“People need your influence, but it will not come through ‘lip syncing’ those you admire.”

“Risk must be evaluated not by the fear it generates in you or the probability of your success, but by the value of the goal.”

“Life is pretty much a selling job. Whether we succeed or fail is largely a matter of how well we motivate the human beings with whom we deal to buy us and what we have to offer. Success”

“The question is not, “Will my calendar be full?” but “Who will fill my calendar?” If we are leaders of others, the question is not, “Will I see people?” but “Who will I see?

“Leadership isn't about winning. It's about bringing people with you to the finish line.”

“Individuals score points, but teams win games. In The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork, individuals will learn how to score more points so their teams will win more games.”

“Write down somewhere in the margins on this page your answer to this question: How have you changed . . . lately? In the last week, let’s say? Or in the last month? The last year? Can you be very specific? Or must your answer be incredibly vague? You say you’re growing. Okay . . . how? “Well,” you say, “In all kinds of ways.” Great! Name one. You see, effective teaching comes only through a changed person. The more you change, the more you become an instrument of change in the lives of others. If you want to become a change agent, you also must change.2 Change the leader—change the organization.”

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

“If I wanted to make a difference… Wishing for things to change wouldn’t make them change. Hoping for improvements wouldn’t bring them. Dreaming wouldn’t provide all the answers I needed. Vision wouldn’t be enough to bring transformation to me or others. Only by managing my thinking and shifting my thoughts from desire to deeds would I be able to bring about positive change. I needed to go from wanting to doing.”

“Author Noel M. Tichy says, “The ultimate test for a leader is not whether he or she makes smart decisions and takes decisive action, but whether he or she teaches others to be leaders and builds an organization that can sustain its success even when he or she is not around.”

“communication comes from the Latin word communis, meaning “common.” 

“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!”

“The beauty of trust is that it erases worry and frees you to get on with other matters. Trust means confidence.”

“Good leaders know when to display emotions and when to delay them.”

“You lose the respect of the best when you don’t deal properly with the worst.”