Have you ever really thought about the way a magnet works? To someone who doesn’t understand the science, a magnet’s power to attract things to it appears almost magical. Likewise, have you ever met a person who seems to attract people the way a magnet attracts metal? They believe in others, and they attract people who just magically begin to believe in themselves. But I’m here today to tell you that there’s no magic – just a desire to help others and a method of transferring belief.
When I speak to people, whether in a crowd or one-on-one, I make it my goal to increase their belief in themselves. I want to share my belief and do things with them until one day it’s not my belief in them, but it’s their belief in themselves. That’s what I call the ultimate transfer of a leader. It’s when leaders take the belief that they have for their people and pass it on until the people own it. It’s not borrowed. That’s always my goal, to help people to get to that belief level.
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Have you ever really thought about the way a magnet works? To someone who doesn’t understand the science, a magnet’s power to attract things to it appears almost magical. Likewise, have you ever met a person who seems to attract people the way a magnet attracts metal? They believe in others, and they attract people who just magically begin to believe in themselves. But I’m here today to tell you that there’s no magic – just a desire to help others and a method of transferring belief.
When I speak to people, whether in a crowd or one-on-one, I make it my goal to increase their belief in themselves. I want to share my belief and do things with them until one day it’s not my belief in them, but it’s their belief in themselves. That’s what I call the ultimate transfer of a leader. It’s when leaders take the belief that they have for their people and pass it on until the people own it. It’s not borrowed. That’s always my goal, to help people to get to that belief level.
How to Be a Belief Magnet
Here’s how I share my belief in people and help them find that belief in themselves.
1. Affirmation
I was on a phone call recently with a woman who shared about how she’d heard me speak a few years ago. She told me that as I spoke at the conference, she said to herself, “Here’s a man who really believes in me.” She continued on the phone, “It just drew me to you. It just drew me to read your books and go to the conferences where you’re speaking.”
The first way to help other people believe in themselves is to actually believe in them. When people sense that we believe in their potential and desire to be successful, it literally draws them in. Then we can share that belief with them. One way I do that is to “put a 10 on their heads.” What I mean by that is, I give each person a score of 10 (on a scale of 1 to 10) when I meet them. From the very beginning, I assume the best about them and choose to believe that about them. I communicate what I believe and why. This sets them up to find that belief themselves.
2. Mentoring
With mentoring, I invite the person into my life, to walk alongside me. As we spend time together, they experience what I experience. I especially want them to enjoy the excitement of little victories. I want them to experience successes. This helps them enjoy the feeling of a victory even before having one on their own. Then they have a better idea of what they are aiming for.
3. Equipping
Equipping takes the next step beyond just exposing people to my experiences and victories. Now I’m focused on giving them the specific tools and skills that they need to be successful. This is when I break it down for them. I suggest areas where they can grow, books they can read, and other resources that will help them. I also empower them by stepping back and letting them do the task themselves.
4. Practice
After I’ve equipped someone with the tools and resources necessary to achieve a goal, I have to give them time to practice. I have a friend who’s a teaching pro in golf who recently gave me a two-hour lesson to help with my swing. He was a good teacher and helped me tremendously. But when we were done, he said, “Now, you do understand that for those two hours that I taught you, you need to put in twenty hours of practice before you’ll have it down.” He was communicating that I needed to put in the work and do the tasks before I could get to the final stage.
5. Victory
Nothing, nothing, nothing helps a person’s belief in self like success. I could give you good how-to advice and affirmation all day long, and it wouldn’t have nearly the impact that a single victory would have on your self-belief. I believe that having a win under your belt is one hundred times more important than affirmation. Remember, when I give you affirmation, it is still something I’m doing. When you achieve a victory, you’re the one who made that happen. Once someone has practiced, make sure you stand back and allow them to win the victory. That just takes self-belief to an entirely new level.
As a leader, I encourage you to set people up for success. When you believe in them to start with, and communicate that belief, you become a magnet, drawing them to you. Then when you mentor and equip them, you’re giving them the tools and experiences that keep them on the path with you. Finally, when you allow them to own the victory, you help them make your belief their own.
I hope you’ll be a belief magnet to the people you lead. It not only increases their good feelings and morale because they want to be close to you; it also shows them what they’re capable of on their own, increasing their self-belief. This is the ultimate transfer of leadership.
Dr. John C. Maxwell’s premiere leadership newsletter,
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John Maxwell grew up in the 1950s in the small Midwestern city of Circleville, Ohio. John's earliest childhood memory is of knowing that he would someday be a pastor. He professed faith in Christ at the age of three, and reaffirmed that commitment when he was 13. At age 17, John began preparing for the ministry. He attended Circleville Bible College, earning his bachelor's degree in 1969. In June of that same year, he married his sweetheart, Margaret, and moved to tiny Hillham, Indiana, where he began his first pastorate.
While serving in his second church, Maxwell began to study the correlation between leadership effectiveness and ministry effectiveness. On July 4, 1976, while preaching at a service commemorating America's bicentennial, John sensed that God was calling him into a ministry to pastors. Within days after that event, pastors began to contact him, asking for his assistance in nurturing their churches. Over the next four years, on an informal basis, John helped scores of fellow pastors. Then, in 1980, he was asked to become Executive Director of Evangelism for the Wesleyan denomination.
Though his time at Wesleyan headquarters was productive, John soon realized that his deeper desire was to help pastors from numerous denominations. He knew that desire would be unfulfilled if he were to stay at denominational headquarters. As a result, in 1981 John accepted the call to return to the pastorate, this time at Skyline Wesleyan Church in the San Diego, California area. But he did so with the church's blessing to pursue his vision. The Skyline congregation allowed him to continue mentoring and assisting pastors even as he led them to new levels.
In 1985, as he continued to equip and encourage other pastors, John took the next crucial step in leadership development. He founded a new company called INJOY and created the INJOY Life Club, featuring a monthly tape for leaders. The fledging operation, established in the corner of a garage, was soon bursting at the seams. The INJOY Life Club tapes were received with great enthusiasm, and the number of subscriptions quickly increased from hundreds to thousands. Simultaneously, the demand for other resources and seminars exploded. Pastors from coast to coast were responding, and their desire for help was even greater than John had anticipated.
As the years passed, INJOY began demanding more and more of John's time. In 1995, he resigned from his position as senior pastor at Skyline following a very fruitful 14-year tenure. The church had tripled in size and its lay ministry involvement had increased ten-fold. Dr. Maxwell is in great demand today as a speaker. Through his bestselling books, audio and video resources, and major conferences, he communicates directly with more than one million people every year. He is frequently asked to speak for organizations such as Promise Keepers and Focus on the Family, but his greatest joy and desire is to help pastors become better leaders.
Because the need for leadership development knows no borders, John established EQUIP, a non-profit organization which trains leaders in urban communities, academic institutions, and within international organizations. EQUIP is also spearheading a movement which has enlisted more than one million pastoral prayer partners who covenant to pray specifically for those who shepherd God's flock.
John continues to seek new opportunities to help churches and church leaders. He knows that one thing is constant: the only hope for the world is salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ, who gives life abundantly.