The pessimist complains about the wind.
The optimist expects it to change.
The leader adjusts the sails.

We choose what attitudes we have right now. And it’s a continuing choice. I am amazed at the large number of adults who fail to take responsibility for their attitudes. If they’re grumpy and someone asks why, they’ll say, “I got up on the wrong side of the bed.” When failure begins to plague their lives, they’ll say, “I was born on the wrong side of the tracks.” When life begins to flatten out and others in the family are still climbing, they’ll say, Well, I was in the wrong birth order in my family.” When their marriages fail, they believe they married the wrong person. When someone else gets a promotion they wanted, it’s because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Do you notice something? They are blaming everyone else for their problems.

The greatest day in your life and mine is when we take total responsibility for our attitudes. That’s the day we truly grow up.

—Developing the Leader Within You – John Maxwell

CHOOSE TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR HOW YOU VIEW YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES.

You may have already discovered this intuitively. When someone praises you, doesn’t your energy level go up? And when you are criticized, doesn’t that comment drag you down? Words have great power.

What kind of environment do you think you could create if you continually affirmed people when you first came into contact with them? Not only would you encourage them, but you would also become an energy carrier. Whenever you walked into a room, the people would light up! You would help to create the kind of environment everyone loves. Just your presence alone would brighten people’s days.

—25 Ways to Win with People – John Maxwell

DO SOMETHING TODAY TO CREATE AN ENVIRONMENT OF AFFIRMATION.

•Willing to make financial sacrifices for the team
•Willing to keep growing for the sake of the team
•Willing to empower others for the sake of the team
•Willing to make difficult decisions for the sake of the team

Once you have modeled the willingness to pay a price for the potential of the team, you have the credibility to ask others to do the same. Then when you recognize sacrifices that teammates must make for the team, show them why and how to do it. Then praise their sacrifices to their teammates.

—The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork – John Maxwell

WHAT SACRIFICE WILL YOU MAKE TODAY FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR TEAM?

My life shall touch a dozen lives before this day is done,
Leave countless marks for good or ill ere sets the evening sun,
This is the wish I always wish, the prayer I always pray;
Lord, may my life help other lives it touches by the way.

As you interact with your family, your coworkers, and the clerk at the store today, recognize that your life touches many others’ lives. Certainly, your influence on your family members is greater than that on the strangers you meet. And if you have a high-profile occupation, you influence people you don’t know. But even in your ordinary day-to-day interactions with people, you make an impact. You can make the few moments that you interact with a store clerk and a bank teller a miserable experience, or you can get them to smile and make their day. The choice is yours.

—Becoming a Person of Influence – John Maxwell

TOUCH SOMEONE’S LIFE FOR GOOD TODAY.

Unsuccessful people are often so afraid of failure and rejection that they spend their whole lives avoiding risks or decisions that could lead to failure. They don’t realize that success is based on their ability to fail and continue trying. When you have the right attitude, failure is neither fatal nor final. In fact, it can be a springboard to success. Leadership expert Warren Bennis interviewed seventy of the nation’s top performers in various fields and found that none of them viewed their mistakes as failures. When talking about them, they referred to their “learning experiences,” “tuition paid,” “detours,” and “opportunities for growth.”

Successful people don’t let failure go to their heads. Instead of dwelling on the negative consequences of failure, thinking of what might have been and how things haven’t worked out, they focus on the rewards of success: learning from their mistakes and thinking about how they can improve themselves and their situations.

—Your Road Map for Success – John Maxwell

TRY TO SEE FAILURE AS A LEARNING EXPERIENCE TODAY.

I challenge you to think of one act of genuine significance in the history of humankind that was performed by a lone human being. No matter what you name, you will find that a team of people was involved. That is why President Lyndon Johnson said, “There are no problems we cannot solve together, and very few that we can solve by ourselves.”

If you want to reach your potential or strive for the seemingly impossible, you need to become a team player. It may be a cliché, but it is nonetheless true: Individuals play the game, but teams win championships.

—The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork – John Maxwell

PLACE A HIGH VALUE ON TEAMWORK INSTEAD
OF ACHIEVEMENT AND YOU WILL RECEIVE
NOT ONLY TEAMWORK BUT ALSO ACHIEVEMENT.

I don’t mean to sound crass, but it helps if you like people. If you’re not a people person, that may be the first step you need to take. Look for value in every person. Put yourself in others’ shoes. Find reasons to like them. You won’t take an interest in people if deep down you care nothing about them. And if you care nothing about them, that flaw will always be a hindrance to your ability to lead people.

If this is an area of challenge for you, then you may want to take a look at 25 Ways to Win with People: How to Make Others Feel Like a Million Bucks, which I coauthored with Les Parrott; or read the classic How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. However you go about developing people skills, just remember that people always move toward someone who increases them and away from anyone who decreases them.

—The 360° Leader – John Maxwell

TAKE INTEREST IN OTHERS BEFORE THEY TAKE INTEREST IN YOU.

1. There Is No Success Without Sacrifice: Leaders must give up to go up. Talk to leaders, and you will find that they have made repeated sacrifices. Effective leaders sacrifice much that is good in order to dedicate themselves to what is best.

2. Leaders Are Often Asked to Give Up More Than Others: The heart of leadership is putting others ahead of yourself. It’s doing what is best for the team. For that reason, I believe that leaders have to give up their rights.

3. You Must Keep Giving Up to Stay Up: If leaders have to give up to go up, then they have to give up even more to stay up. What gets a team to the top isn’t what keeps it there. The only way to stay up is to give up even more.

4. The Higher the Level of Leadership, the Greater the Sacrifice: The higher you go, the more it’s going to cost you. And it doesn’t matter what kind of leadership career you pick. You will have to make sacrifices. You will have to give up to go up.

—The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership – John Maxwell

———————

As a people person, I find that hard to relate to. Whenever I face any kind of challenge, the very first thing I do is to think about the people I want on the team to help with it. I’ve been that way since I was a kid. I’ve always thought, Why take the journey alone when you can invite others along with you?

I understand that not everyone operates that way. But whether or not you are naturally inclined to be part of a team is really irrelevant. If you do everything alone and never partner with other people, you create huge barriers to your own potential. Dr. Allan Fromme quipped, “People have been known to achieve more as a result of working with others than against them.” What an understatement! It takes a team to do anything of lasting value.

Besides, even the most introverted person in the world can learn to enjoy the benefits of being on a team. (That’s true even if someone isn’t trying to accomplish something great.) For the person trying to do everything alone, the game really is over. If you want to do something big, you must link up with others. One is too small a number to achieve greatness.

—The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork – John Maxwell

AS YOU FACE CHALLENGES, THINK ABOUT WHO YOU CAN ENLIST TO COME ALONGSIDE YOU.

Take a look at four truths about passion and what it can do for you as a leader:

1. Passion Is the First Step to Achievement: Your desire determines your destiny. Anyone who lives beyond an ordinary life has great desire. It’s true in any field: weak desire brings weak results, just as a small fire creates little heat. The stronger your fire, the greater the desire—and the greater the potential.

2. Passion Increases Your Willpower: There is no substitute for passion. It is fuel for the will. If you want anything badly enough, you can find the willpower to achieve it. The only way to have that kind of desire is to develop passion.

3. Passion Changes You: If you follow your passion—instead of others’ perceptions—you can’t help becoming a more dedicated, productive person. And that increases your ability to impact others. In the end, your passion will have more influence than your personality.

4. Passion Makes the Impossible Possible: Human beings are so made that whenever
anything fires the soul, impossibilities vanish. A fire in the heart lifts everything in your life.

That’s why passionate leaders are so effective. A leader with great passion and few skills always outperforms a leader with great skills and no passion.

—The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader – John Maxwell

FIND OR REKINDLE YOUR PASSION TODAY TO INCREASE YOUR INTENSITY FOR SUCCESS.