“If you wait until you can do everything for everybody, instead of something for somebody, you’ll end up not doing anything for anybody.”

“you can act your way into feeling long before you can feel your way into action. If you wait until you feel like doing something, you will likely never accomplish it.”

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

“Being simple is hard work.”

“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!”

“Little progress is better than no progress at all. Success comes in taking many small steps. If you stumble in a small step, it rarely matters. Don't gift wrap the garbage. Let little failures go.”

“When you make a commitment, you create hope. When you keep a commitment, you create trust.”

“Productive leaders communicate the superiority and the benefits of their ideas.”

“Your values are the soul of your leadership, and they drive your behavior.”

“1. Cop-outs. People who have no goals and do not commit. 2. Holdouts. People who don’t know if they can reach their goals, so they’re afraid to commit. 3. Dropouts. People who start toward a goal but quit when the going gets tough. 4. All-outs. People who set goals, commit to them, and pay the price to reach”

“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!”

“When leaders fail to empower others, it is usually due to three main reasons: 1. Desire for Job Security 2. Resistance to Change 3. Lack of Self-Worth”

“rise beyond your circumstances

“When you get right down to it, intentional living is about living your best story.”

“This poster in a Nordstrom’s department store once caught my attention: “The only difference between stores is the way they treat their customers.” That’s a bold statement. Most stores would advertise the quality of their merchandise or their wide selection as what sets them apart from the rest. The difference between Nordstrom’s and other stores, according to an employee of the competition, is that other stores are organization-oriented; Nordstrom’s is people-oriented. Their employees are trained to respond quickly and kindly to customer complaints. As a result, according to writer Nancy Austin, “Nordstrom’s doesn’t have customers; it has fans.” A study by TARP, Technical Assistance”