“You can’t take the team to the next level when you haven’t mastered the skills it takes to succeed on a personal level. It just doesn’t happen.”

“The question is not, “Will my calendar be full?” but “Who will fill my calendar?” If we are leaders of others, the question is not, “Will I see people?” but “Who will I see?

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

“Experience isn’t the best teacher—evaluated experience is.”

“A successful person finds the right place for himself. But a successful leader finds the right place for others.

“Charismatic people not only want to win, they want others to win too. That creates productivity.”

“If you think you are the entire picture, you will never see the big picture.”

“Nobody wanders his or her way to a dream, and nobody achieves a dream by accident. Don't shortcut the process and risk cheating yourself out of your dream!”

“Real leaders have something to give, and they give it freely. Anthony DeMello saw a starving child shivering in the cold. Angrily he lifted his eyes to heaven and said, “God, how could you allow such suffering? Why don’t you do something?” There was a long silence and then DeMello was startled when he heard the voice of God answer him, “I certainly have done something—I made you.”

“be sure your communication goes beyond words. How can you do that? By connecting on four levels: visually, intellectually, emotionally, and verbally.”

“to put it as philosopher-poet Ralph Waldo Emerson did, “To be simple is to be great.”

“growth compounds and accelerates if you remain intentional about it.”

“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!”

“Leadership is a moving target, and it always will be. If you desire to become a better leader, get comfortable with change. And if you want to lead up, learn to think like a leader. Think people, think progress, and think intangibles.”

“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.”