Show notes
Summary: How do you move from just having a successful life to one of significance that allows you to create a legacy that lives on for decades beyond your life? The Blackbelt Leadership allows you to lead and live a life that empowers a new generation to make good choices to become a better version of themselves. Ultimately, this type of leadership makes a positive difference in the world around us. John L. Terry III is a two-time martial arts Hall of Fame inductee, John brings years of black belt experience to helping people, young and old, discover and develop the Black Belt Leader within and lead themselves with Black Belt Excellence. They can then use their leadership and influence to create high-performance, people-centric, values-based, non-leader-dependent teams and make an impact right where they are. He is a best-selling author and in-demand international public speaker, John serves as an Executive Director and President's Advisory Council member with The John Maxwell Team. He is also a DISC-certified human behavior consultant, a Real-Life Management Master Trainer, and a CTAA-Accredited Emotional Intelligence Coach & Practitioner. In this episode, John talks about the ten essential character qualities of a BLACK BELT leader. These include: Believing in yourself Learning everything you can Accountability to yourself Communicating effectively Kinetic-action Bold action steps Equipping those you lead Loyalty to your calling & to those you lead Transformation happens. Every one of these traits comes into play to create a way of leadership and thinking that becomes you. When you embody all these traits, you become that authentic-genuine-values- based-people-centric leader who serves people the way you want to be served. You will also become a leader who leads by example, who goes first and challenges the status quo to create an innovative way of life that significantly transforms his and others’ lives. “The most successful leaders help their team members become leaders in their own right. Because if you can create an army of leaders, and you are leading an army of leaders, what you can do is unstoppable.” - John Terry III Topics Covered: 02:27 - A backstory of how John got into martial arts 03:28 - 10 essential character qualities of a BLACKBELT leader -- what each letter stands for 03:34 - Believe that there is a leader within you waiting to be discovered 04:04 - Learn everything you can 04:42 - Be accountable to yourself 05:07 - Why communication is important 05:43 - Be kinetic 06:21 - You’ve got to be bold 06:53 - Equip those you are leading 07:35 - The sense of loyalty that comes into play 09:23 - Why transformation takes place everyday in a leader’s life 10:43 - The character trait that is not written in the word blackbelt: Mu-shin 13:04 - Foundational traits you should focus on 15:29 - A man-in-the-mirror-moment that he does every morning 16:10 - The value of bookending your day 17:31 - Challenging the status quo 19:36 - The Warren Buffet’s way of prioritizing your day 21:11 - Let it be understood as you understand it 23:41 - What happens when we teach people how to communicate effectively 24:27- Leaders have to be people of action 27:47 - Action steps you need to take 29:58 - Accountability and deadline - the concept of working backward 32:09 - The traits that we see in successful leaders of today 33:51 - Formation and transformation Key Takeaways: “No matter what it is we do in life, if we don't believe that we are called to do that, we're not going to be successful. Because what we don't believe in, we don't pursue.” - John Terry III “Once you believe that you've been called to do something to make a difference in some way, now, you've got to learn everything you can about that particular topic. Then you become the authority figure and the expert. When people look to you, they look up to you as the leader that you've been called to be because the leader has to go first.”- John Terry III “You also have to be responsible to those who are teaching you to make sure that you are being a good steward of the content they have given you, but at the same time, also accountable to those that you're leading. - John Terry III “Communication is important. Because if you can't properly iterate to individuals, what you're doing, where you're going, and the calling that has on your life, very few people are going to follow you.” - John Terry III “Not everybody learns to connect on a personal level and to speak with someone in their own voice. And one of the things blackbelt leaders do is to learn to speak to people in their own voice.” - John Terry III “K is kinetic because leaders are people of action, you can't sit on your butt and be a leader.” - John Terry III “You've got to be bold, you can't sit back and let somebody else lead, and then you take credit for it. The leader goes first; the leader has to have those difficult conversations with people. The leader has to challenge the status quo to change things for the better; the leader has to disturb what is, to create what could be that's better.” - John Terry III “If you want to achieve success in life, significantly, you've got to equip those you lead because at some point, they're going to take your place. You and I are not going to be here forever.”- John Terry III “As we look at where we've come in our journey up to this point, you've got to understand that the calling that's been put inside of you, there's a loyalty to that calling. It is a God-given thing that God put within us that we've got to go live out on this earth.” - John Terry III “One of the worst areas that we see in leadership is a leader that says go, and then the leader never goes, or a leader says to do this, and he or she never does that. Leaders lead by example and that builds loyalty “ - John Terry III “The leader should be the first one to get there. And the last one to leave at the end of the day and doing everything that's necessary.” - John Terry III “If we've done all the character traits up to this point, we began to embody those in our lives. What takes place is transformation.” - John Terry III “What happens in the state of Mu-shin is, as we begin to transform, as leadership becomes a part of who we are and what we do, we begin to internalize it. And whether it's makeup and the amazing things that you do, or it's sewing, which my wife does, all of a sudden, as we begin to train overtime, you no longer have to stop and think, ‘Well, what would a leader say?’ Because it becomes automatic, it becomes a part of who you are. I don't have to think, I automatically know because that has become a part of who I am.” - John Terry III “When we find our calling and we walk through those character qualities of learning to lead ourselves well and make good choices, there comes the point in our lives when we embrace that. And that is no longer what we do, what we think, what we study; that is who we are. And when we begin to live that out, all of a sudden, we move from having a successful life to a life of significance that allows us to create a legacy that lives on for decades beyond ourselves.” - John Terry III “We can't do everything at once. But we can do three things every day. And if we focus on getting three things done, and being accountable to ourselves, to the process, and to ultimately the people that are going to serve, now we have an opportunity to grow.” - John Terry III “If we are not kinetic, we not only rob ourselves of the opportunity to see fulfillment, we steal the opportunity for others to be impacted in a meaningful way, by that vision and that purpose inside of us that is not yet fulfilled.” - John Terry III Resources: Download for FREE the 10 Black Belt Leadership Traits. Click here: http://beablackbeltleader.com/index.html Black Belt Leadership 101: What it Takes To Be a Black Belt Leader in Life by John Terry The 12 Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months by Brian P. Moran Connect with John Terry III: beablackbeltleader.com LinkedIn Facebook Twitter Instagram Connect with April Meese: aprilmeese.com [email protected] LinkedIn Instagram Facebook