Leadership Lessons from Keller Williams Realty Vice President of Growth John Davis

        Today was a great day.  I had the honor of interviewing an absolute star in the Keller Williams family.  His name is John Davis.  John is now the Vice President of Growth for the fastest growing real estate company in North America.  You don't get the position by being average.  If you are interested in leadership then you will love these lessons. 
        First let's look at John's definition of leadership which is teaching other people how to think so they can get what they want.  You need to be looking at your leaders and asking yourself  "what is this person teaching me?" Leaders are teachers and the more they can teach you the more valuable they are.  Many people feel leadership is something that is given through a job title or status.  Leadership is earned.  I believe it all boils down to one word; influence.  The ability to influence yourself and influence others.  The definition John uses is great because it revolves around adding value to other people's lives which is the only way to feel long term fulfillment.  Just as Zig Ziglar used to say "you can have everything in life you want by just helping enough other people get what they want." 
          The second point John spoke to is the importance of facing and overcoming adversity.  John says it is easy to say and do all the right things when you are winning.  But it is when you are going through the trials and tribulations of life you find out about the metal of people.  Facing adversity and turning it around is the common thread running through all the stories, movies, and books we all love.  Without a test you never have a testimony so keep in mind that how you face adversity is a magnification of who you truly are. 
          Lastly you have to know and be confident in who you are.  Like Stephen Covey says in his book the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People "you must win in private before you can win in public."  John has to make decisions all the time.  Some of them may not be so popular.  You see true leadership is doing what's right not what's popular.  He says that if he constantly worried about what others thought of him he would have a lot of sleepless nights. His success is judged by him not what others think.  This is my favorite quote from today. "When you have big goals you are going to be disruptive and you have to be ok with you because the status quo doesn't like people who change things up.  Then what happens is when you're different you're the problem according to the status quo.  When you're good with you, you understand that when they're saying that you're doing your job." Make sure you are good with you because if you aren't good with you it is impossible to be good with other people. That also means you are going to be making mistakes or meet with failure along the way.  However are your public failures really failures if you learn from them privately? I don't think so.
         I hope you have enjoyed reading this as much as I have enjoyed writing it.  Thank you for reading and please feel free to add any thoughts in the comments section below.