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If you want to achieve significance and success in life, you have to be intentional! In this episode, John C. Maxwell teaches a lesson on how you can embrace intentional living and make a difference in the lives of others. 

After his lesson, Mark Cole and Chris Robinson sit down to talk about what John has shared and offer practical advice that will help you apply what you’ve learned to your life and leadership. 

Key takeaways: 

• Intentional living is the bridge that will lead you to a life that matters. 

• Choose a life that matters by becoming an intentional person. 

• Make a difference with others wherever you are, with whatever you have, day by day. 

Our BONUS resource for this episode is the How to Embrace Intentional Living Worksheet, which includes fill-in-the-blank notes from John’s teaching. You can download the worksheet by visiting MaxwellPodcast.com/IntentionalLiving and clicking “Download the Bonus Resource.” 

This episode is sponsored by

Every leader has the power to shape culture—but too often, it’s left to chance, leaving teams disengaged and underperforming. In this episode, Jenni Catron dives into the equip phase of the LeadCulture Framework, showing how leaders at every level can take ownership of culture, equip their teams, and turn values and vision into action.

Jenni shares practical strategies for developing your people managers, building culture playbooks, and onboarding your existing team to ensure your culture isn’t just defined—it’s lived every day. She emphasizes that great leadership is the single biggest factor in team engagement, referencing research from Gallup and Harvard Business Review to highlight how managers shape employee experience and long-term growth.

Why You Should Listen:

• Understand why culture often fails despite good intentions—and what leaders can do to fix it.
• Learn practical ways to equip your leaders with the tools, skills, and confidence they need.
• Discover actionable steps you can implement immediately to strengthen your team’s alignment and engagement.
• Hear stories and examples from organizations successfully operationalizing their culture.

Major Takeaways:

1. Leaders Make or Break Culture – The engagement of your team is heavily influenced by direct managers.
2. Equipping is Key – Leadership development isn’t optional; it ensures vision and values translate into daily behaviors.
3. Simple, Consistent Actions Work – Start with small, repeatable steps to develop leaders, coach your managers, and reinforce culture.
4. Onboarding Matters – Existing and new employees need clear guidance to embody the culture you define.
5. Playbooks Are Your Sideline Guide – Use tools, visuals, and systems to make culture actionable and memorable.
6. Leadership Philosophy is Foundational – Managers must see leadership as sacred work, focused first on developing people.

LeadCulture Framework & Culture Matters Book – Jenni’s roadmap for operationalizing culture 

LeadCulture Network – Community, training, and tools for culture champions.

We need your help to get the LeadCulture podcasts in front of more leaders! There are three simple things you can do that truly help us:

1. Review us on Apple podcasts
2. Subscribe - we’re available wherever you listen to podcasts.
3. Share - let your friends know about the podcast by sharing your favorite episode on social media!

Her husband’s death began a period of transition for Nora. She took over his hardware business and cared for their three children on her own. “Be strong,” friends often told her. But what does that mean? she’d think. That I must deliver without fail in my responsibilities?

God gave great responsibilities to Othniel in a time of transition for the people of Israel. As discipline for the nation’s idolatry, God had given them “into the hands of Cushan-Rishathaim . . . to whom the Israelites were subject for eight years” (Judges 3:8). Under the cruel king of Mesopotamia, the Israelites “cried out to the Lord,” and “he raised up for them a deliverer” (v. 9)—Othniel, whose name means “God’s strength.”

As the first judge of Israel, Othniel had no predecessor to help him. This military leader had to guide the Israelites back to living out their covenant relationship with God and defend them from their enemies. But because “the Spirit of the Lord came on him” (v. 10), he succeeded. With God’s strength sustaining Othniel’s leadership, “the land had peace for forty years, until [he] died” (v. 11).

How can we truly “be strong”? It’s by knowing we’re not strong and by trusting God to give us His strength. His “grace is sufficient for [us], for [His] power is made perfect in weaknes

In this episode of the Emotionally Healthy Leader Podcast, Pete Scazzero shares a powerful word every church leader needs to hear: Focus on the Few. In an age of growing platforms, endless tools, and ever-increasing pressure to cater to the crowds, Pete brings us back to the model of Jesus — who chose to give his best energy to the few.

Whether you're leading 25 or 2,500, the temptation is the same: spend your strength on the many and ignore the long-term fruit that only grows through deep discipleship of a few. Pete explores why real transformation requires more than programs and volunteers — it demands formation from the inside out.

This episode is part of a series on the 8 Marks of a Church Culture that Deeply Changes Lives. If you're longing to lead differently, with intention, depth, and courage — this conversation is for you.

Rick Warren returns to the podcast to explain what 99% of churches don't do.

He discusses the extraordinary rise of the global church and how it's outpacing population growth, and he outlines the...

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Satan connives, plots, and deploys tactics. He has a strategy – that’s cause for concern. He is predictable – that is reason for hope. The devil, while potent, is a rotten chess player. He signals his moves in advance. He runs the same play over and over. And since we know it, we can defend against it.

Satan always starts with an untruth. It might be a blatant lie or simply an inaccurate assumption. Either way, it is untrue. Do you remember his words to Eve? “Did God really say, ‘You may not eat from any tree in the garden’?…God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:1,5 NIV).

Satan’s greatest weapon is his arsenal of untruths. Be on alert for those lies that he is telling you.

Read more Tame Your Thoughts: Three Tools to Renew Your Mind and Transform Your Life

For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.

Doctor Dolittle, the fictional doctor who converses with animals, has delighted fans through books, movies, and plays. However, few people know that author Hugh Lofting first wrote the Dolittle tales to his children from the ghastly trenches of World War I. He later said that the war was too awful to recount in his letters—so he wrote and illustrated stories instead. These whimsical, joy-filled tales were Lofting’s way of pushing back against the war’s horror.

It’s inspiring to see a person moving against the menacing, degrading forces that seem too powerful to thwart. We admire this resilient courage because we fear that injustice, violence, and greed will triumph. Sometimes we fear that the whole world will be “overcome by evil” (Romans 12:21). And these fears are well-founded if we’re left to ourselves. However, God has not left us to ourselves. He fills us with His divine strength, places us in the action, and calls us to “overcome evil with good” (v. 21).

We each overcome evil with good in whatever ways God has put into our hearts. Some of us write beautiful stories. Some of us care for the poor. Some of us make our homes places of welcome. Some of us share God’s story through melody, poetry, or conversation. In a myriad of ways, we carry His goodness and peace into the world (v. 18), overcoming evil as we go.

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In crowded markets, being different isn’t enough. You have to communicate how you’re different. Too many businesses blend in because they focus on what the competition is doing instead of what customers actually care about. You might offer better pricing, better service, or a better product, but if you don’t say it clearly, it won’t matter. Messaging that stands out starts with understanding what your audience hates about the current options and then owning the opposite. The brands that win don’t just have better products. They have better words. So how do you find the message that sticks?

In this episode, Donald Miller and Kyle Reed unpack the viral product launch of Slate, a new affordable and customizable electric truck. They analyze the messaging strategy behind Slate’s viral launch video, and how the brand positioned itself against high-priced vehicles with a fun, customer-focused message. Listen in and learn how to build a controlling idea that creates clarity and focuses on what customers really want.

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Watch the Slate ad HERE for yourself.