Maxwell - Success 101: what every leader needs to know

2008 by John C. Maxwell

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

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Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.

Portions of this book have been previously published in Your Road Map for Success, Failing Forward, The 360 Leader, Winning with People, The 21 Indispensable Qualitiesof a Leader, and The 17 Essential Qualities of a Team Player by John C. Maxwell.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Maxwell, John C., 1947
Success 101 : what every leader needs to know / John C. Maxwell.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-4002-8023-0
1. Success in business--Handbooks, manuals, etc. I. Title.
HF5386.M4449 2008
658.4'09--dc22

2008026082

Printed in the United States of America

08 09 10 11 12 QW 6 5 4 3 2 1

CONTENTS

Ive been passionate about personal growth for most of my life. In fact, Ive created and pursued a plan for growth every year for the last forty years! People say that wisdom comes with age. I dont believe thats true. Sometimes age comes alone. I wouldnt have achieved any of my dreams had I not been dedicated to continual improvement. If you want to grow and become the best person you can be, youve got to be intentional about it.

At the same time, life is busy and complex. Most people run out of day long before their to-do list is done. And trying to get to the bottom line in just about any area of life can be a challenge. Did you know that more new information has been produced in the last thirty years than in the previous five thousand? A single weekday edition of the New York Times contains more information than most people in seventeenth-century England were likely to encounter in their lifetimes.

Thats why weve developed this series of 101 books. Weve cherry-picked the essentials in subjects such as leadership, attitude, relationships, teamwork, and mentoring and put them into a format that you very likely can read in one sitting. Or you can easily toss a 101 book into a briefcase or purse and read here and there as time allows.

In many of my larger books, I go into my subject in great depth. I do that because I believe it is often the best way to add value to people. Success 101 is different. It is an introduction to a subject, not the advanced course. But I believe it will help you on your way to significant growth in this area of your life.

I hope you enjoy this book, and I pray that it serves you well as you seek to improve your life and achieve your dreams.

You cannot achieve what you have not defined.

The problem for most people who want to be successful is not that they cant achieve success. The main obstacle for them is that they misunderstand success. Maltbie D. Babcock said, One of the most common mistakes and one of the costliest is thinking that success is due to some genius, some magic, something or other which we do not possess.

THE TRADITIONAL PICTURE OF SUCCESS

What is success? What does it look like? Most people have a vague picture of what it means to be a successful person that looks something like this:

The wealth of Bill Gates,

the physique of Arnold Schwarzenegger (or Marilyn Monroe),

the intelligence of Albert Einstein,

the athletic ability of Michael Jordan,

the business prowess of Donald Trump,

the social grace and poise of Jackie Kennedy,

the imagination of Walt Disney, and

the heart of Mother Teresa.

That sounds absurd, but its closer to the truth than we would like to admit. Many of us picture success as looking like one other than who we areand we especially cant be eight other people! And more important than that, you shouldnt want to be. If you tried to become just like even one of these other people, you wouldnt be successful. You would be a bad imitation of them, and you would eliminate the possibility of becoming the person you were meant to be.

THE RIGHT PICTURE OF SUCCESS

So how do you get started on the journey toward success? What does it take to be a success? Two things are required: the right picture of success and the right principles for getting there.

The picture of success isnt the same for any two people because were all created differently as unique individuals. But the process is the same for everyone. Its based on principles that do not change. After more than thirty-five years of knowing successful people and studying the subject, I have developed the following definition of success:

Success is...

Knowing your purpose in life,

Growing to reach your maximum potential, and

Sowing seeds that benefit others.

You can see by this definition that success is a journey rather than a destination. No matter how long you live or what you decide to do in life, you will never exhaust your capacity to grow toward your potential or run out of opportunities to help others. When you see success as a journey, youll never have the problem of trying to arrive at an elusive final destination. And youll never find yourself in a position where you have accomplished some final goal, only to discover that youre still unfulfilled and searching for something else to do.

Another benefit of focusing on the journey of success instead of on arriving at a destination or achieving a goal is that you have the potential to become a success today. The very moment that you make the shift to finding your purpose, growing to your potential, and helping others, successful is something you are right now, not something you vaguely hope one day to be.

To get a better handle on these aspects of success, lets take a look at each one of them:

KNOWING YOUR PURPOSE

Nothing can take the place of knowing your purpose. Millionaire industrialist Henry J. Kaiser, the founder of Kaiser Aluminum as well as the Kaiser-Permanente health care system, said, The evidence is overwhelming that you cannot begin to achieve your best unless you set some aim in life. Or put another way, if you dont try actively to discover your purpose, youre likely to spend your life doing the wrong things.

I believe that God created every person for a purpose. According to psychologist Viktor Frankl, Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life. Everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated. Thus everyones task is as unique as his specific opportunity to implement it. Each of us has a purpose for which we were created. Our responsibilityand our greatest joyis to identify it.

Here are some questions to ask yourself to help you identify your purpose:

For what am I searching? All of us have a strong desire buried in our hearts, something that speaks to our deepest thoughts and feelings, something that sets our souls on fire. Some people have a strong sense of what that is when theyre just children. Others take half a lifetime to discover it. But no matter what, its there. You only need to find it.

Why was I created?