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Episode: Strategies for Building Great Leaders | Rob Hoskins

Author: Life.Church
Duration: 00:44:58

Episode Shownotes

For a leader to grow, they’ll need the investment and coaching of a few mentors along the way. In this episode, one of Craig's mentors Rob Hoskins shares the practical strategies he uses to develop leaders and the advantages of finding a mentor. Watch video and download the leader guide:

https://www.life.church/leadershippodcast/strategies-for-building-great-leaders-rob-hoskins/

Full Transcript

00:00:01 Speaker_00
of your mentorship, of you imparting who you are

00:00:10 Speaker_01
Hey, it's great to have you back for another episode of the Craig Rochelle Leadership Podcast. I am really excited about our guest. And so let me tell you about him.

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Rob Hoskins is one of the most respected global development leaders in the world today. He's a longtime friend and a guy that I would consider a mentor, meaning I call Rob to ask him for advice. He's called a leader of leaders by John Maxwell.

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Rob is committed to building young leaders and serving great leaders. He oversees startups. He spearheads global transformation initiatives. He advises NGOs and helps higher education institutions. He is the president of a partner of ours at Life.Church.

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He's the president of One Hope Ministry and has helped reach more than 1.9 billion people. billion children around the world with a life-changing message of hope.

00:01:00 Speaker_01
He is a co-author with John Maxwell of the book, Change Your World, How Anyone Anywhere Can Make a Difference. Rob, it's great to have you on.

00:01:10 Speaker_00
It's always great to be with you, Craig, and honored to be on this, my favorite podcast. So now I get to be on it. Hey, thank you, thank you. I hope you don't say that to all the podcasts.

00:01:19 Speaker_01
I absolutely do not, I'm very honest. Well, I'm really excited to introduce our community to you. Like I said, you've been a very dear friend and someone that I look to for advice when I need direction.

00:01:33 Speaker_01
And I've enjoyed our partnership with you, Life.Church, partnering with One Hope to create the YouVersion Bible app for kids.

00:01:40 Speaker_00
Well, it's been probably the greatest, what I would say, collaborative partnership that One Hope has ever had. We're now over 2 billion. By the way, we celebrated our 2 billionth child reached. But 120 million of those are with you guys.

00:01:55 Speaker_00
So it's our partnership with the Bible App for Kids, creating that together. And more recently, the Kids Bible Experience, which is that older age group, seven to 12. So Bible App for Kids was that sort of two to six-year-old.

00:02:07 Speaker_00
And so, man, we've had that. We've reached 120 million kids together. I think that's pretty exciting. That are engaging with the scripture and us being able to measure how they're engaging with it is just what's happened with digital, right?

00:02:17 Speaker_00
I mean, we've reached millions of kids through print, through books, still powerful. I mean, we'll print 89 million books this year. So it's still an incredible, powerful medium.

00:02:25 Speaker_00
But I think just these new superpowers of the digital and man, Bobby Grunewald has mentored me in that area. He's on our board. And so I like the way Bobby says it, like one hope and life church.

00:02:37 Speaker_00
and YouVersion got married and they had a baby called Bible App for Kids. So we're married and we can never get a divorce, whether we like it or not. So it's pretty powerful.

00:02:43 Speaker_01
Maybe we need to have another kid, because that first one was pretty special.

00:02:45 Speaker_00
Well, we did. We have Kids Bible Experience, which is the second kid. And we're talking about the third and fourth. So I think we're going to have a big family.

00:02:51 Speaker_01
Well, just to highlight that for a moment, partnerships can be a really strategic way to further anyone's mission. And that's one of the things I love about you and One Hope is that you don't try to protect what's yours.

00:03:04 Speaker_01
You try to steward whatever you have. And that could be relationships. It could be impact. It could be working together. And so your heart really is to serve more people. In fact, you have a mission that you say very, very directly.

00:03:17 Speaker_01
If I say, what are you about? Could you just tell us for the sake of our audience? And we'll build from there. So my personal mission statement- Yeah, your personal mission statement. Yeah, it's to really build young leaders and serve great leaders.

00:03:27 Speaker_01
Okay, so slow it down just a minute. So to build young leaders, which One Hope is all about. Absolutely. Is the mission statement of One Hope is?

00:03:36 Speaker_00
It's God's word to every child, is our simple mission. God's word to every child. It's to affect destiny by providing God's word to every child and the young person.

00:03:42 Speaker_00
So that's where you version One Hope are just tied at the hip, because it's that, it's the vision of scripture engagement that's so powerful to both of us. But my dad actually founded the ministry, and he had this vision from the Lord.

00:03:55 Speaker_00
He saw what was happening with Next Generations around the world. He said, when he saw it, it broke his heart, Craig. And this was 35 years ago, and from that vision, he said he saw things that we didn't even understand at the time.

00:04:05 Speaker_00
He said, I was in seminary, he said, I'm watching kids watching pornography on the palm of their hand. Like this was before there were cell phones. And he said, Lord, what am I seeing and what can I do?

00:04:16 Speaker_00
The Lord said, the only thing that will overcome these lies is truth. My word is truth. Take my word and give it to every child in the world. So that was God's word, every child. And then he shared that with me, and we started praying about it together.

00:04:29 Speaker_00
And almost immediately, it was followed by, how can we do that? How can we reach every child in the world? And the Lord said, you'll do it through leaders.

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So that's why for the last 35 years, it has been through leaders that we've been able to reach 2 billion children. It's my relationship with you, my relationship with Bobby that allows us to reach 120 million through digital.

00:04:47 Speaker_00
So it's the vehicle of leadership that allows me to fulfill the deep passion and vision of our family's heart. So in some sense, we're more B2B than B2C as an organization.

00:04:58 Speaker_00
So I was recently on a podcast and they said, I was introduced as, this is the largest ministry you've never heard of, and a leader that you've probably never heard of. And I sort of count that as a...

00:05:11 Speaker_00
You said leader of leaders, that's the way John sort of views it. And it's, I'm more B2B and I'm much more comfortable working with leaders and serving them to expand the kingdom than for me to be a name or for One Hope to be a forward facing brand.

00:05:28 Speaker_00
And I think we live in a collaborative economy. So it's just been a perfect time for One Hope.

00:05:32 Speaker_01
So one of my strategies on the podcast, obviously, in the podcast world, you bring on big names. And that's typically what drives it. But if you'll notice, a lot of times, I bring on people that maybe not everyone has heard of. And you are.

00:05:46 Speaker_01
Honestly, the very, very top of the list of leaders that I respect, and though not known broadly, your leadership impact is very, very significant. And the world is often empowered by great leaders that don't have big names.

00:06:02 Speaker_01
There's a few of them out there. Bobby, he's one of the best around. And he said he'd put you on three fingers, you, Don, and two other people of who he would call when he needs leadership advice. I'm in a similar boat. And you do.

00:06:18 Speaker_01
You're building young leaders, and you're serving great leaders. I want to start with the great leaders, but I don't want to leave out the young leaders. What is it that you offer great leaders?

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How do you help best? I think the first step for me is understanding what problem that leader is trying to solve.

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And then once I understand clearly the sort of mandate on their life, what are they uniquely positioned to do that no other leader is able to do, it's only at that point that I really have value for them.

00:06:51 Speaker_01
So start, I want to help people become better at coaching. If we're just meeting, and you do, you help some of the biggest names out there You're quietly behind the scenes, really consulting and adding value. Where do you start?

00:07:04 Speaker_01
Go through a series of questions. What would you ask me and what specifically would you wanna know from me?

00:07:08 Speaker_00
Well, first of all, I wanna ask you first. So, I believe in research.

00:07:14 Speaker_01
Okay, so let me just cut you off for a minute. So I came and I asked you just a couple of questions and then how many people did you interview about me?

00:07:22 Speaker_01
38 okay, so so just this is for our I'm looking at the camera now not you I'm looking at if you're watching on YouTube I'm looking in the eye right now.

00:07:30 Speaker_01
I asked Rob for just a little bit of advice Casually, maybe 15-30 minutes on the phone before we talked He went and interviewed 38 different people who knew me about me so he could know how to help me. This is the level I'm talking about helping.

00:07:49 Speaker_01
Okay, so that's very unique. So my first question is, what are you gonna ask me? And your answer is, you're not gonna ask me, you're gonna go ask others. So tell me about that.

00:07:57 Speaker_00
Right. Most leaders, if they need help, there's some gap. So they're not, none of us are completely self-aware. So we can't see ourselves clearly enough, right?

00:08:08 Speaker_00
So I think just that discipline of getting a full rounded view of a leader that just his own awareness of who he thinks he is, but how is he actually viewed? How do the people that love him the most feel about him?

00:08:24 Speaker_00
So Bobby Grunewald was one of my interviews for you, right? And just building trust with him to be able to know that, hey, this is a safe place for me to help my friend Craig was massive and huge for me, right?

00:08:34 Speaker_00
probably a handful of people that know you as well as Bobby does, trust you, work with you, know your habits, know your behaviors behind the scenes. I even asked them like, what annoys you about Craig?

00:08:44 Speaker_00
I mean, what is it that I know he's the phenomenal leader, you love him with all your heart, you'd die for him. Bobby would literally take a bullet for you. But he can probably pretty quickly tell me, well, you know, here's what I see.

00:08:54 Speaker_00
And so it's really getting that deep dive on, I really can't help someone if we're not, working off of the same sort of truth sheet. And so that truth sheet is really built out.

00:09:06 Speaker_00
Then when I go in the conversation to you, it's just really easy for me to say, hey, here's what people think about you, and sort of giving you a sense of, what do you feel is right, wrong? Do you agree? Do you not agree?

00:09:19 Speaker_00
And then it's almost like I don't need to interview you. You're almost interviewing yourself at that point.

00:09:23 Speaker_01
Well, it's fascinating, because you could ask me questions, and I could tell you only my perspective, but my perspective isn't the other side of me.

00:09:32 Speaker_01
And so what we did, you ended up giving me, I think it was about an hour and five minutes, I think you had an hour on that phone call is what you had scheduled, and you took like five minutes more. And it was the most valuable, single hour of my life.

00:09:47 Speaker_01
Oh my. And the notes that I took and so what you did is you came and you gave me, you had a well-rounded perspective of strengths and weaknesses, potential and vulnerabilities, everything in between.

00:09:58 Speaker_01
And then when we talked, you were discussing with tremendous context. So to wrap back on what you said, if you're going to help someone, before you ask the person, you're going to do some thorough research on the person.

00:10:12 Speaker_01
And for me, you had a very detailed, typed out summary of what you had discovered, which was- I recorded our call, and then I went through it as a draft.

00:10:19 Speaker_00
Yes. Yeah.

00:10:21 Speaker_01
And so there, you recorded the call, went through it as a draft, sent me a summary, and that's just, no one's ever done that before. No one has ever interviewed, probably not three or four people, much less 38, and then came.

00:10:33 Speaker_00
And I was really clear about, I'm always really clear about like, what kind of people do I want to interview? I wanna interview people that you know really, really well, that you're in deep relationship with. I wanna interview different demographics.

00:10:46 Speaker_00
So I wanted to get sort of people that are older than you and their perspective of you. People that are sort of at your peer level, and I want to get younger leaders in their view of you. So you want to get this deep. I'm men and women.

00:10:56 Speaker_00
I wanted to get sort of a, so I'm a researcher, so it's very much like I wanted a strong representative sampling of the audiences that Craig Groeschel needs to serve. And that really gives you a much fuller picture.

00:11:11 Speaker_00
But then I sort of go back, and so I have a, it's actually, my dad taught it to me, but then I found out later, and he didn't even know about it. something in Japan called the Ikigai. And it's how do you find your purpose?

00:11:24 Speaker_00
And that paradigm, almost the same language as my dad used with me growing up, and that would be a filter that I take every leader through that I'm working with. And it's what are you great at? What do you love to do? Where is the world's great need?

00:11:40 Speaker_00
And how do you create scale? and sustainability. So that's sort of the prism, those four things working together. So what are you great at?

00:11:50 Speaker_01
What do you love? What does the world need? And how can you scale and create sustainability? Yeah.

00:11:58 Speaker_00
So it's through that conceptual framework that I began to work with a leader to really make them the best leader they can be.

00:12:06 Speaker_01
Okay, so let's say we're starting into it and you're asking some questions. And so now you've got an understanding of what someone, what other people say about a leader. You're starting to understand their gifts, their passion, their talent.

00:12:19 Speaker_01
You start to see, okay, based on what you have, here's what we see in the world. At that point, you want to talk about scale and sustainability. That's where many people don't. That's where they drop off in the conversation.

00:12:32 Speaker_01
Talk to me about scale and sustainability. What does that mean?

00:12:34 Speaker_00
It means different things to different types of leaders. I mean, I don't really think they're It really depends on the other questions, like what problem are you trying to solve?

00:12:45 Speaker_00
Scalability looks very different for different types of questions that you're trying to answer. So it's really hard for me to sort of give a simple answer on how do you create scale. But I can tell you one thing.

00:12:56 Speaker_00
If you want to create scale and you want to make it sustainable, the depth of your mentorship of you imparting who you are into the lives of others is the only way to scale anything.

00:13:11 Speaker_00
So for me, it's always about what leaders am I building that are going to be able to grow my capacity, to need me less,

00:13:22 Speaker_00
and how deep generationally am I building those leaders to make sure that this thing is gonna last however my goal is, 50 years, 100 years, whatever it is.

00:13:32 Speaker_00
So we're playing the long game here, but all sustainability and all scale to me at the end of the day is built by, and this is a biblical principle. Like the harvest is ripe, what does Jesus say? The laborers are few.

00:13:44 Speaker_00
Like normally the problem in the market is not that something doesn't have the capacity to grow, like, but the short term, is always people. So the sustainability, and of course, people includes resourcing.

00:13:58 Speaker_00
So you need different types of people, but it's all about people growing. So think about One Hope. When I think about what kind of people do I need to meet the need of God's word every child, that's a big vision.

00:14:09 Speaker_00
A lot of kids, we're in every nation of the world. We need all kinds of people. I need generosity partners and donors that are going to participate in funding this. So I need generosity people.

00:14:24 Speaker_00
I need to scale how many of those I need in order to accomplish my vision mission. I need distribution partners. So my Rolodex is filled. with the leaders of the largest church networks, church movements around, the more relationships I can get.

00:14:39 Speaker_00
You'll reach every child and young person in the world, and you'll do it through leaders. So the scale of my relationships are going to expand. Then I need program leaders. So when I wanted to do digital,

00:14:51 Speaker_00
It's a great example, because it's part of your story. It's Bobby's story. So I saw very early on that we started as publishers, our family. We were printers. We were Bible publishers. We knew how to do print really, really well.

00:15:03 Speaker_00
But I quickly saw that with the digital age, we had to move from print to multimedia. And we moved into films, and we moved into everything else. So with digital, I quickly identified I had to have you version.

00:15:16 Speaker_00
Like it's the largest digital platform in the church in the world. No one's even close to that. So I started building a relationship with Bobby for three years. I knew if I could get Bobby, I could get sustainability. So I worked on that relation.

00:15:30 Speaker_00
You'll do it through leaders. I worked on that relationship. I worked, and I continually work on how can I bring him value? Because we have a shared problem in the world we're trying to solve. Both of us are.

00:15:40 Speaker_00
We're both passionate about scripture engagement. And lo and behold, as Bobby's kids started getting a little older, because they were really young when they started, he said, hey, you know, what about that kids thing you were talking about?

00:15:52 Speaker_00
Until it got personal for him, like it wasn't, I said, I'm ready to roll. But I remember three years before that in my journal, I had a note, it's still written there and my team sees it.

00:16:01 Speaker_00
And in my journal, it was a Bible app for kids, question mark, three years. before you, Irjin, and Bobby say, let's go build BibleApp for kids together. It's all about people and building those leaders and those relationships. So there's a lot there.

00:16:14 Speaker_01
One is, sometimes a vision takes time. You're both strategic and patient, and you didn't do it on your own. You look for the right partners, and then you said, how can I add value to you?

00:16:27 Speaker_00
And most important, most important, hear me, for sustainability, it's all about values. Even before mission and vision, it's all about values.

00:16:36 Speaker_01
So I'm going to jump on my second page of notes here. There's a quote in the book that you wrote with John. You said, if we want to change the world, we can't just climb the ladder of success. We need to climb the ladder of good values.

00:16:47 Speaker_01
I love that quote. I'd like to play off of that. And I'm asking an unusual question I've never asked anybody before. You do work with some of the most well-known, strongest, successful leaders out there.

00:16:59 Speaker_01
Normally, I would say, Rob, what are the qualities you see in them that are most important and most admirable. But I think I want to ask you the opposite, because in celebrating 20 years at One Hope, that's a long time in some place.

00:17:13 Speaker_01
I've been at One Hope for 34 years. I've been CEO for 20 years. 20 years as CEO and been there for 34. That's amazing. That's rare. And that is- And by the way, I want to be there until I die. So that will be 75 more years, whatever.

00:17:27 Speaker_00
Who knows?

00:17:27 Speaker_01
My dad's 88 and still going strong and still part of the vision and mission. And so sustainability really, really matters. In the best leaders that you work with, what are the greatest areas of vulnerability? Wow, you're asking a hard question.

00:17:42 Speaker_00
Ego. I think it's the biggest killer. It really is. And why? I just think that it makes them less self-aware. Like the bigger their ego gets, the less self-aware they become. It's almost a formula.

00:17:57 Speaker_00
And so I think it's why, it's why I think Jesus talks so much about humility. And I think it's just such a dangerous trap. Like the more successful we become as leaders, the greater the temptation for our ego to grow.

00:18:12 Speaker_00
And I would say the blinder you become, the more that temptation and the less people that can speak into your life to make sure that you are self-aware and that you stay humble is very, very hard as your leadership and your influence begins to grow.

00:18:32 Speaker_01
So I'm gonna ask another direct question and I'll just say, here's what happens. With success does come the temptation for a growing ego, for pride.

00:18:42 Speaker_01
And then typically people start telling you more what you want to hear and the trajectory toward it- By the way, I get a lot of people that want me to help them. Yes.

00:18:51 Speaker_00
If I sniff ego, I'm out. Okay. Not gonna waste my time.

00:18:54 Speaker_01
Yes. And so the trajectory though is toward ego. Without fighting against it, you're gonna end up with fewer people telling you the truth. So give me some advice. Let's say I am younger in leadership and I've got a real positive trajectory.

00:19:13 Speaker_01
How do I intentionally fight against the current that leads toward ego and pride?

00:19:19 Speaker_00
Yeah, because pride comes before a fall. Jesus knows that. It's a principle throughout all of history. How do we avoid it? The way we avoid it is not to become autonomous. And this is the spirit of the age.

00:19:33 Speaker_00
So we are the children of enlightenment, which basically means, historically, if you track it, it really goes back before the Enlightenment. It goes back to the Garden of Eden.

00:19:45 Speaker_00
when Satan offers humanity, you can know the difference between good and evil. And they buy that lie. And we can see that destructive thread throughout all of history, all of humanity, and every individual heart.

00:19:58 Speaker_00
So that spirit of, I can do this myself, and this is a very American principle, by the way. Like, I know this is a global podcast. But I mean, we've owned it. And we've ridden that wave really, really well. So we are very autonomous individuals.

00:20:12 Speaker_00
We believe in expressive individualism as the power of the individual. And so because that's been driven, that's the philosophy of Disney, by the way. I mean, it's Elsa in Frozen. It's like, you can overcome anything. You can do anything.

00:20:28 Speaker_00
And there's this sense of personal autonomy that drives us, that's our philosophical part of who we are.

00:20:35 Speaker_00
So the only way that you can, particularly for young leaders, if they buy into that lie of autonomy that destroys us and creates pride in our life, the Bible's really clear about what overcomes that.

00:20:49 Speaker_00
This is the loneliest generation in the history of humanity, by the way. Gen Z is. I mean, it's research. And the reason is because of the spirit of autonomy in their life.

00:20:58 Speaker_00
They are the loneliest generation in the history of humanity because they've been told you can do it yourself. It's all about you. And instead, the opposite of autonomy. So they say they're dying for community.

00:21:12 Speaker_00
Like, I want community, but I don't want accountability. Guess what? There's no community without accountability. There's no relationship without accountability. So it's actually putting layers of accountability in your life.

00:21:27 Speaker_00
So when I say the number one thing I do is I go out and interview other people because we're not self-aware. If you want to be a great leader, if you want to be, if you're a young leader that wants to grow and you want to be sustained,

00:21:38 Speaker_00
you better put layers of accountability in your life.

00:21:41 Speaker_01
Can you put a little skin on that for me?

00:21:43 Speaker_00
I can get real practical with it. Yes, please. I can get real practical with it. So I have multiple layers of accountability in my life. I have accountabilities in my marriage. I have a group of six men that I would die for and they would die for me.

00:21:56 Speaker_00
You know some of them. Those guys can read my mail to me anytime they want to and they're welcomed on a regular basis to do it. Most of them, I have a monthly call with them and I want them to tell me, what did I do wrong? What did I say wrong?

00:22:08 Speaker_00
It happened to me this week. I said something in one of my speeches and they came up to me and they said, you know what you said was deeply hurtful. And I was like, what? I didn't even see it, Craig.

00:22:18 Speaker_00
And when they told me, honestly, I just began to weep. I was broken. I said, oh, you're so right. I didn't see it. So there's that personal accountability. But I also build it into my governance.

00:22:26 Speaker_00
Like if you want an organization that you're building to grow, I love your governance here at Life.Church, by the way.

00:22:31 Speaker_00
And I get called in after the thing blows up, and it's at universities, at businesses, and it almost always goes back to governance. It's a governance issue. And that's because it's accountability.

00:22:41 Speaker_00
Because the bigger you get, the less accountability you want in your life, because you don't think you need it anymore. Like, I want to make my own decisions. I want to be autonomous. I want to control, I want to make this much money.

00:22:50 Speaker_00
I want to get this much success. And for me, it's every time, my team knows this, they'll keep repeating it to you, every time my influence grows. Every time my opportunities for wealth grow, I put deeper levels of accountability in my life.

00:23:04 Speaker_00
So I have a presidential care committee, which is appointed by my board. And by the way, there are layers of accountability that are above me. So I have board members on there.

00:23:12 Speaker_00
There are peers on there that are part of my leadership team, a senior vice president that I work with, who's been like an uncle to me. He's an advisor to me. I have people that work for me. So my chief of staff sits on there.

00:23:24 Speaker_00
And my secretary, who runs my calendar, sits on there. And my wife sits on there. And we meet monthly. And I have made myself accountable to them. There's a lot of things I would love to do, and they say, no, you're not gonna do that.

00:23:38 Speaker_00
Like, that's a safety net in my life, but it also keeps me really, really humble. And so I like to say that I have overlapping governances in my life.

00:23:48 Speaker_01
So if a leader would say, okay, Rob, I see that for you, but that would be restrictive for me, what would you say?

00:23:53 Speaker_00
I would say, good. Good that it's restrictive. Good that you have voices that can say no to you in your life. Good that you have people that are gonna call you out on your BS when it needs to be called out.

00:24:03 Speaker_00
Great, I'm glad there's more restriction in your life. And to me, it feels like freedom more than restriction. It is absolutely free. So G.K. Chesterton, I love what he said, the philosopher, he said, the most beautiful part of a painting is its frame.

00:24:20 Speaker_00
Because I've heard Bobby talk about this with you. You guys talk about it. People say, what is it about outside the box thinking? And Bobby says, I love inside the box thinking. The true innovation comes from the restrictions you put on yourself.

00:24:32 Speaker_00
So it keeps you focused. So if you go back to what's your purpose, what are you great at? Where's the world's great need? What am I good at? it's really getting smaller rather than getting bigger. Yes. Explain that.

00:24:45 Speaker_00
Why is it getting smaller rather than bigger? Because it's back to Jim Collins. I mean, it's good to great. It's built to last. It's you're actually identifying and being self-aware as a leader. What am I the best at?

00:24:56 Speaker_00
I can do a lot of things really, really good. And the point of a good leader is they can do a lot of things good. I don't want to do everything good.

00:25:01 Speaker_01
I want to do a few things great. I'm going to slow you down real quick because we've got a lot of younger leaders here that may not have read good to great.

00:25:07 Speaker_01
the hedgehog principle, and so I'll just pause and say, good to great, but James Collins is a, I'd put it in my top 20, for sure, of books you have to read. Okay. Brilliant.

00:25:21 Speaker_01
Thank you for your honesty, your vulnerability, and just for your accountability. That's one of the reasons why 38 years later, you're still where you are. 20 years, you're still a CEO. I want to talk a little bit about young leaders.

00:25:33 Speaker_01
You alluded to the fact that it's the loneliest generation. If you're building young leaders, what advice do you have for others doing the same thing today? What's different about the emerging generation? What do we need to know?

00:25:48 Speaker_01
How do I need to think differently as a leader as I'm speaking in the lives of Gen Z or even younger millennial leaders?

00:25:56 Speaker_00
Yeah. For one thing, I love this generation. They are the most knowledgeable generation in the history of humanity. Obviously, the digital revolution has created.

00:26:07 Speaker_00
So if you look pre-enlightenment, before the inventing of the printing press, like it was the dark ages for a reason. It's because knowledge could not move quickly.

00:26:15 Speaker_00
And so because of the printed press, from 1500 until the time we're living in right now, you had an acceleration of knowledge in the world. And it has been incredible to see how the world has changed because, well, now the digital revolution has come.

00:26:30 Speaker_00
And now we're living in a knowledge economy.

00:26:33 Speaker_00
And so this generation, starting really with the millennials and now growing with Gen Z, and it'll be hyper steroid growth with Generation Alpha that's coming behind them, are the most knowledgeable generation in the history of humanity.

00:26:48 Speaker_00
The scary thing about them is that they have a ton of knowledge with probably, maybe it's not fair, I can't prove it statistically, but maybe the greatest wisdom deficiency that we've ever seen, because they have lived isolated, autonomous lives.

00:27:04 Speaker_00
So they have this incredible ability to know things on their fingertips. AI is going to accelerate that even further. So knowledge without wisdom is a very, very scary thing.

00:27:17 Speaker_01
So I- And maybe life experience, meaning, you know, like I talked to some young leaders that are very capable that were uncomfortable calling to order a pizza. And just general life experience like that. Common sense.

00:27:32 Speaker_01
And experience, meaning just, you know, if I grew up mostly on screens rather than getting beat up or staying out of a fight on the street or staying out too late or whatever.

00:27:42 Speaker_01
It's unfortunate because there's so much of life that is not lived on a screen.

00:27:51 Speaker_00
Yeah, who was the boxer that said, I had a really good plan, do I get punched in the nose? Yes, right.

00:27:58 Speaker_01
And I don't remember who it was, but another quote, but that's part of life is getting, part of being successful is getting back up, is knowing how to recover from a hit and next time, knowing how to talk your way out of getting hit.

00:28:10 Speaker_00
Yeah, so one thing I've always done is to say my wisdom quotient in my life My knowledge quotient can't outpunt my wisdom quotient in my life. So I'm keeping a balance between the knowledge I have and the wisdom I have in my life.

00:28:25 Speaker_01
How do we help young leaders get wisdom?

00:28:27 Speaker_00
well, they need to really have mentors. They need to have people that have done it longer, better than they have, that have been sustained through long periods of time because of the values they had in their life.

00:28:38 Speaker_00
And for a lot of my mentorship that I saw, my dad always said, look, pursue your mentors. I've taught you almost everything I can, Rob, and you need other mentors in your life. And he helped me identify who those mentors would be.

00:28:50 Speaker_00
He introduced me to them and he says, now it's up to your job to pursue them. My dad was relentless. He loved Peter Drucker. So, you know, the father of modern management from the 20th century. So he pursued Peter Drucker.

00:29:00 Speaker_00
He was probably obnoxious in pursuing. He ended up though flying out to Southern California to meet with Peter Drucker, you know, at the twilight years of Drucker's life. All that wisdom came to my dad.

00:29:11 Speaker_01
And now my- So what do you mean by pursue? I got a 24 year old leader who wants to grow. What does she do to pursue someone else she wants to learn from?

00:29:19 Speaker_00
You come and you say, look, I don't know if you want to take a chance on me. Any great leader wants to pour themselves into others. Now, you have to say, make it as easy as possible for that person. And so what I say is, how can I serve you?

00:29:37 Speaker_00
It's always the number one question of anybody that I want to mentor.

00:29:39 Speaker_01
So if you want to be mentored, you ask the mentor, how can I serve you? Yeah.

00:29:43 Speaker_00
OK. 100%. Because, and normally those great leaders want what I have, which is my youth, which is my knowledge that they know is different than mine.

00:29:58 Speaker_00
I'm gonna let them know what knowledge I have relationally, and then I'm gonna start just adding value to them. And it's gonna get to the point where I become indispensable to them in a way.

00:30:08 Speaker_00
where they become so reliant on me, they're starting to text me and say, hey, I got this issue. I'm not sure about how to do it.

00:30:13 Speaker_00
Or I'll say things to them like, hey, if you ever need me to do any research on anything, just let me know, and I'll go do it.

00:30:22 Speaker_00
And so that discipline I had of going out and interviewing 38 people, I'll go through the same process in order to serve a mentor that I'm pursuing, that I want to. So that's interesting.

00:30:31 Speaker_01
Let me just slow it down. So you're starting with, how can I add value to them? Yes. Yeah, I wanna make myself indispensable. Yeah, and then I'm gonna add a couple thoughts just because- And I wanna bless them and I wanna honor them.

00:30:43 Speaker_01
Yes, and one of the ways you honor them, and I wanna just talk this through, one of the ways you honor them is when you meet with them, you ask them questions and you listen. Like sometimes people say, hey, Craig, can you mentor me?

00:30:53 Speaker_01
And then we get together and they talk the whole time. And it's fairly rare. I mean, it's fairly common. That happens a lot. All the time? Not just with me, but you hear a lot. And so you come in, you ask questions.

00:31:05 Speaker_00
I mean, I had this the other day. I had a guy pursued me, super sharp guy. I mean, this guy's brilliant. He's blowing up right now. And I was like honored that this guy asked for me to mentor him. I was like, that's great. I was on two calls with him.

00:31:18 Speaker_00
He talked the whole time. The end of the second call, I said, this was our last call. And he says, why? I said, you haven't asked me one question. I've got nothing to give you. Now, of course I have something to give him. But he doesn't care.

00:31:33 Speaker_00
You know what he wanted from me? He wanted affirmation because he's an insecure person.

00:31:39 Speaker_01
And we all are to some degree. All of us are. Yes. So let's go back. So he was a well-known leader that wanted to meet with you. And you were excited to meet with him because he's doing something significant.

00:31:49 Speaker_01
Let's take the leader that hasn't done much yet. They're going to feel nervous to ask a mentor for help. So I'm going to give that person some advice. And then you can kind of correct me or fill in the blanks. I would say this.

00:32:00 Speaker_01
Don't ask someone to mentor you because that sounds like too big of a commitment. And many people don't know what it is. Just ask for some time. Yeah. And if you can add value to them, that's crazy amazing.

00:32:13 Speaker_00
Yeah. And be realistic. So when I said my dad pursued Peter Drucker, my dad wasn't a 23-year-old. He was a 60-year-old. And he already had a pretty good-sized organization. He had something that- He was always a student. He was always doing that, though.

00:32:30 Speaker_00
I mean, so you don't start with, you know, so start with sort of a realistic expectation of someone that's ahead of you, someone that's older with you, that's in a stage of life, that there are a few steps ahead of you.

00:32:41 Speaker_00
They're not like 50 steps ahead of you. Like, you know, every day on Instagram, I get someone, you know, sending me a DM and me and saying, would you mentor me? And I'm looking at who they are, and it's like,

00:32:52 Speaker_00
I don't have the time, realistically, to mentor that type of person at this stage.

00:32:56 Speaker_01
But that person could listen to your podcast, read your book, they could create... Every one of them I send someone to. They could make you a distant mentor, even though they may never speak.

00:33:04 Speaker_00
Yeah, and that's one sort of fleece I'll throw out there for them, which is, hey, go read my book, and if you've got some specific questions for me, then I'll come back. Sometimes they'd never read my book. So it's like, OK, this guy's not serious.

00:33:17 Speaker_00
But other times what I'll do is, like with this individual just the other day who did it for me, I said, hey, you know what? Tell me a little bit about yourself. So they told me a little bit about yourself.

00:33:25 Speaker_00
And I said, hey, here's a great person that I think would be happy to mentor you. And I sent them to someone else who would have more time than I do. And really, it was much more realistic as far as their stage of life and that person's stage of life.

00:33:37 Speaker_00
So I matched them up. And they were kind of like, yeah, no, I just wanted to have you mentor me.

00:33:42 Speaker_01
So I'm going to give some thoughts. Let's say, Rob, would you spend an hour with me? And if you say yes, what I'm going to do is I'm going to come in, and I'm going to have probably somewhere between five and seven questions.

00:33:54 Speaker_01
And I'm going to say, thank you so much. This means the world to me. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions? I'm going to ask you a question. I'm going to write down what you say. That shows value to what you do.

00:34:03 Speaker_01
At the one hour mark, what I'm going to do is say, I ask for an hour of your time, and I want to respect it, so thank you. What's likely going to happen is you might say, oh, no, no, I've got more time. And why is that? Why would you say that?

00:34:16 Speaker_00
Something intrigued me, obviously, about the types of questions they asked. Yes, because you're enjoying yourself. They were great questions.

00:34:22 Speaker_01
Yes, because people like to help people. And if you are adding value to me, and it's obvious you actually enjoy that, you might want to do it more.

00:34:30 Speaker_00
Yeah.

00:34:30 Speaker_01
So I'm going to, I'm going to ask questions.

00:34:33 Speaker_00
So I couldn't believe, like, I did that thing with you for one hour. And like, we were, to me, we were, we were just getting rolling. Like, I mean, I had a ton of content because I did all these interviews.

00:34:42 Speaker_00
We were having a blast, I think, on that one hour and five minute call. And then you were like, hey, we're five minutes over. Like, I really want to respect your time. And I'm like, Dude, you're Craig Rochelle. I'll give you another hour. What's the deal?

00:34:53 Speaker_00
But man, something inside of me just said, wow, that's pretty amazing. But you're right. It created an appetite in me to sort of. And then our wives, we went out and we did a couple of days of hiking together. And it was just because it was natural.

00:35:08 Speaker_00
And it was life-giving for both of us. You had something to pour into me that was just, you say, I mentor you. I feel like I get the better end of the deal every time.

00:35:18 Speaker_00
So it's that iron sharpening iron that the Bible talks about that is the best type of relationship. And what I find with older mentors is that knowledge that I can give them.

00:35:27 Speaker_00
So he passed away now, but probably the most important mentor in my life, besides my dad, was a guy named Bob Cooley. Again, not a person that probably anybody, very few people on this podcast would know who Bob was.

00:35:39 Speaker_00
And what began to happen was I said, I want to be like Bob when I turn 90 years old. Well, Bob never had a social media account. Bob doesn't have a lot of influence with the masses.

00:35:50 Speaker_00
But I thought, man, if I could have the wisdom that Bob and the influence he has with a few key leaders that are changing the world, I began to emulate him as a mentor. And I began to pattern my life.

00:36:02 Speaker_00
And if young people can find somebody that's older than them to say, that's the kind of leader I want to be, that's gold, Craig. That's just unbelievable. Because many people, like, John Maxwell's a mentor of mine.

00:36:15 Speaker_00
But I'm never going to be John Maxwell. I don't have the same giftings that John Maxwell had. He's a very different type of leader than I am. Does he have a lot to impart to me? Absolutely, he has. He's poured it into me. He's changed my life.

00:36:26 Speaker_00
But I do not want to be John Maxwell at his age. I wanted to be Bob Cooley at his age. And so I'm building my life towards that aim and that goal. And young leaders just really need to get a vision. They need to be very real about what they're great at.

00:36:38 Speaker_00
I will never be the communicator that John Maxwell is. I just do not have that gift inside of me. But you know what? I've got a strategic gift that John doesn't have in some ways.

00:36:48 Speaker_00
And I know that, and he knows that, and that's why he loves me to help him with his strategy building, because that's what I'm great at, Craig. And so find out, it goes back to those four questions.

00:36:57 Speaker_00
I run every young leader through that same prism that I do great leaders.

00:37:01 Speaker_01
So John Maxwell is, you know, he's a legend. He's a very kind man. He's been in this studio and everyone in here loves him because he goes and talks to them. So you wrote a book with him and I wanna talk about the book, Change Your World.

00:37:15 Speaker_01
I was really excited when you told me you're working on this project. I was excited for both of you. I was excited for you to be working with John because he's John. I was excited for John to be working with you because you're you, because you bring...

00:37:28 Speaker_01
When I think of you, I envision you seeing like 73 steps of how we're gonna attack something. And John's not like that, don't you?

00:37:37 Speaker_00
It was funny writing the book. We talked about it on one of his podcasts, but it was very like, John would keep saying to me, you gotta dumb it down, you gotta dumb it down, like put the cookies on the bottom shelf, you know?

00:37:46 Speaker_00
And I remember saying, John, I don't think I can dumb it down.

00:37:49 Speaker_01
So I was gonna ask you that, like what did you learn from John? And you even told me that in the writing process is you gotta dumb it down.

00:37:56 Speaker_00
Yeah, if Arrow changed the world, we probably would have sold 5,000 copies. Of course, with John, we sold 500,000. So, you know, it's like, he knows how to popularize stuff in a way that I never could.

00:38:05 Speaker_01
So you did learn that from him, because you're intellectual, you're scholarly. And so he would say, let's make it that anybody can approachable. What did he learn from you in the process?

00:38:20 Speaker_00
Well, he'll tell you that, and this is where I get asked a lot in, like, how are we gonna transition my organization? Like, I think he saw in me, like he approached me, he's actually very, he's an incredible reader.

00:38:34 Speaker_00
The guy just absorbs, he's a reader like crazy. So he actually read one of my doctoral dissertations.

00:38:40 Speaker_00
Like, I mean, that's really hefty reading and it's a research project and it's written for like- I can promise you I'll never read one of your doctoral dissertations. Yeah, there's only about five people that have and John Maxwell was one of them.

00:38:53 Speaker_00
And so, but he said, and we were sitting on a boat together and I was in a mentor, he was mentoring me in that session. And he asked me, he said, would you write a book with me?

00:39:06 Speaker_00
And when John Maxwell asked you if you want to write a book with him, I say it took two seconds. And he said, yeah, it took you too long. I almost pulled my offer back. And the answer is always yes. So it was really fascinating.

00:39:17 Speaker_00
What he wanted from me out of my dissertation was what is the science of transformation, which is what I'm sort of proposing in there. Like, what do you actually have to do? Everybody talks about transformation. How do you do transformation?

00:39:26 Speaker_00
How do you measure transformation? That's sort of what he wanted out of me, right? That was a knowledge that I had that he didn't have. But man. The greatest thing that I learned in my time with John Maxwell is what kind of leader I wasn't.

00:39:39 Speaker_00
Because he's the quintessential leader. And who doesn't want to be John Maxwell, right? That level of influence, that number of followers, that number of financial impact that you can have, of course.

00:39:52 Speaker_00
And it was just like, even though it was later in my life, Craig, I sort of thought, well, maybe I Maybe I could. Maybe that is.

00:40:00 Speaker_00
And what came out of my time with John and our mentorship as we were writing the book is it really helped me even lean in closer and become more self-aware, Craig, of what my gifts were and what I would never be.

00:40:12 Speaker_00
So I'm not going to pursue those things. I'm not going to waste my time.

00:40:15 Speaker_00
Pursuing something and what came out of it was really three arch types of leadership That I use now in in in building and building young leaders and serving great leaders So I have these three arch types of leadership.

00:40:27 Speaker_00
And what I do is I categorize John Maxwell as a catalytic leader So he's a catalytic leader. Okay, we talked about Drucker earlier Drucker didn't even like the word leadership And in fact, he wouldn't use it until the very end of his life.

00:40:41 Speaker_00
And then he sort of reframed it for everybody. Because he said leadership is management. He would say, don't tell me what you're going to do. Show me what you've built. So he's what I call an activating leader.

00:40:52 Speaker_00
And I sort of, now a great CEO and someone who runs large enterprise, you seriously are, I'm not just trying to compliment you. you have all three of these archetypes of leadership.

00:41:06 Speaker_00
That's what most CEOs have a level of all three, or you can't really lead a large organization. But I really saw in both of them, I'm not a great catalytic leader. I'm definitely not an activating leader.

00:41:19 Speaker_00
I can do it, but I don't like reading spreadsheets. I don't like operations management. John actually hates that. Management is just something that he just runs away from, right? And so what I figured out is, hey, I'm a strategic leader.

00:41:32 Speaker_00
Like, that's who I am. So John always says, leadership is influence. And for a catalytic leader, leadership is influence. For a Drucker-type leader, what I call an activating leader, influence is not their greatest measure. Order is. They want order.

00:41:50 Speaker_00
For me, it's ideas. I love ideas. I like to turn ideas into visions. John likes to go catalyze those visions amongst the masses.

00:42:00 Speaker_00
So I really think those archetypes, and it's far more nuanced than that, but really helping young leaders is for me to try and figure out what they are. So I have every member of my staff force rank themselves. So I say, what are you?

00:42:15 Speaker_00
And any member of my team around the world, of all of our people, they'll go, oh, I'm a strategist one, activator two, catalyst three. Like, what's the highest and best use of your time on the team?

00:42:26 Speaker_00
And then I use that to build teams in order to grow capacity and sustainability.

00:42:30 Speaker_01
One of my favorite things about you, and there's so many things, but is that you know who you're not. And that frees you up to be who you're supposed to be. And in fact, I find myself nowadays trying to talk great leaders out of doing more things.

00:42:43 Speaker_01
Oh, isn't that true? Because I feel like there's so many opportunities now. A podcast, and book, and speaking. Everybody wants a piece of you. And well, there's just so many different things leaders can do.

00:42:53 Speaker_01
that I think to really be successful, you want to narrow down fewer things. I tell people, Craig, you are one of the most focused leaders I've ever met in my life. Thank you.

00:43:02 Speaker_01
At this point, I'm actually trying to narrow it down even more, do fewer things and create more impact. I love your heart. I love the way you You really believe in leaders of all ages. I love the partnership we have.

00:43:17 Speaker_01
And a lot of our audiences are going, never heard of this guy, but I want to know more about him. If someone wants to find out more about you, what's the best way they can get in touch with you or learn from your work?

00:43:29 Speaker_00
Yeah, I mean, they can follow me on social media. So it's Rob Dean Hoskins on Instagram. I'm probably more Instagram than anything else, but I have Twitter account, Rob Hoskins. And I do have a podcast coming out called Raising the Future.

00:43:42 Speaker_00
And I never wanted to do it because I don't like being that sort of popularized or catalytic type of leader, but I'm doing it more for my tribe. But if there's people that really want to go deep with me, I'd love for them to pursue that.

00:43:53 Speaker_01
Well, those are great places. And then I want to give away some of these books. So the book is Change Your World. Rob Hoskins co-authored with John Maxwell.

00:44:01 Speaker_01
And so if you're wherever you're listening to this, hop over to YouTube and at YouTube, you can just comment. I want to change the world. And if you do that, we'll do a drawing.

00:44:11 Speaker_01
Give away five of these books to people that might want to be catalytic, or maybe you want to be strategic, or maybe you want to be an activator. And we'll help you find out what you are.

00:44:21 Speaker_01
Rob, thanks so much for your friendship and your partnership and your ministry. And thank you to our community. I just, I love you with all my heart. I'm going to do my best to bring people that are going to add value to your leadership.

00:44:33 Speaker_01
And I'm gonna work hard to create content that helps you grow in your leadership. If you don't have the leader guide, I want you to get it. We'll link to Rob's work and go to life.church slash leadership podcast.

00:44:44 Speaker_01
We'll send you the leader guide with the release of each episode. And guess what you did today? You got a little bit better, which matters because we know that everyone wins when the leader gets better.