“You could use the 80/20 rule. Give 80 percent of your effort to the top 20 percent (most important) activities. Another way is to focus on exceptional opportunities that promise a huge return. It comes down to this: give your attention to the areas that bear fruit.”

“Las personas se están preparando para el éxito cuando deberían estarse preparando para el fracaso. Fracasar es mucho más común que triunfar; la pobreza está más generalizada que la riqueza; y la desilusión es más normal que los logros.”

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

“usted se gana el corazón de las personas cuando les ayuda a crecer.”

“The truth is that leadership opportunities are plentiful and within reach of most people.”

“What can I say to get others involved around the table? How can I draw them in?”

“NBA superstar David Robinson remarked, “I think any player will tell you that individual accomplishments help your ego, but if you don’t win, it makes for a very, very long season. It counts more that the team has played well.”

“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!”

“many people are more comfortable with old problems than with new solutions.

“Every message that people receive is filtered through the messenger who delivers it.”

“• Leaders gain credibility when they suffer with those they lead.”

“This poster in a Nordstrom’s department store once caught my attention: “The only difference between stores is the way they treat their customers.” That’s a bold statement. Most stores would advertise the quality of their merchandise or their wide selection as what sets them apart from the rest. The difference between Nordstrom’s and other stores, according to an employee of the competition, is that other stores are organization-oriented; Nordstrom’s is people-oriented. Their employees are trained to respond quickly and kindly to customer complaints. As a result, according to writer Nancy Austin, “Nordstrom’s doesn’t have customers; it has fans.” A study by TARP, Technical Assistance” 

“When you develop confidence, those around you—friends, family, and associates—will increase in their own confidence levels. Confidence breeds confidence.”

“1. Cop-outs. People who have no goals and do not commit. 2. Holdouts. People who don’t know if they can reach their goals, so they’re afraid to commit. 3. Dropouts. People who start toward a goal but quit when the going gets tough. 4. All-outs. People who set goals, commit to them, and pay the price to reach”

“A good leader is a person who takes a little more than his share of the blame and a little less than his share of the credit.”