Welcome to the John Maxwell Leadership Podcast. We are committed to your growth. We're committed to your growth influencing others.

My name is Mark Cole and you're going to love this lesson. Now if you are a regular, if you're part of our podcast family, you know that we're in the middle of a three-part series and today is part two.

If you're brand new, welcome. We have been waiting on you and we're glad you have finally joined the John Maxwell Leadership Podcast.

Today's lesson is so good. In fact, I would challenge you when you get a moment, go back and listen to last week's episode because we are talking about the leader's greatest.

John recently did a lesson on 15 things that are the leader's greatest. And last week we shared five today. We're going to share five with you.

John's going to talk about the leader's greatest opportunity, the leader's greatest loss, the leader's greatest liability, the leader's greatest motivation, and he will finish today with the leader's greatest moment.

Now if you would like to download the show notes to follow along not only with what John shared last week, this week, and next week, you can do that by going to our website, MaxwellPodcast.com

forward slash leaders greatest. That's L-E-A-D-E-R-S, no apostrophe, leaders greatest. You'll be able to click on the bonus resource button, download the show notes, and join along as John teaches.

Now, as soon as John is done, stay tuned because Jason is with me today. He's back with me, and you are going to love what Jason Brooks and I cultivate out of John's lesson and show how we apply and how you can apply to be a leader's greatest.

Now here is John C. Maxwell.

The leader's greatest opportunity today, today. Everyday someone says there's never been a day like today where we desperately needed leaders. Well, that's so true.

I'm here to tell you there's always been a shortage of leaders. A leader never misses opportunity and the opportunity is right before you.

Let me read you these paragraphs. Many of us have a tough time forgetting the opportunities that have gone before we spend so much of the best days of our lives today, recycling a junk yard of lost opportunities we continue to bring up what might have been or what should have been as if by replaying it enough, we can change the outcome.

But the more we replay yesterday, well, I love this statement, the more we replay yesterday, the further away from today's opportunities we get. Wow. Did you hear that? The more I replay yesterday, the farther away from today's opportunities I get and the farther away, we get the tougher it is to get back.

When ifs and buts are our hallmark opportunities always look better going than coming. Opportunities wait for no one opportunities aren't found in yesterday. They're found in today. They come in many forms. They come from all sorts of directions and they come our way only when we speak of what we are capable of doing not what we have done or what we should have done.

We are strength lies in the present. We live in the present. We work in the present. What has happened has happened. We cannot undo the past no matter how hard we try. So let's wipe the slate clean and go on to what's next.

The beginning can only come from old Indians. Harvey Firestone said today is when everything that is going to happen from now on begins. The leader's greatest opportunity today and the leader's greatest loss is hope.

Paulian said leaders are dealers in hope. I love G.K. Chesterson. He said there's only one thing which gives radius to everything. It's the idea of something around the corner.

The major part of Martin Luther King's leadership style was to keep hope alive among the masses. He said we must accept finite disappointment but we must never lose infinite hope. Because when you lose hope you die just about wherever he went. That was his message that he preached basic to our philosophy he would say is a deep faith in the future.

The hope element in all revolutions was expressed in the rising expectations for freedom. Justice, human dignity on part of those who had been caught in oppressive situations. He went on to explain most major revolutions even though violent in nature originally moved on the wave of hope.

The hope that the old order could be removed and a new order could come into being. The first and the last task of the leader is to keep hope alive. The hope that we can finally find our way through to a better world despite the day's action despite our own inertness and shallowness and wavering resolve.

When a leader loses hope, let me tell you what happens when a leader loses hope so that the people again it's a statement about leadership and not trying to be political but when Jimmy Carter in the 70s basically looked at American people said this is as good as it's going to get.

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