John C. Maxwell Quotes

Faith in people is an essential quality of an influencer when working with others, yet it is a scarce commodity today.

The size of your miracle depends on the size of your problem.

Not everyone will become a great leader, but everyone can become a better leader.

When you nurture people and add value to them without expecting anything in return, they feel significant.

No one achieves greatness by becoming a generalist. You don't hone a skill by diluting your attention to its development. The only way to get to the next level is focus.

Adversity is a crossroads that makes a person choose one of two paths: character or compromise. Every time he chooses character, he becomes stronger, even if that choice brings negative consequences.

The timing of your decision is just as important as the decision you make.

If you are willing to change your thinking, you can change your feelings. If you change your feelings, you can change your actions. And changing your actions - based on good thinking - can change your life.

To remain a credible leader, I must always work first, hardest, and longest on changing myself. This is neither easy nor natural, but it is essential.

Do you want to come climb the transformationa l leadership mountain with me? Your first step begins with DESIRE. Do you want to make a difference in the lives of others? If your answer is yes, you can be that agent of change you wish to see around the world!

We were created for meaningful work, and one of life's greatest pleasures is the satisfaction of a job well done.

People today are desperate for leaders, but they want to be influenced only by individuals they can trust, persons of good character.

It's easy to have a great attitude when things are going our way...It's when difficult challenges rise before us...that attitude becomes the difference maker.

The true measure of leadership is influence - nothing more, nothing less.

If you aren't making any mistakes, it's a sure sign you're playing it too safe.

Nurturing has the ability to transform people's lives.

It takes a leader to know a leader, grow a leader, and show a leader.

A dream worth pursuing is a picture and blueprint of a person's purpose and potential

Without a vision people in leadership positions perish. You not only lose your people, you lose the person who is in a leadership position - you lose it all.

The church that will not give up will be outdated and passed by, quicker than they realize.

The first order of things to be changed is me, the leader. After I consider how hard it is to change myself, then I will understand the challenge of trying to change others. This is the ultimate test of leadership.

When people respect someone as a person, they admire her. When they respect her as a friend, they love her. When they respect her as a leader, they follow her.

If you are a leader, you should never forget that everyone needs encouragement. And everyone who receives it - young or old, successful or less-than-successful, unknown or famous - is changed by it.

Your talk talks and your walk talks, but your walk talks louder than your talk talks.

The key to your success, to my success, to everyone's success is determined by our daily agenda. What you and I do every day is either making us or breaking us, we're either preparing or repairing. So when somebody says, 'John, I want to be a success. Where do I start?' I say, It's very simple. Start with today.

Many times when people have a vision, they think in terms of a big vision - I want to take my city for Christ. But the problem with many pastors and this type of vision is this: they haven't developed the strategy to fulfill that vision. A pastor preaches a dream or vision to his/her people, they get excited for a week, a month, or a couple of months, but there is no strategy, planning, or process to fulfill that vision.

One is too small a number to achieve greatness.

My leadership began to take flight when I allowed myself to press people to change-whether they thanked me or cursed me.

Enlightenment writer and philosopher Voltaire likened life to a game of cards. Players must accept the cards dealt to them. However, once they have those cards in hand, they alone choose how they will play them. They decide what risks and actions to take.

The last decision I made was my health when I had a heart attack when I was 51.

Successful people make right decisions early and manage those decisions daily.

Don't wait until you feel positive to move forward. Act your way into feeling good.

You cannot manage a decision you haven't made.

The real test of leadership isn't where you start out. It's where you end up.

Integrity is the most needed to succeed in business.

No matter what you are currently able to do, creativity can make you capable of more.

If you are a leader, the true measure of your success is not getting people to work. It's not getting people to work hard. It is getting people to work hard together. That takes commitment.

The length and breath of our influence on others are directly related to the depth of our concern for them.

Connecting is the ability to identify with people and relate to them in a way that increases your influence with them.

Your thinking, more than anything else, shapes the way you live. It's really true that if you change your thinking, you can change your life.

Your emotions are making it difficult for you to accept hard decisions.

But the law of magnetism really is true: who you are is who you attract.

A visionary company is like a great work of art. Think of Michelangelo's scenes from Genesis on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel or his statue of David. Think of a great and enduring novel like Huckleberry Finn or Crime and Punishment. Think of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony or Shakespeare's Henry V. Think of a beautifully designed building, like the masterpieces of Frank Lloyd Wright or Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. You can't point to any one single item that makes the whole thing work; it's the entire work-all the pieces working together to create an overall effect-that leads to enduring greatness.

One way to overcome our natural self-centeredness is to try to see things from other people's perspectives.

If you are training leaders, because you need them, you are too late.

The unsuccessful person is burdened by learning, and prefers to walk down familiar paths. Their distaste for learning stunts their growth and limits their influence.

In the end, people are persuaded not by what we say, but by what they understand.

People have a seed to success within them. Most never find it and therefore fail to reach their potential. Occasionally, a leader discovers it and helps that individual develop it. For both, they now can fulfill the purpose for which they are born.