You don’t really understand people until you hear their life story. If you know their stories, you grasp their history, their hurts, their hopes and aspirations. You put yourself in their shoes. And just by virtue of listening and remembering what’s important to them, you communicate that you care and desire to add value.
You cannot change your life until you change something you do every day.
The reality is that you will never get much done unless you go ahead and do it before you are ready.
Nobody achieves anything great by giving the minimum. No teams win championships without making sacrifices and giving their best.
Nobody finishes well by accident.
Leadership is influence – nothing more, nothing less. If you are being salt and light as Jesus commanded, then you have begun to obey God’s call to leadership.
Your attitude, more than your aptitude, will determine your altitude.
As people gain more authority, they often develop a lack of patience in listening to those under them. A deaf ear is the first indication of a closed mind.
The challenge of leadership is to create change and facilitate growth.
When people follow a leader because they have to, they will do only what they have to. People don’t give their best to leaders they like least. They give reluctant compliance, not commitment. They may give their hands but certainly not their heads or hearts.
Position is a poor substitute for influence.
If you can’t influence people, then they will not follow you. And if people won’t follow, you are not a leader. That’s the Law of Influence.
If you combine your thoughts with the thoughts of others, you will come up with thoughts you’ve never had!
Great minds have purposes; others have wishes. Little minds are subdued by misfortunes; but great minds rise above them.
If you keep nonproductive people, the productive ones become frustrated and leave. If you remove the people who don’t add value, then the whole team gets better. It’s just like trimming trees: If you don’t cut the deadwood, eventually the whole tree falls. But if you remove the deadwood, the tree becomes healthier, the healthy branches produce more, and there’s room for productive new branches on the tree.
Risk must be evaluated not by the fear it generates in you or the probability of your success, but by the value of the goal.
John Wesley: “Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can.
We need to decide how we want to be treated. Then we need to begin treating others in that manner.
Action is what converts human dreams into significance.
The Situation Principle: Never let the situation mean more than the relationship.