“The respect that leadership must have requires that one’s ethics be without question. A leader not only stays above the line between right and wrong, he stays well clear of the ‘gray areas.”

“Sometimes we are afraid because success puts pressure on us to continue to succeed.”

“If you don't have influence, you will never be able to lead others.”

“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!”

“To lead yourself, use your head; to lead others, use your heart.”

“Silent gratitude isn’t much good to anyone.”

“Your attitude, more than your aptitude, will determine your altitude.”

“The younger you are, the more likely you will give your attention to many things. That’s good because if you’re young you’re still getting to know yourself, your strengths and weaknesses. If you focus your thinking on only one thing and your aspirations change, then you’ve wasted your best mental energy. As you get older and more experienced, the need to focus becomes more critical. The farther and higher you go, the more focused you can be—and need to be.”

“English heart surgeon Martyn Lloyd-Jones asserted, “Most unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself rather than talking to yourself.”

“Too many people, when they make a mistake, just keep stubbornly plowing ahead and end up repeating the same mistakes. I believe in the motto, Try and try again.' But the way I read it, it says, Try, then stop and think. Then try again.”

“If you can learn that, then no matter what happens to you, you can weather the storm and build on the good you find in any situation.”

“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.”

“The measure of a leader is not the number of people who serve him, but the number of people he serves.”

“The more you do to go beyond words, the greater the chance you will connect with people.”

“Laughing is the quickest way to get up and get going again when you’ve been knocked down. Failing Forward”