“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!”

“First we form habits, but then our habits form us.

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

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

“Risk must be evaluated not by the fear it generates in you or the probability of your success, but by the value of the goal.”

“Will the reader turn the page?”

“If you want to get ahead, leading up is much better than kissing up.”

“Our problems are no longer problems when we seek learning instead of leisure.”

“Happiness simply cannot be relied upon as a measure of success.”

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

“Value people. Praise effort. Reward performance.”

“There’s a difference between hearing people and listening to them.”

“Think, Act, Talk, and Conduct Yourself Like the Person You Want to Become”

“Before you get out of bed every morning, say ‘do it now’ fifty times. At the end of the day before you go to sleep, the last thing you should do is say ‘do it now’ fifty times.”

“If a man hasn’t discovered something he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.” —Martin Luther King Jr.”