“People cannot perform in a way inconsistent with the way they see themselves.”

“You can’t change where you started, but you can change the direction you are going. It’s not what you are going to do, but it’s what you are doing now that counts.”

“If you are willing to change your thinking, you can change your feelings.”

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

“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.”

“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!”

“Each day is an unrepeatable miracle. Today will never happen again, so we must make it count.”

“People naturally see themselves in the light of their intentions, but they measure others according to their actions.”

“By failing to prepare you are preparing to fail.

“only secure leaders exhibit servanthood.”

“Failure results from bad breaks.”

“People of integrity expect to be believed. They also know time will prove them right and are willing to wait.”

“experience alone does not add value to a life. It’s not necessarily experience that is valuable; it’s the insight people gain because of their experience

“NO NOTES. This was truly an oral event. Storytellers didn’t read their stories; they told them, which allowed for eye contact.”

“First, when we are busy, we naturally believe that we are achieving. But busyness does not equal productivity. Activity is not necessarily accomplishment. Second, prioritizing requires leaders to continually think ahead, to know what's important, to know what's next, to see how everything relates to the overall vision. That's hard work. Third, prioritizing causes us to do things that are at the least uncomfortable and sometimes downright painful.”