“The most important personal-growth phrase you will ever hear a good leader say to you is “follow me.”

“Crisis doesn’t necessarily make character, but it certainly does reveal it.”

“KEY CONCEPT: Connecting begins when the other person feels valued.”

“Haga una lista de al menos cinco pero no más de diez metas.) Ahora identifique los que requerirán la participación o la cooperación de los demás. En estas actividades, su capacidad de liderazgo redundará en eficacia.

“Your mission is to become better today than you were yesterday.”

“Thomas Jefferson observed, “A candle loses nothing when it lights another candle.” That is the real nature of partnership. I find that many people don’t think that way. They believe that sharing means losing something. But I don’t think that’s true. Every person possesses one of two mind-sets: scarcity or abundance. People with a scarcity mind-set believe that there’s only so much to go around, so you have to scrap for everything you can and protect whatever you have at all costs. People with an abundance mind-set believe there’s always enough to go around. If you have an idea, share it: you can always come up with another one. If you have money, give some of it away; you can always make more. If you have only one piece of pie, let someone else eat it; you can bake another one. I believe that in this area, you get from life what you expect. You can hoard what little you have and receive no more. Or you can give what you have, and you will be rewarded with abundance. Your attitude makes the difference. So if you partner with another person and give tremendously, one way or another you’re going to get back more than you gave.”

“Success is . . . knowing your purpose in life, growing to reach your maximum potential, and sowing seeds that benefit others.”

“Porque un líder afirmado que es humilde está dispuesto a aceptar un nuevo desafío, aunque eso signifique tomar riesgos, entregar el poder y perder un grado de autonomía.”

“Efficiency is the foundation for survival. Effectiveness is the foundation for success. It’s Not How Hard You Work; It’s How Smart You Work”

“Sociologists tell us that even the most introverted individual will influence ten thousand other people during his or her lifetime! This amazing statistic was shared with me by my associate Tim Elmore.”

“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!”

“It’s about attitude.”

“If you know something without having lived it, your audience experiences a credibility gap.”

“Am I Making Myself Clear?”

“First, when we are busy, we naturally believe that we are achieving. But busyness does not equal productivity. Activity is not necessarily accomplishment. Second, prioritizing requires leaders to continually think ahead, to know what's important, to know what's next, to see how everything relates to the overall vision. That's hard work. Third, prioritizing causes us to do things that are at the least uncomfortable and sometimes downright painful.”