John C. Maxwell Quotations | Page 5

Everyone gets discourages...The question is: Are you going to give up or get up? It's a choice.

Sometimes we hold on to our possessions because we fear we might run out - life seems scarce. But when we believe that giving is the way to live, we will produce more in the future - life seems abundant.

A big man is one who makes us feel bigger when we are with him.

Sometimes I think it's a lack of knowing the areas. Obviously, everybody knows that health is important so that's - but why was I not doing the right thing? Because I was deceived.

Speak the truth. Transparency breeds legitimacy.

He who thinks he leads, but has no followers, is only taking a walk.

The last decision I made was my health when I had a heart attack when I was 51.

The sum of all your thoughts comprises your overall attitude.

Maya Angelou observed you cant use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have. Sadly,too often creativity is smothered rather than nurtured. There has to be climate in which new ways of thinking,perceiving, questioning are encouraged.

I want to make a difference with people who want to make a difference, doing something that makes a difference.

If you can raise up leaders, you will always have followers, but if you can't raise up leaders, you will only have followers.

I remember as a seventeen-year-old kid saying, "If attitude made me captain of this team, I'm going to have a good attitude all my life."

Successful people do what is right no matter how they feel, and by doing right, they feel good.

Take the emotional temperature of those listening to you. Facial expressions, voice inflection and posture give clues to a person's mood and attitude.

Tend to the people, and they will tend to the business.

I thought that because I wasn't a sickly person - I never have been - I thought I was healthy. So I assumed health. I didn't have it.

Persuasive communication involves enthusiasm, animation, audience participation, authenticity and spontaneity.

Great communication depends on two simple skills-context, which attunes a leader to the same frequency as his or her audience, and delivery, which allows a leader to phrase messages in a language the audience can understand.

It's lonely at the top, so you better know why you are there.

Let God talk to you and minister to you, where you get honest with Him - here's what I do well and don't do well; here are my shortcomings, my strengths, and my gifts.

If you don't love where you are right now, you won't love where you are going. Here is what I know: People who are passionate about what they do every day and love where they are in life are the fortunate ones. They have discovered their purpose. They are the difference makers who fully understand the gift of adding value, and yes, they can't help but love where they are going on their journey.

Those closest to me will determine the level of my success.

The greatest enemy of good thinking is busyness.

A good leader encourages followers to tell him what he needs to know, not what he wants to hear.

A trustworthy leader goes the extra mile to remedy strained relationships, even when it doesn't appear to be required.

The road to success is long and up hill all the way

Hope is not strategy. Hope fits with vision, but we must have a strategy and a process to make our vision become a reality.

People will work eight hours a day for pay, 10 hours a day for a good boss, and 24 hours a day for a good cause!

It is easier to move from failure to success in from excuses to success.

We must focus on prayer as the main thrust to accomplish God's will and purpose on earth. The forces against us have never been greater, and this is the only way we can release God's power to become victorious

Teams make you better than you are, multiply your value, enable you to do what you do best, allow you to help others do their best, give you more time, provide you with companionship, help you fulfill the desires of your heart and compound your vision and effort.

Many pastors fail to see God's vision fulfilled because they never have a strategy for fulfilling that vision.

Difficulties seldom defeat people; lack of faith in themselves usually does it.

Few things build a person up like affirmation. According to Webster’s New World Dictionary, Third College Edition (Simon and Schuster, 1991), the word affirm comes from ad firmare, which means “to make firm.” So when you affirm people, you make firm within them the things you see about them. Do that often enough, and the belief that solidifies within them will become stronger than the doubts they have about themselves.

Diligent follow-up and follow-through will set you apart from the crowd and communicate excellence.

If you aren't making any mistakes, it's a sure sign you're playing it too safe.

Sometimes I hear people talk about discipline of self and I think, if you don't have passion, I might discipline myself for a week or two but only passion will hold me steady.

Character creates consistency, and if your people know what they can expect from you, they will continue to look to you for leadership.

Experience teaches nothing, but evaluated experience teaches everything.

As you begin changing your thinking, start immediately to change your behavior. Begin to act the part of the person you would like to become. Take action on your behavior. Too many people want to feel, then take action. This never works.

Great visions are cast one on one.

I believe that everyone chooses how to approach life. If you're proactive, you focus on preparing. If you're reactive, you end up focusing on repairing.

Effective leaders don't gather things just for themselves; they do it in order to give to others.

I say this in the book [Today Matters], we either spend our day repairing or preparing, and if I haven't taken good care of my today's, they accumulate. So all of a sudden today what I'm doing is I'm going back, I'm repairing bad relationships and wrong decisions, and I'm digging a hole. I'm not making any progress because I'm in a repairing mode, versus if I really make today count that prepares me for tomorrow. Tomorrow really will take care of itself if I do the right thing today.

Believing in people before they have proved themselves is the key to motivating people to reach their potential.

If you don't have the ability to see when to stand up and the conviction to do it, you'll never be an effective leader.

Passion gives you an advantage over others, because one person with passion is greater than ninety-nine who have only an interest!

Connecting is the ability to identify with people and relate to them in a way that increases your influence with them.

Success is not a destination thing, it’s a daily thing.

Of all the things a leader should fear, complacency heads the list.

I don't think every person is going to have the same twelve, but I think out of the twelve I have, nine of them every person will have. Three of them are a little bit of an option, but I say go get your own three, it's no problem.

No matter where you are in your leadership journey, never forget that what got you to where you are won't get you to the next level.

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.

You can be a model to the masses, but to go to the higher levels of influence, you have to work with individuals.

It's easy to have a great attitude when things are going our way...It's when difficult challenges rise before us...that attitude becomes the difference maker.

Pastors need to find their place in the community of believers by spending time with God.

Giving is the highest level of living.

The only guarantee for failure is to stop trying

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.

If churches would take ownership of a vision, the next pastor who is thinking about coming to that church can see what their vision is and then determine if their vision fits with his or her ministry. If it doesn't, then it would be wrong for that pastor to come to that church.

You must find a way to get your vision seen, implemented, and contributed to by others.

There are three qualities a leader must exemplify to build trust: competence, connection, and character.

You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. Success doesn't just suddenly occur one day in someone's life. Neither does failure. Each is a process. Every day of your life is merely preparation for the next. What you become is the result of what you do today.

There are pockets of the church that will "give up," and reap a bountiful harvest. They are going to have huge success, like the church has never experienced since the Book of Acts.

Leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less...titles don't have much value when it comes to leading. True leadership cannot be awarded, appointed, or assigned, it comes only from influence, and that cannot be mandated. It must be earned.

Everything you now do is something you have chosen to do. Some people don't want to believe that. But if you're over age twenty-one, your life is what you're making of it. To change your life, you need to change your priorities

Our attitude is the primary force that will determine whether we succeed or fail.

There is a real hunger for spiritual things in today's culture; people are seeking something spiritual, something beyond themselves. That's the good news. The bad news is people are not getting it at church because the church is singing songs, preaching messages, doing programs, and taking offerings for itself.

A highly credible leader under-promises and over-delivers.

In most cases, those who want power probably shouldn't have it, those who enjoy it probably do so for the wrong reasons, and those who want most to hold on to it don't understand that it's only temporary.

Nothing speaks like results. If you want to build the kind of credibility that connects with people, then deliver results before you deliver a message. Get out and do what you advise others to do. Communicate from experience.

The strength of any organization is a direct result of the strength of its leaders.

When you are bigger than your purpose you have a career. When your purpose is bigger than you, you have a calling.

The only way a church is going to be relevant is to get out of its comfort zone and connect with unchurched people.

Leadership has less to do with position than it does with disposition.

Competence goes beyond words. It's the leader's ability to say it, plan it, and do it in such a way that others know that you know how - and know that they want to follow you.

Nobody ever got ready by waiting. You only get ready by starting.

Be intentional to add value to every person you meet everyday.

People are not going to give you a vision, but God can.

Show me a person who sees himself negatively and I will show you a person who sees others in a negative way.

Effective leaders sacrifice much that is good in order to dedicate themselves to what is best

To connect with people, be yourself, at your best.

Nothing separates successful people from unsuccessful people more than how they use their time!

If I'm halfway to the dream, at best, half of my resources are there. Your resources to fulfill the dream will come during the last step of the dream.

Do not take the agenda that someone else has mapped out for your life.

Good character improves every aspect of a person’s life.

if you don't have peace, it isn't because someone took it from you; you gave it away. You cannot always control what happens to you, but you can control what happens in you.

In the corporate community the key word is respect. In the corporate community you don't get a relationship until they respect you first.

Your talk talks and your walk talks, but your walk talks louder than your talk talks.

Life is a matter of choices, and every choice you make makes you.

People naturally tend toward inertia. That's why self improvement is such a struggle. But that's also why adversity lies at the heart of every success. The process of achievement comes through repeated failures and the constant struggle to climb to a higher level.

I think we impress people by our success, but I think we impact them by our failures.

The bottom line in managing your emotions is that you should put others – not yourself – first in how you handle and process them. Whether you delay or display your emotions should not be for your own gratification. You should ask yourself, What does the team need? Not, What will make me feel better?

The leader’s Attitude is like a thermostat for the place she works. If her attitude is good, the atmosphere is pleasant, and the environment is easy to work in. But if her attitude is bad, the temperature is insufferable.

Tomorrow really will take care of itself if I do the right thing today.

Your life today is a result of your thinking yesterday. Your life tomorrow will be determined by what you think today.

Image is what people think we are; integrity is whar we really are.

Real leadership is being the person others will gladly and confidently follow.

One is too small a number to achieve greatness.

Don't wait until you feel positive to move forward. Act your way into feeling good.