“If you can't influence people, then they will not follow you. And if people won't follow, you are not a leader. That's the Law of Influence.”

“Fellas, things are going to change. I know how bad DeMatha’s teams have been during these last few years, but that’s over with. We’re going to win at DeMatha and we’re going to build a tradition of winning. Starting right now . . . But let me tell you how we’re going to do it. We’re going to outwork every team we ever play . . . With a lot of hard work and discipline and dedication, people are going to hear about us and respect us, because DeMatha will be a winner.”

“Good Thinking Produces More Good Thinking”

“See the big picture. Your place on the team makes sense only in the context of the big picture. If your only motivation for finding your niche is personal gain, your poor motives may prevent you from discovering what you desire.”

“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!”

“Attitude is the first quality that marks the successful man. If he has a positive attitude and is a positive thinker, who likes challenges and difficult situations, then he has half his success achieved.”

“Life lived for tomorrow will always be a day away from being realized.”

“He that thinketh he leadeth and hath no one following him is only taking a walk.”

“When talented teams don’t win, examine the leadership.”

“We cannot become what we need by remaining what we are.”

“Thinking for a Change shares the way that I think on a daily basis. My wife, Margaret, says it has more of my DNA than any of my other books.”

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

“In general, there are no bad audiences; only bad speakers.”

“As a leader, you should not be trying to carry everything yourself. To be successful, you must share the load. But you must have highly capable people to hand things off to.”

“«A los hombres se les desarrolla de la misma manera en que se explota una mina de oro. Hay que remover toneladas de tierra para obtener una onza de oro. Aunque usted no entra en la mina en busca de la tierra», añadió,”