Real Stories, Real Success:
Making People Better to Make the World Better

 

Up until 2014, Darryl Rivers had spent his entire adult life as part of the government, either in the military or as a police officer.  

When he retired in 2014 due to an on-duty injury, Darryl started his own business and was admittedly overwhelmed.  That was when he went back to basics with a book he discovered in 2002 on his required reading list for the Detroit Police Department sergeants exam: John Maxwell’s The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership.

Revisiting The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership immediately called to mind the times that Darryl had encountered challenges in his career. He was reminded how the principles of the book, along with the many other John Maxwell books he read after that, helped him apply the values that guided him through those challenges.

So, when the opportunity to join the John Maxwell Team presented itself around that time, joining was a no-brainer. When Darryl joined the Team, he suddenly felt as though he was in a new world, full of people who actually “get it!”

Now, Darryl travels the country instructing law enforcement agencies and other government entities on leadership, communication and behavioral analytics.

The cornerstone of his company’s ideology is something he once heard John Maxwell say: “Focus on improving the person, not just the work he gets done.”  

“My philosophy,” Darryl says, “is better people make better officers. So, I’m not there to teach them how to be police.  I’m there to teach them how to be better, and better people make better everything— no matter if it’s a police officer, firefighter, doctor, lawyer.  If I can make or provide an environment that makes the person better, I can guarantee that whatever they do is going to be better.  So that’s how I look at the John Maxwell curriculum–it makes you better, which makes what you do better.”

Once Darryl shifted his company’s focus with this in mind, his business changed.  He realized that, with the principles of the John Maxwell Team, he can dedicate himself to making people better, which means he is dedicating himself to making the whole world better.