to a job that I was comfortable with and knew that I could earn a good living at or I can continue to stay out as an entrepreneur. But I would have to give up some things.
So I had to give up some things. I, I gave up a Hummer, a BMW, a house that I had built from scratch and that I had constructed. And, but what I realized in that was two different things. Number one is that I decided that I was not going to care what my path to success looked like to anyone else. And that’s one of the greatest things that holds people back is, you know, and, and their fear of failing isn’t actually the fear of actually failing.
It’s the fear of what other people will think or say because of their failure. But I decided that I’m not gonna care with anybody else’s, you know, thought of my path to success looks like. And that gave me the strength and the resolve to move forward. But also in that scenario, I had to realize that if I held on to all those things that I built in my twenties, that was gonna be my pinnacle.
But if I let go of it, that stuff would be my stepping stone. And I can tell you, man, I’ve just stepped right on a boat, that stuff that I had when I was in my twenties, ok? But and I’ve just failed time and time again, but I’ve learned over time that failure has nothing to do with me. It’s a result, not the result. And so just because I had got a result, great. That’s good news. I could tweak a result, whether the result was good or whether the result was bad is irrelevant because now I
actually got a result to be able to ask better questions, to be able to go a different direction, to be able to know that, hey, that didn’t work out. So getting very comfortable and familiar with failure but not letting the stick to so failure. I mean, it shaped me significantly and I’m still doing it day by day.
That is so good.
I love it. I love that statement you just made with not letting it stick to you and you know, taking the lessons that you learned. But, but you know, kind of like be greased up enough in your perspective that it just kind of rolls off of you, you extract, you know what you need to learn, but you, you don’t let it stick. I think that’s such a powerful statement you just made.
And I think there’s a lot of people that the reason that they’re not seeing the fruit of failure is because they’re allowing it to stick and not just learn and let it slide off of them and then they walk away from their harvest.
And so, in another analogy is that what people do is they, they take this seed, they try something, they, they plant that seed, it fails or doesn’t get the result that they want. They get a result but not the result that they want. And then what they do, they don’t cultivate that failure. That seed they go off, they get brand new seeds, start all over again.
And that’s what has people going crazy and stuck where they’re at is because they just keep planting different seed, different seed. No No, no, no. Just plant the seed, cultivate it. It’s seed, it’s time and then there’s a harvest. But, oh, we get antsy in the time period because we don’t see the full result of what it is that we want it.
All right, Chris, what have you done that our listeners should do.
Oh, that is a great question. There’s a lot of different things that I’ve done that. I think people should do. one, you know, and again, I won’t spend too much time on this. But if you have not played pickle ball, you need to play.
I love my kids and I have just started talking about starting to play pickleball 100% addicted to pickle ball.
It’s given me a sport in my forties that I can compete at and I love and I mean, I am a certified teaching pro. I am all in for pickleball. If you haven’t played football, you can do that. But from a learning experience, you know what? You should, something I’ve done that you should do. There’s an event that John Maxwell host called Exchange. It’s a three day leadership experience event where it’s an immersive experience where you’re with top leaders from around the world.
It’s a smaller group, probably about 100 15 people at most. And you go to places and have leadership experiences with John Maxwell in cities where you get to do things that you could not do on your own hands down, you know, through those events, I’ve got a chance to meet a president through those events. I’ve got a chance to go in backdoors and places and private events with singers and artists or a small group of 100 that sell out stadiums that we’re getting right there.
And it truly has been an impactful event that has just raised the level of my thinking in terms of the environment that I’m immersed in, as well as the people that I’ve been around in those events. Just absolutely amazing. So that would be another thing I would that I would say, hey, check out exchange if you’ve never heard of that event before, changes already, you haven’t because it sells out pretty close to some out as soon as the event’s over.
I was gonna, I’m sorry, I was gonna ask where people could find that information at.
So that’s on Maxwell leadership dot com and then check, click on events. There’s probably six or seven spots left for the event this year, which is in Las Vegas, which would be interesting. So
what happened today is in,
that’s good, Chris. I, I wanna kind of go back to, you know, the pickleball thing, which that’s awesome. I love pickleball. Let me ask you this. I mean, what is the importance of hobbies in a leader’s life? I mean, having that outlet. I mean, you know, there’s a lot of leaders again, kind of going back to the reading but they’re so busy.
They’re, they’re stressed. You know, we find ourselves kind of a long day and we come home and we just wanna kind of vegetate because there’s so much stress problems. How impactful, how important is it to have hobbies in there as a leader.
Yeah, it’s critical. This was a failure that I had for, for years. I lied to myself for seven years while building my business as a coach speaker and trainer that I was not allowed to have fun. And it hit me because I, I love golf as well too. And so it was at an event that I was at and people were asking me questions and I got the same question three times.
The question was Chris, what do you do for fun? That my answer was I speak, I coach, I train, I read like that’s what I do. I, hey, my blinders are on. I don’t do anything else. If I’m not coaching. If I’m not speaking, I’m reading it everything else like that was fun to me like that was my fun because I thought, man, I don’t have time to do any of these things, you know, at that time, I wasn’t playing pickleball, but I love golf.
And when I had talked about that moment of letting go stuff, I haven’t even let go of my golf clubs. I sold my golf clubs to continue on my dream. I’d let that go. And I thought that, hey, I couldn’t do that until I had established this. But then after getting that question three times at an event and I had wrote it down, in, in one of my notebooks, I was asked three times at this event.
What do I do for fun? And I could not answer it. And that’s when I decided that every single day I’m going to do something that incorporates something that I love. And at that time, you know, it was ok. Well, I can’t go out and play golf every day, but hey, I can put in my office every day. I may have time to go to the driving range three times a week. I may get to play one time a week that led to me being able to play and do something with golf six days a week.
Now with pickle ball, you know, I probably play four times a week and then I’ll play golf now, maybe once a month, where I’m getting out there because pickle ball just has me consumed, but it is critical, as an outlet and just critical growth have that outlet.
Yeah, I love it. I love that question. that you were asked, what, what are you doing for fun or what do you do for fun? And I, I would encourage leaders that are listening to this. Not only ask yourself that question, what, what do you do for fun? And make sure you’ve got an answer but be a mentor to others and other people, you know, that you’re leading in, in your organization, your team, they may have their nose to the grid stone working hard obviously and, and doing that.
But ask them, hey, what are you doing for fun? And I think as a leader, you know, it’s, it’s not just about production, but it’s about people and developing people. And I think that question there can help them kind of find some balance in their life, kind of like that did for you. That’s good.
Yeah, I think it’s important to also give the people that we lead the opportunity to have to say it’s ok to go out and have fun. It’s ok to, to let your hair down and have that hobby and it’s not, you know, as a leader, I don’t get to do that just because of the position I hold. I get that because I’m intentional about it and give them the motivation to be intentional about it as well. Chris, what are you working on right now?
What am I working at right now? Working on right now? Yeah. Speaking, you know, right now we getting prepared for several IM CS, which is our International Max Certifications. we have two in Romania that I’m going to, leave for next week and then we have our big one in Orlando, in August. And so it’s a lot of preparation on the different talks that I have to do for all these events that are coming up. They’re not too far out of the line. They’re not out of my scope where I’m creating brand
new talks, but there’s intentional improvement that has to occur in tweaking. And so really, that’s where my time and focus has been. And then as, as well as redeveloping and redefining the certification process for Maxwell leadership and what that looks like to be required to be certified on the team. And so revamping that whole system as well as working on a brand new online platform for the certified team. And there’s just so much that we’re trying to do. That’s a lot.
And the, you know, there’s five of us on staff at Legacy and we all are John Maxwell Certified and the difference that it makes going to I MC I remember my first one, the doors open. I mean, the beats are thumping, there’s balloons everywhere, people standing on chairs waving what number tables and stuff like that. And I, and I was by myself and I remember thinking, what did I get myself into as soon as I got to the table? It was like, I knew these people my entire life.
I literally felt from the very beginning like I was a part of a family. And, and so if you aren’t a John Maxwell Certified leader, you need to check it out. You need to go to I MC. It’s gonna make a difference in your life, you know. And like we said, at the beginning, you were the, you were in the second class. Chris was in the first class and I don’t even know what class I was in. But I got, I got that coin. I loved that coin that I got too. So it was awesome.
No, that’s great. I love it. Chris, it’s been so good just to hear Just, I, I took just some notes about things that you said that I I’m just gonna run with and that I love it. Just one of the things that kind of stuck out. So we so appreciate you one last kind of thing. You know, you, you talked about that problem and passion and you know, finding resources that kind of fit there so that you’re focused on there.
I, I would ask you just when we think about our listeners kind of coming down the home stretch here, what’s one thing that’s kind of on your heart right now that you would just say here’s what I would want to share with leaders and, you know, one minute or something like that to those that are listening. What would you say to them just today?
Yeah. You know, when it comes to, when you look at your life right now and you’re asking yourself, you know, where do I want to be or are you satisfied with where you are in that life right now? And the vast majority of people would say no, I want more, I want more of something. I want more of a better relationship. I want more relationship with my kids. I want more satisfaction inside my workplace. And if you want to become, if you want to have more, you have to become more and nothing’s
going to change unless you change. And so for every single person out there that’s listening, you know, the path to where you wanna go is an intentional choice. It’s an intentional choice to every single day that ends in day to do something to move towards your goal, your dream and vision to become the person worthy of the lifestyle that you want. And so I’d encourage you no matter where you are in life right now, be encouraged, your best days are ahead of you.
I love it. If you want more, become more. Absolutely. Drop the mic. That was good.
I love my friends right there. Chris Robinson, executive vice president of the John Maxwell team. Thank you so much for your time. Thanks for being our first guest.
Yeah, so good to have you, Chris. We appreciate all your nuggets of wisdom and hopefully our listeners, if they were drinking coffee or whatever it was, they were able to glean some great truth there and be intentional just like you said, live it out.
That’s what we’re all about with coffee with leaders is to be able to help equip them, value them and give them whatever they need. Chris, you are the man. You are so inspiring. So awesome. We again, so appreciate you here today. Thank you.
Thank you Chris John. What a great interview. I was so excited when we had the opportunity to interview Chris Robinson.
Yeah, that was great. So many great nuggets from Chris and the John Maxwell team is literally changing the world. So it was such an honor to have Chris on here and just to learn from him and to Glean from his miss them and just his success and what he’s done. So that was awesome. Absolutely.
I look forward to the other interviews that we have scheduled. Hey, if you like this, subscribe to our youtube page, tell your friends about it. The podcast is available anywhere where podcasts are available. See you next time.
