“When you do well, you think it’s worth it. When you sacrifice so much and you finally do well, it feels really good.”

“Years ago, I used to tell new leaders I hired that every person in our organization walked around with two buckets. One bucket contained water, and the other gasoline. As leaders, they would continually come across small fires, and they could pour water or gasoline on a fire. It was their choice.”

“Everyone is important, but everyone isn’t equal. The person with greater experience, skill, and productivity in a given area is more important to the team in that area.”

“Connect emotionally through facial expressions, laughter, and tears.”

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

“Several years ago Dr. Maxwell Maltz’s book, Psycho-Cybernetics, was one of the most popular books on the market. Dr. Maltz was a plastic surgeon who often took disfigured faces and made them more attractive. He observed that in every case, the patient’s self-image rose with his and her physical improvement. In addition to being a successful surgeon, Dr. Maltz was a great psychologist who understood human nature. A wealthy woman was greatly concerned about her son, and she came to Dr. Maltz for advice. She had hoped that the son would assume the family business following her husband’s death, but when the son came of age, he refused to assume that responsibility and chose to enter an entirely different field. She thought Dr. Maltz could help convince the boy that he was making a grave error. The doctor agreed to see him, and he probed into the reasons for the young man’s decision. The son explained, “I would have loved to take over the family business, but you don’t understand the relationship I had with my father. He was a driven man who came up the hard way. His objective was to teach me self-reliance, but he made a drastic mistake. He tried to teach me that principle in a negative way. He thought the best way to teach me self-reliance was to never encourage or praise me. He wanted me to be tough and independent. Every day we played catch in the yard. The object was for me to catch the ball ten straight times. I would catch that ball eight or nine times, but always on that tenth throw he would do everything possible to make me miss it. He would throw it on the ground or over my head but always so I had no chance of catching it.” The young man paused for a moment and then said, “He never let me catch the tenth ball—never! And I guess that’s why I have to get away from his business; I want to catch that tenth ball!”

“People say there are two kinds of learning: experience, which is gained from your own mistakes, and wisdom, which is learned from the mistakes of others.”

“Successful people are good in four areas: relationships, equipping, attitude, and leadership

“Be Original.”

“Nobody finishes well by accident.”

“The higher you want to climb, the more you need leadership. The greater the impact you want to make, the greater your influence needs to be.”

“And do something positive in your corner of the world.”

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

“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.”

“The hero is the one with ideas.”