Quotes from John Maxwell

Reward only finished work: It's good to praise effort, but you should never reward it. Give

Most people don't know this, but it's easier to go from failure to success than from excuses to success.

The main reason we weren't making progress is when focusing on people's weaknesses. If you want to develop people, you must help them discover and build upon their strengths. That's where people have the most potential to grow.

If I went back to college again, I'd concentrate on two areas: learning to write and to speak before an audience. Nothing in life is more important than the ability to communicate effectively." Talent isn't enough. Experience isn't enough. To lead others, you must be able to communicate well, and connecting is key.

ASK NO MORE OF OTHERS THAN YOU ARE ASKING OF YOURSELF.

But people of influence understand the incredible value of becoming a good listener. For example, when Lyndon B. Johnson was a junior senator from Texas, he kept a sign on his office wall that read, "You ain't learnin' nothin' when you're doin' all the talkin'." And Woodrow Wilson, the twenty-eighth American president, once said, "The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people.

Are we quick to respond to others' needs? Do we run from problems or face them? Do we talk more about bad news or good news? Do we give people the benefit of the doubt, or do we assume the worst? The

Adapt to them—don't expect them to adapt to you.

Ignorance means we didn't have the necessary information; stupidity means we had the necessary information but misused it.

Example is not the main thing in influencing others . . . it is the only thing.

V. Gilbert Beers says, "A person of integrity is one who has established a system of values against which all of life is judged." Integrity is not what we do so much as who we are. And who we are, in turn, determines what we do. Our

As Nobel prize— winning author Alexander Solzhenitsyn noted, "The meaning of earthly existing lies, not as we have grown used to thinking, in prospering, but in the development of the soul.