“Clearly, if leaders have a strong set of ethical values and live them out, then people will respect them, not just their position. Immature leaders try to use their position to drive high performance.”

“Errors become mistakes when we perceive them and respond to them incorrectly. Mistakes become failures when we continually respond to them incorrectly.”

“There is no life as empty as the self-centered life. There is no life as centered as the self-empty life.”

“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!”

“The Courage to Teach,” 

“The bottom line in leadership isn’t how far we advance ourselves but how far we advance others.”

“only people who can see the invisible can do the impossible.”

“Al preguntar cómo podemos maximizar nuestras experiencias, les sacamos el mayor provecho.”

“I strongly encourage you to find a place to think and to discipline yourself to pause and use it, because it has the potential to change your life. It can help you to figure out what’s really important and what isn’t. As writer and Catholic priest Henri J. M. Nouwen observed, “When you are able to create a lonely place in the middle of your actions and concerns, your successes and failures slowly can lose some of their power over you.”

“leaders who are effective are leaders who are disciplined in their daily lives.”

“people with charisma possess an outward focus instead of an inward one. They pay attention to other people, and they desire to add value to them.”

“Forty-two percent of college graduates never read a book after college.”

“The way President Abraham Lincoln is said to have handled a person who had a know-it-all attitude. Lincoln asked, “How many legs will a sheep have if you call a tail a leg?”  “Five,” the man answered. “No,” replied Lincoln, “he’ll still have four, because calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it one.” 

“The winner’s edge is in the attitude, not aptitude.”

“Realize that the guys who criticize will minimize the guys whose enterprise rises above the guys who criticize and minimize.”