What's on Your Bookshelf?
“What’s On Your Bookshelf” is a personal and professional growth podcast exploring the intersections of passion, potential, and purpose - featuring multi-certified coach and leadership development consultant Denise R. Russo alongside Sam Powell, Zach Elliott, Tom Schweizer, Dennis LaRue, and Michelle King.
What's on Your Bookshelf?
92 - Intentional Living - Why Good Intentions Aren’t Enough
What if a simple shift in your daily choices could lead to a life of lasting significance? Join Denise Russo and Sam Powell as they unpack John Maxwell's "Intentional Living," a game-changing book that wraps up our 2024 reading list. Drawing from our recent retreat, "Your Signature Story," we explore how conscious awareness of one's passions, potential, and purpose can ignite profound life changes. We outline Maxwell's four-step formula for making a difference and emphasize the importance of taking intentional actions to shape your future.
We redefine significance, inspired by a grandmother's sage advice—"just do what your hands find to do." This episode is a deep dive into simple but powerful intentional actions, illustrating how they can create a meaningful impact in our daily lives. Maxwell’s touching anecdote about receiving a blank book titled "The Greatest Story Ever Told" serves as a powerful reminder of the opportunity we all have to fill our lives with acts of kindness and purpose. Denise and Sam urge listeners to become the authors of their own significant stories, not by drifting through life, but by living with intention.
Lastly, we focus on transforming your life through deliberate choices. With everyone having the same 24 hours in a day, it's crucial to use that time wisely. We share insights from Maxwell's book, including essential questions to help you identify your unique skills, passions, and resources. We emphasize that good intentions alone are not enough; they must be coupled with actionable steps to achieve meaningful outcomes. Join us as we embark on this journey towards crafting a life of happy significance, aligning your passions, skills, and connections to make a lasting difference.
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Welcome to what's on your Bookshelf, with your hosts Denise Russo and Samantha Powell.
Speaker 2:Hi everyone. Welcome back to another episode of what's on your Bookshelf. This is a life and leadership podcast where we are living out loud the pages of the books on our bookshelves. My name is Denise Russo. I'm here today with my co-host and friend, sam Powell. I am super excited, happy, encouraged and really looking forward to this next and last book for 2024. It's one of my favorites. It's Intentional Living by John Maxwell. Sam, I'm so happy to be here with you today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, me too. I'm excited about this book. You've read this before. You've lived this one out loud in your life. This is the first time I'm reading it, and so I think this is going to be a really fun exploration and I think and we mentioned this in last week's episode but I think that this is really going to be a nice capstone to the happiness year because I think it helps us take everything we've learned from what makes people happy, how happiness works, how you can implement that in your life and help you really be no pun intended, intentional here right on how to move into this life. John calls it a life of significance right, and I like to think of it as in this year of happy significance right, significance that matters to you happiness in the day-to-day activities that you do, in the life that you live and you know, if I could give anybody a gift, it would be that right that they are happy and feel like their life is meaningful in a way that's unique to them I like what you say about unique.
Speaker 2:We did a retreat together, you and I last year called your Signature Story, and it was about how people could really craft their conscious awareness of their passions, potential and purpose in life and anything that was incongruent. How to be not only aware but how to make changes, and we saw significant changes in some of our participants that went through that, and a lot of that is foundationally what John teaches in this book that we're going to go through together now till the end of the year, which is that he says in the back cover of the book that I believe that, no matter what plot each of our stories may follow, deep down we all want one thing we want our lives to matter. We want our stories to be of significance. Nobody wants to feel like the world wouldn't miss him if he never lived, and so he starts out the book by saying what is your story? And so, as we walk through this together, our story is our story.
Speaker 2:My story is not the same as Sam's story. Your story listening, is not the same as our story, but everyone's life can be a great story, and I thought it was a beautiful way for him to start this book by suggesting that if we take the time and think about the story we've crafted, no matter how old you are on this phone or this podcast or how many years left you have living on this spinning globe, your life can be a great story. So what is it that you need to do? To look back, be present and look to the future and take some actions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I the way he's got this book set up is there's a bit of, there's a couple chapters of introduction which we'll talk about today, but it's your life being a great story and why good intentions aren't enough. It's your life being a great story and why good intentions aren't enough. And then he walks through this four step kind of formula that he's found as he's helped people, as he's lived a life of intentionality that I want to make a difference One, two, doing something that makes a difference. Three, with people who make a difference. And four, at a time that makes a difference. So, as we explore this book, we're going to talk about the introduction concepts of the story, which, I agree with you, is a beautiful way to start this book, and then we'll spend some time on kind of each one of those topics that he covers. But I couldn't help but just love this first chapter about your life can be a great story because of our your Signature Story.
Speaker 1:Retreat right, because we walked people through this. We did a lot of this, you know a lot of this, these activities, as we did. The retreat, because he starts off with the question of what is your story right? And look back at your life right, look back at how your life has unfolded thus far. And again, I just it always reminds me of the quote from Atomic Habits of you should be far less concerned with your current position and far more concerned with your current trajectory, right? So it's like, but that reflection of how did you get to where you are, but where do you want to go and what kind of story is going to get you there.
Speaker 1:And I just thought that was a beautiful concept and I loved it, especially because we've done this with people, we've walked people through this thought process and it's like you said, it's a beautiful thing to watch unfold. And I really hope that, as we go through this book, that people walk through this journey and walk through this with us, because it's I think it's one of those. It'll change your life. If you do it right. It'll make it be a life of purpose that you're looking for and a happy life of purpose.
Speaker 2:I was talking to a client this morning and he was sharing just how things are going for him in his current career and what and he's sort of on the younger side of his career journey. And he said you know, everything's fine at work, I like the people that I work with. Fine at work, I like the people that I work with, I am good at my job, but I don't really feel like I have like this sense of caring about the thing that I represent. He said I don't not like the thing I represent, but I don't really think that if you were to give me a list of 10 things I want to spend my time learning about on the weekend or in my free time, the 11th thing would be the thing that I have to do every day during the five days. And one of the things that we were talking about together was well then, what are you going to do with intention about it? Because you have five days a week that you're investing in this role, five days a week that you're investing in this role, two days, maybe, that you get to rest, sort of. Maybe the second day you're actually preparing to go back to the first of the five days in the next week, but I read this article.
Speaker 2:I think we shared this, maybe on an episode a couple of times ago, sam where the article was talking about how, if the average lifespan of a person is 80 years, that as you look at that, no matter what your age is today listening to this podcast, that means you have only 80 birthdays, you only have 80 summers to experience the sunshine, or 80 winters to experience the joy of the cool weather. 80, that's it, and so you may not even remember the first 10 or 12, maybe, and you hope to get to the number 80 or beyond at the end. And so when John was writing this book I remember before the book came out, he talked about the book to the John Maxwell team members at a conference that we were at, and he said you know, I've been very successful in my career, I've made a lot of money, I've met a lot of people. But he said it wasn't until I tasted significance of helping other people get what it was that they wanted out of life that I realized that until you taste significance, success will never satisfy. Or when you taste significance, then success can never satisfy you anymore.
Speaker 2:And so this book is really based around. The idea of this isn't about chasing a bigger title, more money, a bigger car, a different lifestyle. This is about just looking at your life and what your story is, and he says in the beginning of the book, to be significant, all you have to do is make a difference with others, wherever you are, with whatever you have day by day. And to your point. He's like a living example of atomic habits in James Clare's book, as a human, living example of this and I think that that's it.
Speaker 1:I think when we think of the word significance, we think of historical figures. We think of, you know, like people that are famous, you know, we think of people who've made this huge, sweeping impact on society or life or have changed the course of human history. And I love this definition of significance right. To be significant, all you have to do, all you have to do, is make a difference with the people around you every day. Right, it's just those little moments. It reminds me my grandma, one of my grandmother's things. She's always said my whole life. That is like now.
Speaker 1:One of my life mottos is just do what your hands find to do. Right, it's look around you in the space that you're in and just do the thing. Right. It makes a difference, it changes the experience of the people around you and that is significant. And if we are all doing that, that changes the world, that changes the community, that changes the space around us. Right, I feel like sometimes when we think of significance, it feels so daunting. When we think of leading a life of significance, it feels so big. But I love this different, I love this definition. I love that it pulls it down to just what's right around you, right Like what's in your family, what's in your community, what's in what your hands can find to do. Yeah, that makes a difference to somebody, and I just think that that's so beautiful and so tangible, which is what I love.
Speaker 2:John got a gift, sam, at one point in his career from somebody that he worked with In fact, he says it was in 1976. So at the time there was this woman who was his assistant, and she gave him a gift and it was a book, which is great, because this podcast is all about books and what books are on our bookshelves. And so the book that she gave him had a title and it was called the Greatest Story Ever Told. And if you can imagine listening to us sharing this, and if you thought about what would that book be about? The greatest story ever told. When he first shared that story with us, sam, I started to think about oh, I wonder who it's about, or what the storyline was, or was the person famous, or what was their experience, life? And so I started putting my mind into the body of somebody else. But then john paused and he said when I opened the book, it was empty, it was blank, all the pages inside the book were blank. And he said to Eileen, I think there's something wrong inside, john. And the note said John, your life is before. You. Fill these pages with kind acts, good thoughts and matters of your heart and write a great story with your life and that the greatest story ever told would be the book of your life.
Speaker 2:Now we've talked a lot about Sam journaling and things like that. John actually has a book that you can buy online, called the Greatest Story Ever Told, and guess what? It's a book that's empty. It's a journaling book where you can write your story, and he's genius in how he markets his books. But the point of this is is that the story is yours, it's your signature story, it's not someone else's story. And so he started filling the pages with his life, with intentionality. That's the purpose of this book is what are you going to do with your life? That is a life of intention, and John says when you intentionally use your everyday life to bring about positive change in the lives of others, you begin to live a life that matters matters and he encourages you and I love that.
Speaker 1:I have that that highlighted too. And, yep, absolutely right. Like it's really about. And he moves right into this, about getting into the story. And again, like we talked about this last week in the episode where we wrapped up and teased about this, was you've got to take action right. People who live intentionally, he says, jump in and live the story themselves. Don't settle for merely being a teller of stories of significance. Decide to be the story of significance right. A passive life does not become a meaningful life. And that kind of jumped over a couple pages of different quotes. But that concept, like that's one of those things that's resonating with me is a passive life does not become a meaningful life. You have to take action right.
Speaker 1:This is what I encourage my clients as a coach to do. It's what I encourage the people around me to do all the time is go do the thing, go out there and do it. And John is really telling us that we should do it with intention, we should do it right. And again, it's that trajectory what trajectory are you putting yourself on? And it's you putting yourself on it right. You can passively end up on a trajectory right, I have career coach.
Speaker 1:I coach people all the time who hit the midpoint of their career and they're like how did I get here? And it's because you've passively been moving along. We naturally do this. And then I think, as you round into, like I don't know, towards that second act and people like to say there are three acts in your career. So it's like kind of a third of the way through, you realize, I want to take some control of where I'm headed. I want to take control of my trajectory. Right, I've been on the corporate trajectory. They put me on and I've passively been going along the ride and I learned a lot of things. But now it's my turn to be intentional, it's my turn to do this.
Speaker 1:I think we all go through a phase in life of this, at least one, but probably multiple where you're going, huh, I've been running the hamster wheel, I've been do taking a lot of action, but that action isn't necessarily steps towards something. And so this is the encouragement is let's get down to it, let's get in the story and, um, you know, he says, you know he gives in this first chapter like how to start writing your significant, your significant story and it's put yourself in it. You've got to. You know, get in there. And you know no one. He says no one stumbles upon significance. Step one is get yourself in the story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a really old quote probably more than 2000 plus years old that says where your treasures are, there your heart also is, and so you have to think about what's important in your life. Let's say, take that example you were saying about the one third. As you're starting out in your career, there's certain things that might be important to you. Maybe it's that you're trying to establish yourself, or you're trying to get associated with a brand, or maybe you're just trying to get enough money to get out of your parents' house or your apartment and get into a place where you can start that second chapter of your life and maybe even build a family, or whatever it might be. But what happens when things shift? You can look at it through the lens of Ikigai, which we taught about two years ago when we started this podcast, which is look at the things that you're good at, that you also love doing, and the types of people you like being around and doing things that actually matter at the end of the day, so that you're not that person that's just spending five days a week, waiting till Friday and dreading Monday. Life is worth so much more than that. But this book also talks about how, if you see things that are even beyond just the mundane. If you see things that are unjust, do something about it.
Speaker 2:There's this beautiful song by an artist and songwriter named Matthew West. The name of the song is called Do Something, and maybe, scott, you can put a link into the show notes of this song. But what Matthew says in the song is that I woke up this morning and I saw a world full of trouble now, and I thought how did we ever get so far down and how's it ever going to turn around? And so I turned my eyes to heaven and thought God, why don't you do something? Well, I just couldn't bear the thought of people living in poverty, children sold into slavery. The thought disgusted me. So I shook my fist at heaven and said God, why don't you do something? And he said I did. I created you. And so then the chorus of the song says if not us, then who? And if not me and you, right now it's time to do something. And it goes on and on.
Speaker 2:But it basically is saying that if you do not live your days with intention, you have 24 hours a day, the same amount of time that the most wealthiest people in the world have and the poorest people in the world have, the most successful people in the world have and the most unemployed people in the world have. We have the same amount of time every day. What are you doing with your minutes and how does that matter? How much time are you spending looking and scrolling through other people's stories online or watching TV and watching fake stories that somebody else wrote, versus living your own story?
Speaker 2:So this book is really about your story, and if your story isn't as meaningful or significant or compelling as these things that you're seeing online or that you're seeing on television or that you're imagining other people have, when maybe that's not their truth, then you can change it. This book is about changing something about where you are right now to get to somewhere you want change it. This book is about changing something about where you are right now to get to somewhere you want to be. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I like that he says in this book. He says not everything that we face can be changed, but nothing can be changed until we face it Right, so it's get into the story. And then he's encouraging you to put significance in your story Right, like Like, don't just get into your life and like haphazardly do anything, but put something significant in there. What is the impact you wanna have, even if it's just around again, just the people around you, just that that is significant, that changes the lives of the people around you and that's meaningful. And then he encourages you to put your strengths in your story right, to really lean into that.
Speaker 1:And we talked about that a couple episodes ago, I think, in the last book about you know, leaning into your strengths and leaning into the uniqueness that is you. That makes that, you know, that makes that really beautiful, right, and I love that he's. He was talking to Jim Collins, who wrote the author of Good to Great, which is a book I really do like. It's got a lot of good stuff in it. So if you are a leader, it's a book you should read.
Speaker 1:It's got to be a required reading for you for sure. It was in my very first leadership development program and he was talking with Jim and Jim told him there are three questions you need to ask and answer to test your readiness to be a catalyst for significance. And the first one is can you be the best in the world at what you do? And John says can you be the best in the world at using the unique skills? Maybe, maybe not, but can you be the best you in the world at using your skills? Absolutely Right. Can you be the best you in what you do? Right? Someone will resonate with that. Someone will need that as a guidepost.
Speaker 1:The second question is are you passionate about what you're doing? Right? Do you? Is there this fire in you? Is there some kind of impact you want to have in the world and that's very unique to you? The impact that I want to have should be different than the one you want to have, because together that's two really great, significant impacts, right, and if we all have that, that's 7 billion. What are we at? How many billion people in the world are there now? Think about what that would look like if we were all working towards these unique impacts and are you passionate about it and does this something that lights you on fire? Do you care about it?
Speaker 1:And the third thing is do you have the resources to change your world right? Do you have the resources that you need and I talk about this a lot with clients of it's one of the pillars of my coaching practice of do you have the skills that you need? What do we need to upskill you in? Do you have the resources? Do you have the people, the network, the? You know the connections that you need to make the difference and if not, they are buildable.
Speaker 1:You can go do it. But you know, when you're thinking about being that catalyst right, that person that makes a significant change, you be the best. Can you work on you so that you can do what you need to do in this space? Can you do that with a passion? And do you have the resources you need to pull that off Like? I think that's just such a beautiful question to put on yourself and I think it's something worth exploring as you're starting this journey and thinking about this, and I'm definitely going to spend some time on that as we go through this, but you know that's really about putting you and your strengths in the story and getting you know, just getting that action, getting that movement.
Speaker 2:This is a really introspective way to look at your life, because there's one thing about saying can you be the best and are you passionate and do you have the resources?
Speaker 2:That's the first step, is acknowledging. The second step is having the intention to do something different. But the thing that makes your life significant is where John shifts into the next chapter, which is that intentions aren't good enough, which is a funny title for a chapter when the name of the book is called Intentional Living, and he says intentions aren't good enough, but intentions get you the actions that get you the results that you want. So, if you think about when we talk about this a lot in our podcast, which is, if you want to change your results, you have to change your actions, to change your actions, you have to change your beliefs. To change your beliefs, you have to change your thinking. The intentional part of this is the action piece, but the end of that is the results or the outcomes piece, and so what John is talking about here is why the intention isn't enough if it's not coupled with taking action toward change.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. And he starts this second chapter with Samuel Johnson's quote of hell is paved with good intentions. Right, like the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Right, like the road to hell is paved with good intentions, hell itself is paved with good intentions. Right, it's that you can intend to do something, but if you're not taking the steps, if you're not getting into it.
Speaker 1:And he really distinguishes this as the difference between doing and trying. Right, like we often say hey, we're going to try to do something, but we need to move into the space of we're going to do something. Right, commit to the action, commit to the doing, commit to the intentionality. Right, not the dreams and wishes and hopes and all those super things are great. Right, like, in my head, I'm all these things and I could be doing all these things, but if it never makes it into action, then it's just a fairy tale. Right, it's not real. It's not the real story, it's not the tangible book you can hold in your hands, it's just the beautiful fairy tale that's in my head. Right, and so it's that. You know, step into that.
Speaker 1:And he uses a little bit of a sports analogy, which you know I love, as he's talking about this. But you know he said that he asked the question of what game are you watching that you'd rather be playing? Are you sitting in the stands, in areas of your life where you could be making a difference? Right, and he's talking about that significance of just in your life, right around you. About that significance of just in your life, right around you. What could you be doing? And how do you learn to be intentional? How do you take those movements and take that step? And it's really about the actions that you commit yourself to he says.
Speaker 2:Another sports quote that I think that you probably liked, which is later on, that is, I think, so profound about this is about taking bold action and not just living life safe, he says. This person named Bob Mowad said most people don't aim too high and miss. They aim too low and hit. And so what's worse than that is not aiming at all. But being intentional means that you have to take risks, you have to be willing to stumble. He calls it failing, but the very first book I ever received from John Maxwell was the book called failing forward.
Speaker 2:He followed that up years later with another book called sometimes you win, sometimes you learn. I think you win in all of it. It's just that sometimes, when you're learning, it feels uncomfortable, but you still win something from the learning, and so this is around trying and doing and taking that action that we're talking about. So when we get together again next week, what we're going to do is move into the first piece of this, which is acknowledging that you really want to make a difference. Now, if you're listening to this podcast and you don't want to make a difference in life, then you probably shouldn't come back next week, because this is about wanting to do something different and wanting to make a difference, even in starting something small. So that's where we'll start off again next week.
Speaker 1:Anything that you want to close this out for today, sam um, he ends all of these chapters with, like, an application piece of like how do you apply this? And which I think is really good. And he ends this chapter on why intentions aren't good enough, on, like, this list of words of good intention, words of intentional living, and then words of a life that matters. And it's just such an interesting list where he talks about things like good words of intention are desire, but words of intentional living are action, and a life that matters is results, right. So when you look at that, it's desire, action, results. He does this with wish purpose, fulfillment someday, today, every day, and I think that, like, as we explore this book and as we think about how to move yourself in, right, this is an action oriented process. We're in here, right, this is taking everything we've learned so far across the books that we've explored and really doing something purposeful with it. Right, and I think that this list that he's got at the end of this chapter is really, I think, like it helped me kind of solidify the movement, right. Where am I sitting with desire when I should be sitting in action, where I could be getting results? Right? Like, where am I sitting with fantasy, where I could be sitting in strategy and I could be now working on follow through right, like, how do I move from passive to active to proactive, how do I go from occasional to continual to habitual right, which again is full circle? From last year, you know atomic habit, so I think that, like for me, this was such a nice way to sit here and thinking about. Like this application and that's what we're going to take you on as we move forward is you have, like you said, you have to be somebody.
Speaker 1:The statement is I want to make a difference, and I think that this list helps, helped me really think about. What does making a difference looks like it's getting into results and fulfillment and every day and follow through and proactivity and habitual and lifestyle and I do right versus I will or somebody should right, and it's you becoming the I do right. This is what I am doing every day, this is what I'm doing with my life and as we move into next week, like I just it's like there's a commitment in that, there's a commitment to action that I think we have to carry forward and it's the I want to make a difference, I want that. And then how are we going to? How do we do that Right, how we pull it off, and I'll explore. I'm excited to explore that next week and to you know. See what John has to say on that.
Speaker 2:Awesome. So, since this is about doing something, maybe there's a little bit of homework we can give to the listener, which is think about your story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, think about your story. This is about moving from surviving to thriving. You don't have to just settle. You can have not just success the way the world says it is, but significance in the way you define it for your life. This is your signature story. This is your opportunity to take the things that you're good at, that you love doing with the people that you resonate best with, and making a life that matters, doing something that matters at a time that matters all those pieces that John has laid out so nicely in this book. So we are going to start next week by talking about wanting to make a difference in what that looks like. We're looking forward to this journey with you over the next couple of weeks as we get to the end of this year. Thanks for being with us today as we start this new book. My name's Denise Russo and, on behalf of my friend, sam Powell, this has been an intentional day of talking about another book that's on our bookshelf. See you next time.