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

“Care without candor creates dysfunctional relationships. Candor without care creates distant relationships.”

“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!”

“What you are speaks so loudly that I can’t hear what you say.” —RALPH WALDO EMERSON”

“When you don’t want to change, you look for differences in others. When you are willing to change, you look for similarities.”

“People’s minds are changed through observation and not argument.” People”

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

“Maturity is the ability to see and act on behalf of others. Immature people don’t see things from someone else’s point of view. They rarely concern themselves with what’s best for others. In many ways, they act like small children.”

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

“Earlier in my life, I have to admit, I was often guilty of this error. I wanted to take an idea from seed thought to solution before sharing it with anyone, even the people it would most impact. I did this both at work and at home. But over the years, I have learned that you can go much farther with a team than you can go alone.”

“Muy a menudo los empleados esperan ser evaluados en base al esfuerzo que están poniendo en el trabajo, en vez de lo que están logrando.”

“The greatest mistake we make is living in constant fear that we will make one.”

“An infant is born with a clenched fist; a man dies with an open hand. Life has a way of prying free the things we think are so important.”

“Give to others? Why? I have needs too” 

“It is true: most people are more satisfied with old problems than committed to finding new solutions.”