“One day when the Raiders were in Oakland, a reporter visited their locker room to talk to Ken Stabler. Stabler really wasn’t known as an intellectual, but he was a good quarterback. This newspaperman read him some English prose: “I would rather be ashes than dust. I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than that it should be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy, impermanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.” After reading this to the quarterback, the reporter asked, “What does this mean to you?” Stabler immediately replied, “Throw deep.” Go after it. Go out to win in life.”
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John C. Maxwell
“Don’t let your mandate come from the grumbling of the crowd. Get your cues from God and the mission He has given you.”
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John C. Maxwell
“what gets rewarded gets done. If you praise and honor the people who epitomize the values of the team, those values get embraced and upheld by other members of the team. There is no better reinforcement.”
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John C. Maxwell
“I strongly encourage you to find a place to think and to discipline yourself to pause and use it, because it has the potential to change your life. It can help you to figure out what’s really important and what isn’t. As writer and Catholic priest Henri J. M. Nouwen observed, “When you are able to create a lonely place in the middle of your actions and concerns, your successes and failures slowly can lose some of their power over you.”
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John C. Maxwell
“A good leader encourages followers to tell him what he needs to know, not what he wants to hear.”
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John C. Maxwell
“Learning to write is learning to think. You don’t know anything clearly unless you can state it in writing.”
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John C. Maxwell
“Eleanor Roosevelt said, “One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.”
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John C. Maxwell
“There’s a difference between hearing people and listening to them.”
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John C. Maxwell
“The more seriously you take your growth, the more seriously your people will take you.”
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John C. Maxwell
“The key to working smarter is knowing the difference between motion and direction. In the final analysis, results are what matter; attendance and activity don’t.”
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John C. Maxwell
“What we do on some great occasion will depend on what we are; and what we are will be the result of previous years of self-discipline.”
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John C. Maxwell
“Life is a series of outcomes. Sometimes the outcome is what you want. Great. Figure out what you did right. Sometimes the outcome is what you don't want. Great. Figure out what you did so you don't do it again.”
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John C. Maxwell
“I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: The ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.” If you want to lead on the highest level, be willing to serve on the lowest.”
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John C. Maxwell
“As Michel de Montaigne observed, “No wind favors him who has no destined port.”
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John C. Maxwell
“60 percent of all management problems are the result of faulty communications.”
―
John C. Maxwell
