“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!”

“Nothing of significance was ever achieved without people working together.”

“Para mucha gente en este mundo, lo que marca la diferencia nunca marcará la diferencia. ¿Por qué? Porque han escogido una actitud que no es una osesión valiosa para ellos. Si alguien no está escogiendo a propósito el tener la actitud correcta, entonces está escogiendo tener la actitud equivocada.”

“Reward only finished work: It’s good to praise effort, but you should never reward it.

“THE DIFFERENCE THAT REALLY MAKES A DIFFERENCE”

“Cuando los líderes aprenden buenos valores y los viven, ellos mismos se hacen más valiosos e incrementan el valor de las demás personas.”

“One of the major keys to success is to keep moving forward on the journey, making the best of the detours and interruptions, turning adversity into advantage.”

“Thomas Jefferson said, “It’s wonderful how much can be done if we are always working.”

“The ability to ask the right question is more than half the battle of finding the answer.”

“Realize that the guys who criticize will minimize the guys whose enterprise rises above the guys who criticize and minimize.”

“If your habits don't line up with your dream, then you need to either change your habits or change your dream.”

“A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.”

“You must have a long-range vision to keep you from being frustrated by short-range failures.”

“Anytime a relationship is unequal, it cannot last—whether you are giving more than you get or getting more than you deserve.”

“French essayist Michel Eyquem de Montaigne wrote, “The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them; a man may live long yet live very little.” The truth is that you can spend your life any way you want, but you can spend it only once.”