Mark Miller on Uncommon Greatness: 5 Fundamentals to Transform Your Leadership

In this episode of the L3 Leadership podcast, Mark Miller, the former VP of High-Performance Leadership at Chick-fil-A, joins us to reveal the core principles of "Uncommon Greatness."  

About Mark Miller: Mark started over 40 years ago working as an hourly employee at a local Chick-fil-A.  He has worked all across the business since then and currently serves as Vice President of High-Performance Leadership at Chick-fil-A.  For the last 20 years, Mark has traveled the United States and the world focusing much of his time on serving leaders, helping them grow themselves, their teams, and their organizations. 

4 Key Takeaways:
1. Mark shares how important vision casting is for individuals in leadership and entire organizations.
2. Mark walks us through the five fundamentals as outlined in his book that can  transform your leadership approach.
3. He talks about aligning vision, results, and relationships, all while keeping your core values intact.
4. We discuss idea of servant leadership and how it helps create a caring atmosphere for people and for achieving goals.

Quotes From the Episode:
“If you don’t spend enough time thinking about the future, there may not be one for your or for your organization.”
“Uncommon leadership is the path to uncommon greatness.”

Resources Mentioned:
Call Mark at 678-612-8441
Preorder Uncommon Greatness

Connect with Mark:
Mark’s Website | Facebook | YouTube | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn

Transcript

Doug Smith: 0:07

Hey, leader, and welcome to another episode of the L3 Leadership Podcast, where we are obsessed with helping you grow to your maximum potential and to maximize the impact of your leadership. My name is Doug Smith and I am your host, and today's episode is brought to you by my friends and Beratung advisors. We also recorded this live from the new Birgo Realty Studio. If you're new to the podcast, welcome. I'm so glad that you're here and I hope that you will enjoy our content and become a subscriber. Know that you can also watch all of our episodes over on our YouTube channel, so make sure you're subscribed there as well. And, as always, if you've been listening to the podcast for a while and it's impacted your life, it would mean the world to me. If you leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts through, that really does help us to grow our audience and reach more leaders, so thank you in advance for that. While, leader, in today's episode you're going to hear my conversation with the one and only Mark Miller. He is returning to the podcast for the third time and if you are unfamiliar with Mark, let me just tell you a little bit about him. Mark started over 40 years ago working as an hourly employee at a local Chick-fil-A and he has worked all across the business since then and recently just retired as the vice president of high performance leadership at Chick-fil-A. And for the last 20 years he's also traveled the United States and the world, focusing much of his time on serving leaders, helping them grow themselves, their teams and their organizations. In this episode, we talk all about his new book that's coming out, called Uncommon Greatness Five Fundamentals to Transform your Leadership. And again, if you've never heard Mark or even if you have, he had so much value in this conversation you're going to love it.

Doug Smith: 1:33

Before we dive in, just a few announcements. This episode of the L3 Leadership Podcast is sponsored by Beratung Advisors. The financial advisors at Beratung Advisors help educate and empower clients to make informed financial decisions. You can find out how Beratung Advisors can help you develop a customized financial plan for your financial future by visiting their website at BeratungAdvisorscom that's B-E-R-A-T-U-N-G-Advisorscom. Securities and investment products and services offered through LPL Financial. Member of FINRA and SIPC, Beratung Advisors, LPL Financial and L3 Leadership are separate entities.

Doug Smith: 2:08

I also want to thank our sponsor, Henne Jewelers. They're a jewelry earned by my friend and mentor, John Henne, and my wife Laura and I got our engagement and wedding rings through Henne Jewelers and had an incredible experience. And not only do they have great jewelry, but they also invest in people. In fact, for every couple that comes in engaged, they give them a book to help them prepare for marriage, and we just love that. So if you're in need of a good jeweler, check out HenneJewelers. com. And with all that being said, let's dive right in. Here's my conversation with Mark Miller. Mark Miller, welcome back for the third time to the L3 Leadership Podcast. We were just joking. At this pace of you writing books, you'll be on every three months. It'll be beautiful. You add so much value to our audience every time that you're on. So thanks again for joining us.

Mark Miller: 2:48

Well, it's my pleasure, my pleasure.

Doug Smith: 2:51

Yeah, and I want to dive into the book, but before we do. We were just talking, you know, catching up, and you mentioned that you just attended your first rodeo ever. What was that like this weekend?

Mark Miller: 3:00

It was fantastic. I was in Fort Worth and again, you know you always say well, this is not my first rodeo, well, I was looking for a t-shirt that said this is my first rodeo, but those men and women were amazing. I mean, I'd seen snippets of it here and there on TV, but it was, it was. It was really cool being there in person?

Doug Smith: 3:22

Did you watch Yellowstone Like what made you go to a rodeo?

Mark Miller: 3:25

Well, I've always wanted to go to one and we were visiting some friends and family out there and they knew I'd never been, and it was the semifinal weekend for the 137th edition, I think, of the Fort Worth, what they call it. There was a show and rodeo livestock show. So, yeah, we got. We got the full experience. I got to get through a rodeo.

Doug Smith: 3:52

Well, I want to dive into the book. The new book is called uncommon greatness five fundamentals that transform your leadership, and you've been adding value to leaders for so long in so many different ways. Why this book? Why now? And what do you want leaders to?

Mark Miller: 4:04

get out of it. Okay, there's a lot in that first question. So, as I, as I have shared with you on previous episodes, we've always tried to look three to five years into the future in almost every project we've worked on for the last 25 years to identify the emerging needs that leaders might be facing. And you know we look for those weak signals. And we've done work on leadership effectiveness because we saw leaders struggling. We've worked on culture because we said we're hearing more and more about culture, on and on and on. We've done that many, many times.

Mark Miller: 4:38

This one is just a little bit different because this was a request from Chick-fil-A. Some of your listeners know I spent almost 45 years working for Chick-fil-A and Chick-fil-A came to me, I think probably for several reasons One, realizing that I was at some point going to retire, and they said, hey, we've got a problem We'd like you to help us solve. And I said, well, okay, what? You know what's on your mind. And they said something some of your leaders might know, that Ken Blanchard and I did a book 25 years ago called the Secret. It was actually my first writing project. It was at his insistence that we do that and it was. It was amazing.

Mark Miller: 5:16

But we decided back then that our paradigm of leadership resembled an iceberg, that about 10% is above the waterline and about 90% is below, and the 10% above represents the skills and the 90% below represents your heart and your character as a leader. Well, we decided that very first book was about the skills, because we felt like that was a pressing need in the world to outline some of those things, those competencies that every leader needed. And it wasn't just a few years later, the outcry was for us to do something on the below the waterline. Well, ken had too many other things going on, so I did that by myself, and it was a book called the Heart of Leadership.

Mark Miller: 6:05

So back to the problem that Chick-fil-A identified. They said our point of view on leadership is now contained in two books. And they said what we've realized is we have some of our people in the organization who have read one book or the other and therefore they have a truncated view of our point of view. And they said can you put it together in one book? And so this was an opportunity to A do a traditional book. Those were parables. So we wanted a traditional book and combine those two models into one approachable paradigm that leaders could put into action today. So that's a little different backstory than all the other books, but that's how we got here.

Doug Smith: 6:54

Yeah, I'm excited that I've been. One thing that I did see when I looked through the book, though you mentioned Ken Blanchard. You dedicated the book to him. You talked about how he changed your life through co-authoring the Secret With you, and just when you get to spend time being mentored with someone like that, I'm just curious what is the impact that he's had on your life, so much so that you dedicated this book to him?

Mark Miller: 7:11

Well, I had never had aspirations to write. In fact, I may have told this story on a previous episode as well. We had done some work at Chick-fil-A about how to accelerate leadership development and we had what I call a crisis of confidence. We weren't quite sure we had it right. I mean, we were in the chicken business and this was our first foray into trying to articulate, document a point of view that we would potentially teach for generations. And goodness, we've now been teaching it at Chick-fil-A for a quarter century, and so we didn't know that we had it right and I was gonna be with Ken the next day.

Mark Miller: 7:46

You can decide if that was a divine appointment or a coincidence, but I said hey, I'm gonna be with Ken Blanchard tomorrow. He was a friend of mine and I said let me, do you want me? I asked the team that had been working on this for a couple of years. At that point I said do you want me to share this with Ken? And they said, sure, please. Yeah, that'd be fantastic.

Mark Miller: 8:04

So I said, hey, ken, we've been working on how to accelerate leadership development and I basically showed him the serve model five bullet points on a single sheet of paper and the first thing out of his mouth was this has gotta be a book. Well, I blew him off and I said, ken, everything looks like a book to you, which is why he's probably sold 70 million books. And he said no, no, no, no. He said you don't understand. He said you were trying to articulate what Chick-fil-A believes about leadership and he said what you've done is you have articulated what has been true about leadership forever. And he said it's gotta be a book. So he is that quintessential leader who believed in me before I believed in myself. And he said let's do a book. And he persisted there's a lot of backstory there, but he and I ultimately did that first book and it was published about 20 years ago.

Doug Smith: 8:57

Wow, and so really, one of the first fundamental in the book is seeing the future. It's all about having a vision and I love how this ties in so technically you can say with Elkens' vision of what your work could be released in the world. We wouldn't have all the great Mark Miller books that we have in print today and he could see the unseen for sure and talk more about what that means as leaders. The other thing that inspired me when I was reading through the See the Vision chapter is you were challenged, I believe, by the leaders of Chick-fil-A, to go out and reach 100 million leaders. Is that correct? Like, what is the power of a vision due for someone?

Mark Miller: 9:33

Okay, Well, it's interesting, Let me. Yes, and you and I've talked about this before and you are absolutely correct. The former CEO challenged me to try to figure out how to reach 10 million leaders, and that was years and years ago, you are correct. And then, now that I have transitioned out of the chicken, I've entered my second half, people said well, what are you gonna do? I said we're gonna find a way to reach 100 million leaders and I think, with technology, I think that's a reasonable goal. So, yes, that was another case where we were trying to serve predominantly the Chick-fil-A leaders. We were publishing our work, but we didn't really have aspirations that were on that scale. And it was that senior leader that said hey, what if you found a way to serve 10 million leaders a year? And I went back and shared that with the team and they said you know, that is possible. Now, this was obviously a few years back and I said okay, how is that possible? And they said have you heard of something called the internet?

Mark Miller: 10:35

That's actually when I first started blogging, so I wrote over four years. I wrote over 600 blog posts. I was doing three a week in order to begin building a platform and serving global leaders, and so that's how we took that next step was somebody who could see something I couldn't see.

Doug Smith: 10:55

Well, that's so good and you're really illustrating the power of actually being able to see the future, and sometimes we need people in our lives that see a bigger future for our lives than we do, and thank God for that. But why did you, why is this so important and you included as a fundamental in the book for leaders to get really clear on providing a clear vision of the future.

Mark Miller: 11:11

Yeah, leadership always begins with a picture of the future. Always, if you're not pursuing something, you're not leading. Now I'm not throwing rocks, I'm not trying to talk bad about you, but if you're not pursuing anything, you're managing at best, which is management is about today, leadership is about the future, and you may not even be managing well if you don't have any preconceived notion about what you're trying to accomplish and what you're trying to achieve and who you're trying to become. And so people have asked me for 25 years is this the most important of the fundamentals? And I would argue well, they're all fundamental, but it's the first among equals, because if you're not trying to accomplish anything, then you don't even need the other fundamentals.

Doug Smith: 11:57

Yeah, so what can leaders do? One even just to take time? Like you said, management's about today, but even as leaders who are visionary, it's so easy to get focused and boggle down by the day to day that we really don't time, don't take time to actually see a clear picture of the future. What advice do you have for leaders on just taking time to see the future?

Mark Miller: 12:14

Yeah, Well, let me let me quickly add I don't want to paint that and I did, let me, let me let me reel that back in just half a step. I don't want to make it make this too simplistic. The best leaders are Are constantly in a heads up, heads down, heads up, heads down, because today does matter, but they don't become encumbered by today, right, they don't let the future be jeopardized by today. So, ken and I actually wrote about that a long, long time ago that there is this tension heads up, heads down.

Mark Miller: 12:42

Just, far too many leaders aren't spending enough time heads up, they're not looking toward the future, and I would argue that if you don't spend enough time thinking about the future, there may not be one for you or for your organization. And so if I'm giving somebody an advice, some advice, I would say they need to be carving out some time to think about the future. Because this, this fundamental, is really about weaving those threads of what you know to be true with what you know needs to be true, and and painting a compelling picture that you can rally others to join you, because you can't do it by yourself. By the way, if you can do it by yourself, it's not much. I always tell leaders I hope you're trying to do something that's going to require you, plus others, hmm, and this first fundamental gives you something To share with others, a vision to cast.

Doug Smith: 13:37

Yeah, and so if you actually take the time to put your head up and get the vision, then there's the challenge of how do you actually cast that in a compelling enough way and consistently enough throughout the organization I think about I don't know so many employees you had at Chick-fil-A, but when true it, or someone at the top has this vision, what are some keys for leaders to actually cast, kade that vision down to where it's reaching the? The guy at the Chick-fil-A counter saying my pleasure.

Mark Miller: 14:01

All right. So this is a great opportunity for me to offer my standard disclaimer. I would encourage your audience not to misinterpret the brevity of my response with the magnitude of that question. We could talk the rest of this episode on on this single topic, because communicating vision cascading vision is is a huge, huge Responsibility and challenge for leaders, but let me give you a couple of quick tips so that we can talk about some of the other fundamentals. The first thing I would say is you need, you need to be able to share your hopes and dreams in a, in a form and a fashion that is simple, clear and repeatable, like now. You may be able, and should be able to elaborate on that.

Mark Miller: 14:48

I had a leader call me not long ago and he said hey, I want to share my vision with you. He was actually working on his culture and he read me the most eloquent, beautiful, well thought out, just it was. It was, it was beautiful. And I said listen, we finished. And I said you need to laminate that. And he said really. I said it's fantastic. I said, however, you need three more versions because what he read me was several minutes long, and I said that's great. I said now you need to write an elevator speech, write a paragraph that represents that. I said that'll be your second. And I said, while you're headed in that direction, then you need to figure out how do you say it in a sentence or a phrase.

Mark Miller: 15:35

See, far too many leaders start with the the phrase, and all they're doing is sloganeering. There's no meat, there's no substance, there's no passion, there's no, there's no truth there, it's just. It's just a catchy phrase. But because this guy had done that hard work first, then I said get you something. Peter Drucker, the late management and leadership Guru, said this a hundred years ago, probably not quite, but a long time ago. He said if you can't put it on a t-shirt, you don't have it. Yet you, that's that. That's that little pithy way to help people get it and understand it. And he said okay, what's the fourth way? I said now go back and do a full keynote.

Mark Miller: 16:13

So when you can totally unpack this because what you read for me was two or three or four minutes you're going to be able to talk about this for an hour and give examples and illustrations and nuance and so forth and so on. And so I think you it has to at some point, though, be clear, simple and repeatable. So that's a lot to say. The only other thing I'll say is you then have to go to your inner circle. Be sure those are around. You Understand it, because when you start casting it publicly, the first thing when people have questions, they're not going to call you. If you're the point leader, they're going to call their boss or their boss's boss, and you don't want them to say, well, I don't know. I heard it the first time. You heard it, we, you know, we're all in this together. We don't know, and so that's why cascading is so powerful. But if you skip that inner circle, you're setting yourself up for grief.

Doug Smith: 17:04

And well, thank you for sharing that, Martha. That's a masterclass in vision casting and communication. I want to hit a few other foundations of the new book. One that I love is values, results and relationships. What this is such attention, I think, for so many leaders. I know I am, you know, recovering people, Pleaser. I want to make everyone happy. I care more about relationships than results, but the reality is, as leaders were responsible for both, why. Why is this one of the foundations?

Mark Miller: 17:31

Well, let me, let me say it for most leaders, it's going to be the most challenging of the fundamentals, and the reason I say that with confidence is I believe that most leaders have a natural bias. You've confessed yours. My natural bias is more toward results. Now, there's a really small percentage of leaders I've done a non scientific study over the last 25 years and I'm guessing they're probably 5% of leaders that value both without any extraordinary effort. I don't like those leaders because leadership is easier for them, but for me and you and a whole lot of other leaders, we have to find a way to value both because there's there's tremendous power in that tension.

Mark Miller: 18:20

Jim Collins coined the phrase the genius of the, and he found this in highly successful organizations Gosh, that was probably 20 years ago and he would use an example like Toyota. When they said we're going to produce high quality cars at low cost, it's like, well, that doesn't make sense. Well, there's power when you can, when you can pursue things that on the surface and from time to time, actually are in oppositions. The genius of the and well, valuing results and relationships is a perfect example of that, and the reason it matters so much is that if, if you focus exclusively on relationships, you're going to suboptimize results. But, by the same token, if I focus exclusively on results, I'm going to suboptimize results. So the way you maximize performance which is why we lead right, we're trying to accomplish something. The goal is not leadership, the goals performance, and the way you maximize it is to value both. That's why it matters.

Doug Smith: 19:22

Yeah, and I'm curious. You know you confessed you're more on the results side. How had you had to grow? How did you have to grow over the course of your career to be more focused on people than the results?

Mark Miller: 19:33

Well, it's not a, it's not more people than results. It's to value both at a very high level. Because, see, a lot of folks will say, and you didn't say this? But a lot of folks will say, well, I'm just trying to be right in the middle. I said, well then, you're pretty mediocre on both. You actually need to value both. It's like can you, can you get passionate about both? You value both. You may not change your hardwiring and the way you see the world, but I think for me, and I would say for you and for all the folks listening, I think it's a two step process and I love the fact it's a two step process because that's simple, I can get my head around it, one which you and I have already taken. This first step, it's to own your bias. Don't don't make excuses, don't hide, Don't be ashamed, don't wish you were like somebody else.

Mark Miller: 20:21

It's like no no, you are uniquely made to be who you are. Okay. So let's start by honoring our bias and owning it and saying, yep, this is who I am. Step two in the process is the money step, and that is when you compensate. And I liken it to a leader that wears glasses. You wouldn't look at a leader who wears glasses and say they're a lesser leader because they wear glasses. I think you might say they're pretty smart because they realized there was something they didn't do, naturally well, and they found the proper prescription to compensate.

Mark Miller: 20:58

And so I tell leaders if you're more results oriented, then you have to find ways to compensate on the relationship side and vice versa. It's like dialing in the appropriate prescription what kind of systems, what kind of habits, what kind of people do you need to bring around you? So I would encourage you to be sure there are some people who see the world differently on your leadership team. If we're not careful, we'll select people just like us. You'll have a bunch of relationship people. You need some folks who value results on your leadership team and I need some people who value relationships on mine. So that's probably the simplest way. And then you just have to figure out how much of a prescription. How much compensation do you need so that you can actually value both? Yeah?

Doug Smith: 21:45

that's so good. I know this was a huge growth area for me. I'm my early 30s. I remember I had the opportunity to have a lunch with John Maxwell and I was asking him about this and he just said, doug, you have to make the decision that you'll always love people but not depend on their love and, for whatever reason, that that was the statement that I needed. That kind of made me value both and then balance that attention well, and every time I'm about to have a hard conversation around results, I remind myself of, hey, I'm loving this person and actually I'm loving them by being honest with them and valuing results. That was huge for my growth, and so thank you for sharing a little bit about your journey to.

Doug Smith: 22:21

Yeah so, and the other foundation is embody a leader's heart. I love this. Why is this important?

Mark Miller: 22:29

Okay, this is. I mentioned earlier we were, we were pushing two models together. So anybody who's read the secret might remember that the last Fundamental was embody the values. And we've now changed that because they're five heart Habits that we think are actually below the waterline if you go back to our iceberg. That represent a leader's heart. Why it's important. If your heart's not right, no one cares about your skills and there's probably somebody listening who's got the skills and they wonder why people won't follow them Because they probably don't trust your heart. And I'm not talking about don't lie, don't cheat, don't steal that all matters. I'm talking about those distinctive marks on a leader's life. Leaders are different. Leaders hunger for wisdom. Leaders expect the best. Leaders accept responsibility. You see where this is going. Those are the heart habits and there are a few more that leaders must Pursue and and ultimately Make progress so that people will trust you enough to follow you.

Doug Smith: 23:44

Yeah, that's so good. I know you have an assessment with the book on all of these, but I'm curious you know how, as a leader, do I determine whether or not I'm a leader worth following or Get feedback around that?

Mark Miller: 23:54

Well, you kind of see if people are following you. Yes, I mean, I got a quote Drucker one more time. He said there are two tests of a leader do they get results and do they have followers?

Doug Smith: 24:07

Hmm.

Mark Miller: 24:08

If nobody's following it, john, you talk, john. John said this a hundred years ago If you, if you, if you're leading and you look over your shoulder and nobody's following you, you're just out taking a walk, right? So I think it'll be. It'll be pretty obvious if You've got heart issues. But the good news is, with intention and effort, you can change your heart and and you can become a leader people want to follow.

Doug Smith: 24:40

Yeah, and you close the book, and I love this. You close the book with challenging leaders to always serve, and you know Serving leadership is a big topic, but why did you close the book that way?

Mark Miller: 24:50

Well, you know that part of what we're trying to do here is is tell folks Uncommon leadership is the path to uncommon greatness. We didn't talk about that in this interview, which is fine, but a lot of leaders let me let me go back there for a second a lot of leaders are pursuing common greatness, in essence, their lighters leaning against the wrong wall, and Most of them will tell you that once they get to the top, it's not fulfilling like they thought it would be, it's not sustainable, it's, it's fleeting, it's, it's focused on them. Uncommon greatness is focused on others and it and it will last and it elicits greatness from others and when you're pursuing that type of greatness, it makes all the difference in the world. The path is uncommon leadership and You'll know those leaders because they're the ones that are willing to serve.

Doug Smith: 25:49

Yeah, I love that. Well, can you talk more about? You know, obviously, where people can get the book, but then also the assessment that you've provided.

Mark Miller: 25:56

Yes, there is an assessment. If you would text Uncommon to six, six, eight, six, six, there you go, and it's not one of those assessments that, when you finish it, you'll think, well, I just wasted ten minutes of my life that I'll never get back. It's not one of those. It's behaviorally based, dependent on your responses, and it'll say, okay, based on what you said, here's some things that we think would help you, and I'm really excited about it. The early feedback has been positive.

Mark Miller: 26:28

We started sharing the assessment months before the book came out, and so just really even in the development phase, we were trying to build that. I had a fantastic team of a bunch of really smart people. We did interviews with leaders to figure out what are the right areas to probe and what questions would maybe not be. The answers aren't really obvious, but they're telling and help, cause we all have our own bias, and so we were trying to build something that would get through that and around that and add value to leaders, and so it's free. I hope you'll take it and benefit from it.

Doug Smith: 27:06

Yeah, and Mark, I know we were joking that. You know you write a new book every three months, but, man, you have so much rich leadership content and I know you're always thinking into the future. What's on your heart right now for leaders, as you think, even beyond this book, like what are you dreaming about? What do you see being down the pipe?

Mark Miller: 27:21

I've got two more in the works.

Doug Smith: 27:23

Of course you do Well.

Mark Miller: 27:25

One we've already invested about $4 million on the research, and it's on organizational change. Conventional wisdom is that 70% of organizational change efforts fail. I mean, think about the cost, the human cost, the energy, the emotions, the financial implications. Seven out of 10 change efforts fail, and in reality it may be more than that. We've done a global survey, talked to leaders all over, a lot of work on that, so there will be a book on organizational change coming Then. One more I'm really excited about is we are building a leadership operating system. We're gonna provide a path for leaders with three anchors One, how do you become a better leader. Two, how do you improve team performance. And three, how do you strengthen your organization. And that work is underway and should be published. It'll be published before the change book. It's slated to come out in 25. So a lot of fun stuff in the pipeline.

Doug Smith: 28:37

And Mark, I'd love to hear you just talk a little bit more about your why. I think it was the first interview I asked you. Somehow charity or generosity came up and you said a lot of your generosity goes towards leadership development organizations. You just talked about spending $4 million on research that'll help make leaders better Like. Why are you giving your life away towards this vision of reaching 100 million leaders? Why is that so important and compelling to you?

Mark Miller: 28:59

Well, I feel it's my personal calling and, as I mentioned earlier I think I mentioned that I've retired from Chick-fil-A, which is great. That happened just a few months ago and it was a fantastic run and I'm so thankful for so many things. We don't have time to get into all of that, but here's my point of view, and this is I'm not throwing shade at anybody who sees this differently, but I think you can retire from a job. I don't think you can retire from a calling, and so my calling is unchanged, I believe, as best I can discern, I'm on the planet to encourage and equip leaders to change their world, and so I don't work at the chicken anymore. But those are sort of my standing orders and I'm gonna keep working on that until I discern that I'm supposed to do something different.

Doug Smith: 29:51

Yeah, and I guess I would ask what's your advice? I try to do the same thing where I'm at. We have a podcast conference, all these different things. You mentioned this vision of reaching 100 million leaders. You've blogged, you have a podcast books. What have you found the greatest way to actually help equip and train leaders to change the world? What's been most fruitful for you?

Mark Miller: 30:09

Well, let me say I don't know the answer to that, I mean, but my daddy used to out fish me and I think there were many reasons he would out fish me, and one is he'd put more lines in the water than I would.

Mark Miller: 30:21

And I think the world we live in, I think some people want a podcast and some people want a book, and some people want a computer assisted learning module and some people want an app and some people want a journal and some people it's like. So we're going, we're going to serve a bunch of leaders. We're going to have to put a lot of hooks in the water Now because of the scale of our vision. It will have a huge technology component and we're building a platform right now, that operating system that I mentioned. It will be available in an online academy so that people who want that form of learning can access it, and that will be the ticket to scale. I mean, I'll still stand up and do keynotes, but you're not going to reach a hundred million people doing keynotes. You're not going to reach a hundred million people writing books. So, because of the magnitude of that vision, we will build over time what I believe will be a robust technology platform.

Doug Smith: 31:21

Yeah, I love that vision of getting a bunch of lines in the water. I love, love, love that, as we close, open ended Anything else you want to leave or challenge leaders with today.

Mark Miller: 31:31

Well, I guess a challenge and then a footnote. You know what you do matters. I want to remind you what you do matters. Everything rises and falls on leadership. We quote John one more time. I mean he got that right Churches and schools and hospitals and families and chicken restaurants, and everything rises and falls on leadership. We are the strategic lever to literally change the world. Wow. And so I want to continue to encourage you. I know it's hard. I had a CEO just recently. I'd done a keynote for her as a workshop for her senior leaders like 10 leaders in the room and I got through. The CEO was the first to speak and she said what you're talking about sounds hard. And I said all of you signed up for a hard job. There are much easier ways to make a living.

Doug Smith: 32:28

It is hard.

Mark Miller: 32:28

We want to make it doable. Hard, not destructive. Hard, that's another talk for another day. But it is hard, and so that's why I want to be one more voice, not only encouraging you, but I want to equip you so that you can be successful. So the footnote and I did this, I think, on our last show I want to give everybody my cell number in case they want to reach out. That number is 678-612-8441.

Doug Smith: 32:57

Wow, and we'll include a link to the book. We'll include his cell phone number and everything else that we discussed in the show notes, so make sure you check those out, mark. Thank you again. The third interview was wonderful. Thank you for adding value to me. I'm one of the 100 million that you're impacting in. Hopefully we'll do this again soon. Great, doug, thank you very much. You're welcome. Well, leader, thank you so much for listening to my conversation with Mark. I hope that you enjoyed it as much as I did. You can find ways to connect with him and links to everything that we discussed in the show notes at l3leadership. org/411

Doug Smith: 33:27

And, as always, leader, I like to end every episode with a quote, and today I'll quote Rosalind Carter, who said this a leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go, but ought to be. I love that. Well, leader, I say it every episode, but know that my wife Laura and I love you. We believe in you and don't quit. Keep leading. The world desperately needs your leadership. We'll talk to you next episode.