The Best Quotes From John Maxwell’s “Today Matters: 12 Daily Practices to Guarantee Tomorrow’s Success”

From John Maxwell’s Today Matters: 12 Daily Practices to Guarantee Tomorrow’s Success (Maxwell, John C.).

“You don’t win an Olympic gold medal with a few weeks of intensive training,” says (Seth) Godin. “There’s no such thing as an overnight opera sensation. Great law firms or design companies don’t spring up overnight….Every great company, every great brand, and every great career has been built in exactly the same way: bit by bit, step by step, little by little.” There is no magic solution to success. — P.4

As basketball legend John Wooden says, “When opportunity comes, it’s too late to prepare.” — P.6

Most people want to avoid pain, and discipline is often painful. But we need to recognize that there are really two kinds of pain when it comes to our daily conduct. There’s the pain of self-discipline and the pain of regret. Most people avoid the pain of self-discipline because it’s the easy thing to do. What they may not realize is that the pain of self-discipline is momentary but the pay-off is long lasting. — P.26

Someone once defined hard work as the accumulation of the easy things you didn’t do when you should have. — P.27

You may have a million reasons not to get started now. But deep down, none of them can be as compelling as your desire to change, grow, and succeed. In a month or a year or five years from now, you may have only one regret — that you didn’t start now. Today matters. The way you spend today really can change your life. — P.31

Success is peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming. — John Wooden, P.37

Chinese author and philosopher Lin Yutang said, “Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leavings things undone. The wisdom of life consists of the elimination of nonessentials.” — P.67

Because I wanted to improve myself and pick up skills I didn’t learn in college, in 1971 I began working on a business degree. While reading for one of the courses, I came across a paragraph written about Italian economist Vilifredo Pareto. It contained information about prioritizing called the Pareto Principle. It said that by focusing your attention on the top 20 percent of all of your priorities, you would get an 80 percent return on your effort. That was my eureka moment! That’s when I made this decision: I will prioritize my life and give focus and energy to those things that give the highest return. — P.69

British prime minister William Gladstone said, “He is a wise man who wastes no energy on pursuits for which he is not fitted; and he is wider still who from among the things he can do well, chooses and resolutely follows the best.” — P.73

I’m continually reading books on leadership and communication. Every month I try to read one excellent book in its entirety and skim a second one that may not have as much content. — P.128

Several years ago, James Petterson and Peter Kim published the results of a national survey on morals in The Day America Told the Truth. They shard some of the things people said they would do for money. Here are some of the things people said they would be willing to do for $10 million dollars (along with the percentage of people who would do it). They would…

* Abandon their entire family (25 percent)
* Become prostitutes for a week or more (23 percent)
* Give up their American citizenship (16 percent)
* Leave their spouse (16 percent)
* Withhold testimony, letting a murderer go free (10 percent)
* Kill a stranger (7 percent)
* Put their childen up for adoption (3 percent).

If those findings don’t show that some people believe money will bring them happiness, nothing does! — P.179

….Proverbs 3:5-6, which says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” — P.213

I think a lot of the time we take relationships for granted. Because of that, we don’t always give them the attention they deserve or require. But good relationships require a lot of effort. To keep me on track in my relationships requires a lot of effort. To keep me on track in my relationships so that I’m inbesting in them as I must to make them successful, I practice this discipline: Every day I make the conscious effort to deposit goodwill into my relationships with others. — P.229

Pulitzer prize-winning composer Gian Menotti said, “Hell begins on that day when God grants us a clear vision of all that we might have achieved, of all the gifts we wasted, of all that we might have done that we did not do.” — P.281

Share this!

Enjoy reading? Share it with your friends!