John Maxwell Quotes

Leadership is not about titles, positions or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another.

Seven Steps to Success 1) Make a commitment to grow daily. 2) Value the process more than events. 3) Don't wait for inspiration. 4) Be willing to sacrifice pleasure for opportunity. 5) Dream big. 6) Plan your priorities. 7) Give up to go up.

We cannot become what we need by remaining what we are.

Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.

The greatest day in your life and mine is when we take total responsibility for our attitudes. That's the day we truly grow up.

A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.

Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them.

Talent is a gift, but character is a choice.

Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it.

Success is... knowing your purpose in life, growing to reach your maximum potential, and sowing seeds that benefit others.

if you don't have peace, it isn't because someone took it from you; you gave it away. You cannot always control what happens to you, but you can control what happens in you.

If we are growing we are always going to be outside our comfort zone.

Learn to say 'no' to the good so you can say 'yes' to the best.

The greatest mistake we make is living in constant fear that we will make one.

Question for God every morning: What is the main event today? What do you want me to focus on today?

A successful person finds the right place for himself. But a successful leader finds the right place for others. By John Maxwell

Remember, man does not live on bread alone: sometimes he needs a little buttering up.

To Stay Focused in Life: You can't know everyone You can't do everything You can't go everywhere We have to pick and choose between good and a little bit better.

A leader who produces other leaders multiples their influences.

The only guarantee for failure is to stop trying

If you start today to do the right thing, you are already a success even if it doesn’t show yet.

If you don’t change the direction you are going, then you’re likely to end up where you’re heading…

Do not take the agenda that someone else has mapped out for your life.

Stay focused instead of getting offended or off track by others.

You have to live with the people to know their needs, and you have to live with God to know how to solve them.

Everything begins with a decision. Then, we have to manage that decision for the rest of your life.

Relational skills are the most important abilities in leadership.

We feel unhappy and confused with our life when we don't do the focus or calling that God has on our life.

The whole idea of motivation is a trap. Forget motivation. Just do it. Exercise, lose weight, test your blood sugar, or whatever. Do it without motivation. And then, guess what? After you start doing the thing, that's when the motivation comes and makes it easy for you to keep on doing it.

Poem by Howard A. Walter (Character) I would be true, for there are those who trust me; I would be pure, for there are those who care; I would be strong, for there are those who suffer; I would be brave, for there is much to dare. I would be friend of all--- the foe, the friendless; I would be giving, and forget the gift; I would be humble, for I know my weakness; I would look up, and laugh, and love, and lift.

You will never change your life until you change something you do daily.

There was a very cautious man Who never laughed or played He never risked, he never tried, He never sang or prayed. And when he on day passed away, His insurance was denied, For since he never really lived, They claimed he never really died. (Anonymous poem)

To collaborative team members, completing one another is more important than competing with one another.

Most People have a desire to look for the exception instead of the desire to become exceptional.

Real leadership is being the person others will gladly and confidently follow.

True success comes only when every generation continues to develop the next generation.

Your success stops where your character stops. You can never rise above the limitations of your character.

He that thinketh he leadeth and hath no one following him is only taking a walk.

Image is what people think we are; integrity is whar we really are.

You must do right before you feel good.

Successful and unsuccessful people do not vary greatly in their abilities. They vary in their desires to reach their potential.

Have to sow excellent seeds to have an excellent life. Must start with sowing excellent thoughts.

Happiness simply cannot be relied upon as a measure of success.

Look behind you: What have you learned? Look around you: What is happening to others? Look above you: What does God expect of you? Look besides you: What resources are available to you?

Must manage your thought life daily and then you can manage your life.

Small disciplines repeated with consistency every day lead to great achievements gained slowly over time.

I want to make a difference with people who want to make a difference, doing something that makes a difference.

You'll never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.

Growth inside fuels growth outside.

People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.

A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.

Life doesn't do anything to you. It only reveals your spirit.

You cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything.

Live to learn and you will really learn to live.

Dont ever be impressed with goal setting; be impressed with goal getting. Reaching new goals and moving to a higher level of performance always requires change, and change feels awkward. But take comfort in the knowledge that if a change doesn't feel uncomfortable, then it's propably not really a change.

When was the last time you did something for the first time?

Stay focus on what God has assigned me to do. Keep my mind on what I am doing/

You cannot enjoy others until you enjoy yourself because you cannot give to others what you do not have.

It's said that a wise person learns from his mistakes. A wiser one learns from others' mistakes. But the wisest person of all learns from others's successes.

The greatest enemy of good thinking is busyness.

A dream worth pursuing is a picture and blueprint of a person's purpose and potential

One is too small a number to achieve greatness.

If you wouldn't follow yourself, why should anyone else?

When the leader lacks confidence, the followers lack commitment.

Great people talk about ideas, average people talk about themselves, and small people talk about others

The sum of all your thoughts comprises your overall attitude.

The difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to...failure.

Tend to the people, and they will tend to the business.

Most people who decide to grow personally find their first mentors in the pages of books.

One of the major keys to success is to keep moving forward on the journey, making the best of the detours and interruptions, turning adversity into advantage.

Life is now in session. Are you present?

If you do the things you need to do when you need to do them, then someday you can do the things you want do when you want to do them.

Maya Angelou observed you cant use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have. Sadly,too often creativity is smothered rather than nurtured. There has to be climate in which new ways of thinking,perceiving, questioning are encouraged.

Your attitude is like the minds paintbrush. It can paint everything in bright, vibrant colors-creating a masterspiece.

He who thinks he leads, but has no followers, is only taking a walk.

In most cases, those who want power probably shouldn't have it, those who enjoy it probably do so for the wrong reasons, and those who want most to hold on to it don't understand that it's only temporary.

It's better to prepare than to repair.

Dreams don’t work unless you do

People are never able to outperform their self-image.

You can't move people to action unless you first move them with emotion.... The heart comes before the head.

You see, when our attitudes outdistance our abilities, even the impossible becomes possible.

If we're growing, we're always going to be out of our comfort zone.

People dont care what you know until they know what you care

It's good to be out of your comfort zone. Just don't step out of your gift zone.

Yesterday ended last night.

Ideas have a short shelf life. You must act on them before the expiration date.

Attitude is the first quality that marks the successful man. If he has a positive attitude and is a positive thinker, who likes challenges and difficult situations, then he has half his success achieved.

A person who knows how may always have a job, but the person who knows why will always be his boss.

When you realize that people treat you according to how they see themselves rather than how you really are, you are less likely to be affected by their behavior.

There are no short cuts to any place worth going.

A dream becomes a reality as a result of your actions, and your actions are controlled, to a large extent, by your habits.

If you're not failing, you're probably not really moving forward.

The bottom line in managing your emotions is that you should put others – not yourself – first in how you handle and process them. Whether you delay or display your emotions should not be for your own gratification. You should ask yourself, What does the team need? Not, What will make me feel better?

God uses people who fail—'cause there aren't any other kind around.

Goals may give focus, but dreams give power.

The leader’s Attitude is like a thermostat for the place she works. If her attitude is good, the atmosphere is pleasant, and the environment is easy to work in. But if her attitude is bad, the temperature is insufferable.

Few things build a person up like affirmation. According to Webster’s New World Dictionary, Third College Edition (Simon and Schuster, 1991), the word affirm comes from ad firmare, which means “to make firm.” So when you affirm people, you make firm within them the things you see about them. Do that often enough, and the belief that solidifies within them will become stronger than the doubts they have about themselves.

First, when we are busy, we naturally believe that we are achieving. But busyness does not equal productivity. Activity is not necessarily accomplishment. Second, prioritizing requires leaders to continually think ahead, to know what's important, to know what's next, to see how everything relates to the overall vision. That's hard work. Third, prioritizing causes us to do things that are at the least uncomfortable and sometimes downright painful.

In life, the question is not if you will have problems, but how you are going to deal with your problems. If the possibility of failure were erased, what would you attempt to achieve? The essence of man is imperfection. Know that you're going to make mistakes. The fellow who never makes a mistake takes his orders from one who does. Wake up and realize this: Failure is simply a price we pay to achieve success. Achievers are given multiple reasons to believe they are failures. But in spite of that, they persevere. The average for entrepreneurs is 3.8 failures before they finally make it in business. When achievers fail, they see it as a momentary event, not a lifelong epidemic. Procrastination is too high a price to pay for fear of failure. To conquer fear, you have to feel the fear and take action anyway. Forget motivation. Just do it. Act your way into feeling, not wait for positive emotions to carry you forward. Recognize that you will spend much of your life making mistakes. If you can take action and keep making mistakes, you gain experience. Life is playing a poor hand well. The greatest battle you wage against failure occurs on the inside, not the outside. Why worry about things you can't control when you can keep yourself busy controlling the things that depend on you? Handicaps can only disable us if we let them. If you are continually experiencing trouble or facing obstacles, then you should check to make sure that you are not the problem. Be more concerned with what you can give rather than what you can get because giving truly is the highest level of living. Embrace adversity and make failure a regular part of your life. If you're not failing, you're probably not really moving forward. Everything in life brings risk. It's true that you risk failure if you try something bold because you might miss it. But you also risk failure if you stand still and don't try anything new. The less you venture out, the greater your risk of failure. Ironically the more you risk failure — and actually fail — the greater your chances of success. If you are succeeding in everything you do, then you're probably not pushing yourself hard enough. And that means you're not taking enough risks. You risk because you have something of value you want to achieve. The more you do, the more you fail. The more you fail, the more you learn. The more you learn, the better you get. Determining what went wrong in a situation has value. But taking that analysis another step and figuring out how to use it to your benefit is the real difference maker when it comes to failing forward. Don't let your learning lead to knowledge; let your learning lead to action. The last time you failed, did you stop trying because you failed, or did you fail because you stopped trying? Commitment makes you capable of failing forward until you reach your goals. Cutting corners is really a sign of impatience and poor self-discipline. Successful people have learned to do what does not come naturally. Nothing worth achieving comes easily. The only way to fail forward and achieve your dreams is to cultivate tenacity and persistence. Never say die. Never be satisfied. Be stubborn. Be persistent. Integrity is a must. Anything worth having is worth striving for with all your might. If we look long enough for what we want in life we are almost sure to find it. Success is in the journey, the continual process. And no matter how hard you work, you will not create the perfect plan or execute it without error. You will never get to the point that you no longer make mistakes, that you no longer fail. The next time you find yourself envying what successful people have achieved, recognize that they have probably gone through many negative experiences that you cannot see on the surface. Fail early, fail often, but always fail forward.

I always try to remember that I am a work in progress. When I maintain that perspective, I realize that I don’t have to be perfect. I don’t have to have it all together. I don’t need to try to have all the answers. And I don’t need to learn everything in a day. When I make a mistake, it’s not because I’m a failure or worthless. I just didn’t do something right because I still haven’t improved enough in some part of the process. And that motivates me to keep growing and improving. If I don’t know something, it’s an opportunity to try to improve in a new area.