“Recently I took my daughter Elizabeth out to a restaurant for lunch. The waitress, whose job it was to take care of people, made us feel that we were really inconveniencing her. She was grumpy, negative, and unhelpful. All of her customers were aware of the fact that she was having a bad day. Elizabeth looked up at me and said, “Dad, she’s a grump, isn’t she?” I could only agree with a look of disdain. Halfway through our experience I tried to change this woman’s negative attitude. Pulling out a $10 bill, I said, “Could you do me a favor? I’d like some change for this $10 bill because I want to give you a good tip today.” She looked at me, did a double take, and then ran to the cash register. After changing the money, she spent the next fifteen minutes hovering over us. I thanked her for her service, told her how important and helpful she was, and left a good tip. As we left, Elizabeth said, “Daddy, did you see how that lady changed?” Seizing this golden opportunity, I said, “Elizabeth, if you want people to act right toward you, you act right toward them. And many times you’ll change them.”
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John C. Maxwell
“NO NOTES. This was truly an oral event. Storytellers didn’t read their stories; they told them, which allowed for eye contact.”
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John C. Maxwell
“The longer you wait to do something you should do now, the greater the odds that you will never actually do it.”
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John C. Maxwell
“Successful leaders are like icebergs. When you look at an iceberg, you see only about 10 percent of it, and the rest of it is hidden under the water. When you look at successful leaders, you see only a fraction of their lives. You see the part that looks really good, but there’s usually a lot that remains hidden that’s neither exciting nor glamorous.”
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John C. Maxwell
“More than anything else, what keeps a person going in the midst of adversity is having a sense of purpose. It is the fuel that powers persistence.”
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John C. Maxwell
“To win in sports, members of the team must always keep the big picture in front of them. They must remember that the goal is more important than their role—or any individual glory they may desire.”
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John C. Maxwell
“Before you get out of bed every morning, say ‘do it now’ fifty times. At the end of the day before you go to sleep, the last thing you should do is say ‘do it now’ fifty times.”
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John C. Maxwell
“Most careers involve other people. You can have great academic intelligence and still lack social intelligence—the ability to be a good listener, to be sensitive toward others, to give and take criticism well.”
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John C. Maxwell
“When values, thoughts, feelings, and actions are in alignment, a person becomes focused and his character is strengthened. That allows a leader to lead himself successfully.”
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John C. Maxwell
“It’s better to have a great team with a weak dream than a great dream with a weak team. Your team must be the size of your dream.”
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John C. Maxwell
“To achieve your dreams, you must embrace adversity and make failure a regular part of your life. If you're not failing, you're probably not really moving forward.”
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John C. Maxwell
“Failures, repeated failures, are finger-prints on the road to achievement. .”
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John C. Maxwell
“People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.”
―
John C. Maxwell
