Top 1101 Quotes & Sayings by John C. Maxwell - Page 7

People will summarize your life in one sentence - Pick it now.

If you have great people around you, they will take you higher than your dream will. Leaders are never self-made. Those closest to you determine your level of success, so choosing the right companions as partners in pursuit of your vision is an important decision. My advice is to surround yourself with talented people who will challenge you, help you grow and inspire you to maximize your potential.

Nothing of significance was ever achieved by an individual acting alone. Look below the surface and you will find that all seemingly solo acts are really team efforts.

Courage and initiative come when you understand your purpose in life.

What I did in the book [Today Matters] is I tried to help a person make their day - every day - their masterpiece.

We were created for meaningful work, and one of life's greatest pleasures is the satisfaction of a job well done.

Be the most enthusiastic person you know.

If you're a leader, it's important to set aside time to quiet yourself and listen for God's direction.

Practice the 101 Percent Principle. Whenever possible, find the 1 percent you do agree on in a difficult situation, and give it 100 percent of your effort.

You can't build a relationship with everybody in the room when you don't care about anybody in the room.

Insecure leaders think everything is about them, and as a result, every action, every piece of information, every decision is put through their filter of self-centeredness.

Integrity is not a given factor in everyone's life. It is a result of self-discipline, inner trust, and a decision to be relentlessly honest in all situations in our lives.

God has put a dream inside you. It's yours, and no one else's. It declares your uniqueness. It holds your potential. Only you can birth it. Only you can live it. Not to discover it, take responsibility for it, and act upon it is to negatively affect yourself as well as all those who would benefit from your dream.

If you want to be great, you can't be great by yourself. You gotta to bring people around you. As the the challenge escalates, the need for teamwork elevates. The greater the challenge, the better the team.

Creativity requires the willingness to look stupid.

If you believe in others and give them a positive reputation to uphold, you can help them to become better than they think they are.

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.

A person of responsibility can trust himself to choose the right thing over the easy thing.

Why did the achievers overcome problems while thousands are overwhelmed by theirs? They refused to hold on to the common excuses for failure. They turned their stumbling blocks into stepping stones. They realized that they couldn't determine every circumstance in life but they could determine their choice of attitude towards every circumstance.

You must develop yourself to be successful

Failure is not a one-time event; it's how you deal with life along the way. Until you breathe your last breath, you're still in the process, and there is still time to turn things around for the better.

A sense of responsibility is the clearest indication of mature leadership.

Good leadership isn't about advancing yourself. It's about advancing your team.

To really become motivated to succeed, people need to believe they can win.

Behind every great idea is someone saying "It won't work"

We cannot achieve our wildest dreams by remaining who we are

As you interact with others, remember this: anytime a person's response is larger than the issue at hand, the response is almost always about something else.

Nothing is as hard as it looks; everything is more rewarding than you expect; and if anything can go right it will and at the best possible moment.

Anyone can steer the ship, but it takes a leader to chart the course. Don't ever underestimate the power of planning. You can't make your vision come to life unless you outline each goal-driven step at a time. And you can't reach your full potential unless you plan how to make the most of your purpose and passion. When you look around and see people who are the captains of their ship, invariably they have taken pains to chart their successful course through life.

Seek advice, but make sure it's from someone who has successfully handled mistakes or adversities.

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

No matter where you are in your leadership journey, never forget that what got you to where you are won't get you to the next level.

Integrity is important in building relationships. And is the foundation upon which many other qualities for success are built, such as respect, dignity, and trust.

The smartest person in the room is never as smart as all the people in the room.

The highest reward for our toil is not what we get for it but what we become by it. ... Mistakes are not failures. They are proof that we are making an effort. When we understand that, we can more easily move out of our comfort zone, try something new, and improve. ... Improvement demands a commitment to grow long after the mood in which it was made has passed.

I talk about my daily dozen in the book [ Today Matters]. Twelve things that are certainly attainable by any of us that we need to manage every day.

What I had been taught all my life was not true: experience is not the best teacher! Some people learn and grow as a result of their experience; some people don't. Everybody has some kind of experience. It's what you do with that experience that matters.

While personal maturity may mean being able to see beyond yourself, leadership maturity means considering others before yourself.

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

The true measure of leadership is influence - nothing more, nothing less.

To help [people] understand that what you shortcut today, cannot be made up tomorrow. So it's like, I'm not going to do anything today, and I'm going to do the wrong thing today and somehow tomorrow it will get a lot better."

Leaders must live by higher standards than their followers.

If we treat people as who they can become, they will be inspired to rise to the level of our expectations.

A person with an outstanding attitude makes the best of it while he gets the worst of it.

Delegate - work smarter not harder; do what you do best and drop the rest; get control of your calendar; do what you love because it will give you energy; work with people you like so your energy isn't depleted.

If you think you are beaten, you are. If you think you dare not, you don't. If you'd like to win but think you can't it's almost certain you won't. Life's battles don't always go to the stronger or faster man, but sooner or later, the man who wins is the man who thinks he can. A happy person is not a person with a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes. I may not be able to change the world I see around me, but I can change the way I see the world within me.

Good attitudes among players do not guarantee a team's success, but bad attitudes guarantee it's failure.

If your desire is a 10 but your self-esteem is a 5, you'll never perform at the level of a 10. You'll perform as a 5 or lower. People are ever able to outperform their self-image.

Leadership is the readiness to stand out in a crowd.

Sometimes I hear people talk about discipline of self and I think, if you don't have passion, I might discipline myself for a week or two but only passion will hold me steady.

Effective leaders sacrifice much that is good in order to dedicate themselves to what is best

The english word thanks comes from the same root word as think. Maybe if leaders were more 'think-ful' about the contribution of others, they would be more 'thankful' to them.

As a leader, you will never get ahead until your people are behind you.

If you want to reach your potential and become the person you were created to be, you must do much more than just experience life and hope that you learn what you need along the way. You must go out of your way to seize growth opportunities as if your future depended on it. Why? Because it does. Growth doesn't just happen--not for me, not for you, not for anybody. You HAVE TO go after it.

Profile of a winning team - They play to win. They have a winning attitude. They keep improving. They make their teammates more successful.

Perhaps our greatest power in life is the power to choose. Without question, choices are the most determining factor in how our lives turn out.

Faith in people is an essential quality of an influencer when working with others, yet it is a scarce commodity today.

Growth inside fuels growth outside.

Be a river - not a reservoir.