“It’s a simple thing to offer encouragement, but it can have a tremendous effect on someone’s life.”

“THE LAW OF THE CHAIN The Strength of the Team Is Impacted by Its Weakest Link”

“I believe all of us can identify with the poet Carl Sandberg, who said, “There is an eagle in me that wants to soar and a hippopotamus in me that wants to wallow in the mud.” The key to success is following the impulse to soar more than the desire to wallow. And that is a never-ending struggle—at least it has been for me. I believe any successful person would be honest in saying, “I got to the top the hard way—fighting my own laziness and ignorance every step of the way.”

“I may not be able to change the world I see around me, but I can change what I see within me.”

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

“People don’t remember what we think is important; they remember what they think is important.”

“Major barriers to successful planning are fear of change, ignorance, uncertainty about the future, and lack of imagination.”

“Four Unpardonable Sins of a Communicator”: being unprepared, uncommitted, uninteresting, or uncomfortable.”

“Are you doing what you ask others to do?”

“An intentional life embraces only the things that will add to the mission of significance.”

“The longer you wait to do something you should do now, the greater the odds that you will never actually do it.”

“When it comes to the thing you love to do, the thing you were made to do, aim high. The odds matter little. Whether you fall down along the way matters little.”

“To reach your potential you must grow. And to grow, you must be highly intentional about it.”

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

“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!”