The second half of the first session was John Maxwell’s talk that was derived from his book, Put Your Dream To The Test. In it he goes over 10 questions that can help you truly achieve your dreams, as opposed to merely having them.
When I do these, I’m often struck as I look through them again at how much is lost in a transcription. There’s so much quality that is lost when I translate a presentation to text. Not even just the spelling errors! Anyway, I hope you guys get *some* value from it! Read on!
The guy who started all this was John Maxwell. he’s spokin in front of millions. I’ve known John for a few years. he’s tight wit the pastor at my church. Through their relationship I’ve gotten a chacne to meet John. It is a distinct pleasure today. Ladies and Gentlemen
9:40 (John Maxwell Video)
9:43How bout John Maxwell!!!
(John Maxwell)
That’s really the best interview I’ve ever done. Hopw you doing today> I’m so glad to be here. How many of you ahe a dream. Yea. You see, we all have a dream. It’s in common. And yet there’s somethign with a dream that’s almost as common as having the deam. That is not achieveing it. Isn’t that true? I haven’t yet achieved my dream. How many of you are on the dream journey but aren’t there yet. What I would like to talk to you for the next few minutes is that not only your dream, but how to achieve it. Almost all of us have one. If we don’t ahve one we’re looking for one. at the same time most of us haven’t achieved that dream.
I ask myself the question, why? Why are we not there yet? And I would like ot share with you from my newest book: put your dream to the test. This is my third attempt at the book. The first two times I scrapped the manuscirppt because IT houht itw as too hyp[ey. I thought “If this is so important that everyon has one, I’d like to write a book that is truly a roadmap.” And when I began this third attempt I was out in las vegas. Brad and Marcia eating dinner and I ask him about this and he said somethign that clicekd. The more valid reasons you ahve for achieving your dream, the igher the odds are that youw ill.
Let’s start there. I’ll repeat it because you didn’t all write it down. “The more valid reasons you have for achieving yoru dream. The higher the odds are that you will.” It’s foundational for what I’m going to teach this morning. “The more valid reasons you have for achieving your dream, the higher the odds are that you will.”
There’s a relationship between your values and the chance you’ll achieve it. Life is tough! The stuff gets knocked out of us. if we only have one reason somewhere ont he journey we’re going to stop. If I have a half dozen reasons then all of a sudden I may get one knocked off but I keep going because there are more reasons for our dream. As he said that I began to wite the book again. I began to write down questions. QUestions that are valid reasons for us to achieve our dream. i stated off with 23. Then I reduced it until I got to 10. Hence the title “Put your dream to the test.” All of us can remember. Think back to school. Remember the professor who would get up in the middle of the week and say we have a test on friday. i want you ton kow we’re going to have it on friday and I want you to review these. And you need to read these pages and this part of the chapter. What was that teacher doing? He was trying to set us up for success. No for me, it didn’t always work. What they were trying to do is this is going to be on the test and if you know it will do well. This is coming on the test. The 10 questions that I ask in the book (2 or 3 I cover with you) I am kind of like that teacher. I’m saying “My name is Jon and I’m your friend. There are some quesitons, that you’re going to have to ask yourself in your dream journey to show that you have valid reasons for pursuing the dream. It’s worth spending your time. The more affirmative you can answer that question. Are you ready?”
Question 1) Not in any order of priority: The ownership[ question. “Is My Dream REALLY My Dream?” It’s a great question. I smy dream really my dream? Now I as that first out of the list of 10 for a very simple reason. When we started dreaming, our dream wasn’t our dream. The first dreams we had as children highly probable that they were our parents dreams. How many of you have had your parents give you a dream. How many of you have had their parents say I think you can do this, I think you can do that. We bging in not woning our dream. it’s not bad, it’s good. As a parent I had dreams for our children. Th e only person worse than parents are grandparents. I could remember when my parents came ot me. I love this one. They looked ant me and said “John, we think you are musically gifted. And we would like for you to take piano lessons.” I said “Sure,” I had no idea if I was musically gifted or not. I went down half the block and began to take piano lessons. Within about a month Wayne Reno knew I was not musically gifted. I thoguht maybe Iw as OK or pretty good. And I did my piece and everyone was polite. And then Alaine Mosley got on the piano and did much better than me. I remember sitting there and thinking “John, tihs is not going to take you very far” My parents still thoguht iw as musically gifted. It took them years and friends. It wasn’t my dream, it was my parents! You can think abot dreams in your early years that were someone elses. We kind of grow up accepting other peoples dreams for our lifes. It feels natural for someone to suggest who we should be or what we should do. Maybe it’s not the parents, it could be the bst friend or the spouse or the person you work with. We become familiar with taking someone elses dream. The ownership question says time out. Stop. Is your dream really your dream?
You’re saying JOhn why is that so important? Why is it so important to me that I own this dream? Are you ready? Look at your neighbour and say “Get Ready For This.”
When you own your dream, you go from a believer to a buyer. You go from a person who believes in your dream to a person who believes in your dream to a buyer of your dream. Everything changes. If it’s not your dream you can hve it you can lose it. It’s very natural. You haven’t bought it. The moment you buy your dream everything changes. How you put yourself into that dream picture. There’s a difference between owning your car and renting it. When you rent a car you get it and head to your destination. You kind of abuse the car. You rented a car to get here and you’re abusing it. It’s not your car so you run it hard and park it anywhere. They can take it if they want. call the insurance company “Hey you lost a car!” Not one peson in this room not one person here has ever said to themselves “Omigoodness, I need to wash and wax this car!” You don’t get the car and wash and wax and buff that baby. You don’t pll back into the rental place and call the people over and say “Look at that car! It’s just beautiful!” could you take a picture of me with the car? Fact you can take some money off I did your job for you! Turn it around someone cna have it.
Why don’t you give that kind of care to the car? It’s not yours. Same way with the dream. When you and I fail to own our dream we’re not going to give that dream the care it needs to achieve it. I can tell when you own your dream. One of the first signs is the fact that you’ll bet on yourself. You’ll put the money down that you need to to buy it. It may be money, it could be time, it could be energy, it could be planning, it could be ideas. I promise you that if it’s your dream you will bet on ourself. I know all kind of people who don’t own their dream. They’re expecting someone else to bet on them. They expect someone else to put a stake in the game.
Well the reason I haven’t achieved your dream is because you haven’t motivated me today. Where’s the love? Where’s the encouragement. You don’t own the dream. The first sign of someone buying into a dream is they bet on themselves.
IF YOU WON’T BET ONYOURSELF WHY SHOULD ANYONE ELSE BET ON YOU. We want other people to back us and bet on us and encourage us. It amazes me how many people expect that. But it’s a rented dream. We don’t own it. Most of you know for 25 years I was a pastor. When Margaret and I got married we went to our first church in Souther Indiana. Get the picture, just graduated, got married. country church. Poorest church. 11 houses in the town. 2 garaes. One counry store. The building was over 100 years old. Roof sagged, walls bowed. When the sun shone it came through the cracks. 3 people the first sunday. Two of them were Margaret and I. Maud Margeret and Me. I knew nothing about leadership. If I’d known anything I would have voted on anything I wanted to see passed.
I thought about voting but I wasn’t sure where my wife stood on some issues. I ahd a guy one time bring me a church bulletin after I’d been there about a year. It was a picture of ac hurch in Chicago with 3000 people in front of it. I thought “Oh mi goodness! The entire world goes there!” So I had this idea that I needed to have a big day. And I needed to get all the people out in front of my church and have a picture of it. I said we are going to have 300 people. There was such a disbelief. Most of those peple hadn’t seen 300 people. They looked at each other and said”John that’s wonderful but 300 people!” We’ll help you. We invited everybody. You have to invite evrybdy and hill helm to get 300. It was so bad we had invited people so many times they would raise their hands and say “I’m coing.” Sunday arrived. Right before I was going to speak. He was all excited. We have a great crowd here! Auditorim was full, house next door. We have 299 people here! And I stood right up. And I said “Excuse me.” Ou rgoal is 300. We’re one short. Why am the only pastor in america who has Honest ushers. he said 299! I mean come on! where is that creativity! I needed Linda to be the head usher for me! We’re one short. I’m not speaking till we have 300. The farmers got so excited! By the time I walked to the back I was so pumped. And then I closed the door outside and I thought. Now, what am I going to do? I looked across the street. There were two people at the filling station. They looked at me. And IS aid we have 299. We’re one away. I have a question for you two. Which of you wants to be a a hero for the whole value. You just need to know how to ak the questions. Whichever one of you will come across the street from me and will hit us the 300. They’ll be alking abot you. Which one of you wants to be the hero. They looked and said “We both want to be the herop!” We walked across the street. We opened up the church door they started singing they threw the hymanls. We set em down right there.
What would make a person stand up in front of people and say I’m not going to speak until we have 300 without a game plan? AN IDiot! OR a person who owns the dream. You see if you own your dream, you’ll do things that other people think is impossible. You’ll do things other people will think are unreasonable. You’ll do things that other people will mark off and say it’s not oing to happen. You’ve gone from a buy erand believer to a buyer.I’m going to pasuse for a few seconds. I want you to look at the question. I don’t want you to show this to anyone else. I want you to rate from 1 to 10 to I’ve bought my dram to I’ve hardly written it. The 10 questions are designed so that with every quesiton you can evaluate yourself. Because what’s going to happen then. You’ll discoer which ones you ned to work on. The ownership question. I smy dream really my dream. The reality question is the second.
10:05 Am I depending on factors within my control to achieve my dream?
Let me define dissapointment to you. Dissapointment is the gap between reality and expectation. When we expect something and reality is what he didn’t expect. the dream that motivates us is the same thing that dissapoints us. Because we have such exectations. Such desires. Such lofty goals and all of a sudden we realize we’r enot there. The dissapointment has happened. The reality and the expectation are too far apart. You have to ask yourself the reality question. Am I depending on factors within my cntrol to reach and achieve my dream> I know you’re saying “John, it doesn’t seem right ot have a reality question in a dream mix.” Dreams are lofty and help you rise above the average! Why would you have reality in there? Let me expain something to you quickly. reality is the foundation on which you uild your dream. It’s the foundation. If your foundation is not based on reality your dream will never be built.
I’ve got to have reality under me before I can do what I want to do. do I have a firm foundation for my dream> Because many people don’t. Let me explain. I shared with you that I tried to write this book two other times. I threw the manuscript away. The third time was the charge. They were huffy puffy disney land us. If you had star dust fall on you ou could achieve it. I am convinced there are statements we make that are wondeful dream statements that truly sabotage our dream.Let me give you an example. How many of you have heard “If you can believe it you can achieve it.” You all have! You finished the sentance! That is a non reality statement. If you can believe it you can achieve it! It sounds so good, but it’s so wrong. Let me explain to you. One illustraiton is probably enough. If I looked at ou today and said “My Dream is to become a world class ballet dancer.” See you’re already laughing. That’s disgusting. You’re laughing and you know why? it’s because it’s a dream that is not based on reality. You look at this body and say this is not hte body of a ballet dancer. We don’t want to see him in a tu tu! You look at my age. And I’m also uncoorinated I’ve had twoknee opeations. I’m not going to twirl, jump or fly. I’m going to flop and boucne and roll. I’m not a ballet person. I can believe it with all my heart, I believe we can fly. Yo9u see, if your dream and my dream Are not based upon reality. An unrealistic foundation causes us to try and acheive an unralistic dream.
What are the factors within my control? What are the factors within my control? Because if you’re using the factors in your control you ahve a shot. If you
‘re coutnign on factors outside of your control you wont achieve it. What are in my control?
Your choices. The choices you and I make are in my conrol. You don’t make them for me. I can make the choice to be self disciplined or lazy. I can hav the choice to not have a good attitude. Believing in your dream is wonderful. You can’t build your dream on it thoguh. You can’t build your dream on “I believe, I believe, I believe” What else is in my control? My giftedness, my natural ability. That’s something I’m DNA wired to do. I’m able to do. Those are things within your cntrol. What’s outside of your control? Chances. I know people who treat their dream like the lottery. They hope the number comes up! If by chance I could meet that person. That could fall my way and I would know her and be there. Life itself is outside of our control! We’ve had set backs. We can’t control that. We can’t control what happens in me but I can’t cntrol what happens to me. Another thing outside of my control is my lack of giftedness. When I told you I wante dto be a ballet dancer you started laughing. I don’t have ballet saying “LET ME OUT LET ME OUT!” When it comes to Ballet it’s “Where are you?”
Classic example. The tryouts at american idol. Need I say more? I love the tryouts. I know their back to the bottom three. They’re all good. Give them a contract. This isn’t complicated. They’re going to do well. Throw the girl in. She just got off but she’s good. I’m not watching because they’re good. I love it when they’re not all good. I love it when they give a microphone to a person who can’t sing.
And they grab that mic and do they blieve. They are passionate. They want that microphone. Give me that mic! Let me sing! and they go about two measures. and the judges are going “gah” Simon does that all the time. You’re hitting the mute button TURN IT OFF TURN IT OFF! Everyone knows the person can’t sing, except the person. Inn fact when I see that appen the question I always ask is “Where are there friends?” Don’t you think that somebody should alk into their life should walk into their life and say “My name is John and I’m your friend and you can’t sing.” Are they sinceer, are they passionate, ye? yes yes. Are they going to be American Idols winner No. They’re not dealin
Every one of us has been trilled by what he can do. Has no peers. Gratest player in the world. What does he do at the height of his career? He decides he wants to play baseball! BASEBALL! Michael thinks because he can play basketball he can play basketball. I know all kinds of people who think they can be good in one area they can bee good in or three areas. If you’re good at something STAY THERE. What does Michael do. He quits
playing basketball. he gets a bat. He’s in a minor league team. He’s strking out. He’s making errors. He wouldn’t even be on the team if it weren’t for the fact hew as Michael Joran. Is Micahel ever going ot be a great baseball player. In fact after a couple yg with factors within their control. Michael Jordan. Michael Joadan is the greatest acketball player to play the game.
You just have to find that area of success and commit yourself. Then you buy the dream and pursue the dream. ALl of a sudden these things become true. I wish there was time to talk to you about the cost question. I would teach you today that the dream is free, the journey isn’t.
That’s why we like the dream so much It’s wonderful to sit around the table. As all of us sit around the table, it’s free. The moment we move towards that dream we’re on a toll road. The dream toll road. When you pay the toll you think “Thank God I got that out of the way!” You realize that you’re going to pay more than you ever throught to pay you’re going to pay sooner and you’re going to pay more than once. But it’s worth the cost. If it’s truly your dream. I close with this.
I wrote the book put your dream to the test for one simple reason. We all have a dream. But too often we never achieve it. this is my attempt, one persons feeble attempt to say to you “Let the dream live!” get valid reasons to support that dream and go through the ten questions. My prayer and belief in you isthat your dream will come true.
Thank you very much.
10:19 What is the most important business decision you’ve ever made?
The important decision was putting it on audio. At the end of the day the people there said how can I get ongoing leadership training. The only thing I could think was to tape live. And that’s how its tarted. It’s compounded now. Thousands upon thousands listen every month. It’s tremendous. I have people who come to me and say John you mentor me. Every monh I learn leadership from you. I think it helps the most people that I could have ever helped by not doing it all in person. It’s all part of the maximum impact club.
(Maximum Impact Club video)
When did this dream start? about 25 years ago. The reason I ahve the passion is in 1972 a guy asked me what my personal plan for growth was. I’ didn’t have one! I didn’t know this. I went home that day and tried to develop a personal plan for growth. It took me all year to figure out. I had to be around the right people. And I had to read the right books, and listen to the right tapes. I joined 11 tape clubs. started reading a book a week. And started making an appointment with someone once a month so I could ask them. I started that in 1973 and I continue that today. I listen to CDs around the world. I get my teaching from them. Its been wonderful. My passion to personally grow caused me to write all the books I write and do the lessons.
You hear John this morning an dyou can get that every month and listen ot it on your own schedule. Costs you less than .60 a day. $59 a quarter, or $199 a year. You get all the leadership curriculum online. You can also do strictly online for $159 a yaer.. So you got your note thing It has ac ard in the back. You just take hte card out and and then make your selection. Fill it out. if you do this today, you have a special added bonus for you. You get a DVD curricululm. This bad boy goes for $300. Is there like a sham wow that alwaso comes with this. You don’t need anyhing more than this. a $300 value absolutely free. Fill that out. Danny do you have some card filling out music. You got something you can do for 30 seconds that gets the guys to fill out cards.