John C. Maxwell - Sometimes You Win--Sometimes You Learn: Lifes Greatest Lessons Are Gained from Our Losses

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To Paul Martinelli, Scott Fay, and the thousands of coaches around the world who are part of The John Maxwell Team:

You share my heart.

You communicate my values.

You live out my vision.

You are adding value to others far beyond my hopes and expectations.

Thank you for creating a legacy for me while Im still around to see it.

For many years, I had the opportunity of meeting regularly with former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden. Id spend a day preparing to meet with him, deciding what questions I would ask. I was very conscious of how rare a privilege it was to learn from a mentor such as him.

Coach was always so kind and thoughtful. The last time I met with him, he asked me what I was working on. I had just finished the outline for Sometimes You WinSometimes You Learn, and I was very excited about it. I took the pages from my briefcase and showed them to him, detailing the thesis and what had prompted me to write it.

What a tremendous idea. You can help people with this, said Coach. Then he really surprised me. He asked, Can I write the foreword for it?

What an honor! Of course I said yes.

Coach wrote the foreword as promised, and a few months later he died. I was very humbled, realizing that this was one of the last things he probably wrote.

The world of book writing is a funny thing. My publisher decided that they wanted me to write The 5 Levels of Leadership first, then The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth. During that time, this book had to wait. After a delay of a couple of years, I finally got to write it.

So thats the story of how John Wooden came to write the following foreword. I am grateful for his thoughts. He may have gone on before us, but he is surely not forgotten.

John C. Maxwell is a man I am proud to call my friend.

It isnt just that he has authored more than fifty books on leadership and character, though that is pretty impressive. It isnt just that his words of encouragement have inspired millions of people to reevaluate their choices and priorities, though that is important. It isnt just that he is a man of principles and faith, though those are admirable qualities. I am proud to call John my friend because he is a man who understands that above all things, life is about learningand about using those lessons to become a better employer, better employee, better parent, better sibling, better friend, better neighbor, better steward of our blessings.

This philosophy has been the bedrock of my own life, and I credit John with always serving as a wonderful reminder of how much more learning can be done. I never saw myself as a coach but rather as a teacher whose primary classroom was the basketball court. But I also understood that I was an eternal student, as well. I have tried every day to learn something new, to gain a different perspective, or to harbor a more mature understanding of the world. That way of thinking is what keeps a mind young, optimistic, and joyful. Every time John would visit me, his yellow legal pad covered with the questions he planned to ask me, I always got a chuckle at the sight of one of the professional worlds leading answer men still eager for deeper insights and still willing to ask questions to gain them. It was a wonderful reminder that I should do the same.

After all, learning isnt something that stops when we are handed a diploma. In fact, thats actually the point when the real learning begins. The lessons we are given in school are not the things that carry us through life; those are just the lessons that give us the basic tools to face the real world outside the classroom walls. And that real world is going to sting. It is going to hurt. Sometimes it is going to bump and bruise you; other times it is going to knock you off your feet. The losses are going to come at you in every shape and size, and hit you in every area of your life from your finances to your heart to your health, and morethat much is guaranteed. What is not guaranteed is how you react to those challenges.

As John discusses in this book, there is a marked difference between the people who learn from their losses and the people who do not. Do you want your spirit stuck in the infirmary, too battle weary for another try? Or do you want to seize the opportunity to study, evaluate, and reconsider what happenedand use that knowledge to arm yourself for another charge at life?

The elements of learning that John outlines in the following pages are profound observations as to how the process happens, and he pinpoints what character trait or attribute comes from each. By dissecting the DNA of those who learn, as he so succinctly puts it, John walks us through the necessary components of dealing with different types of loss and turning those lessons into valuable weapons both to ward off and fight through future challenges.

I would challenge anyone who has ever suffered a setback, felt disappointment, or been the recipient of bad news (in other words, every human who has ever walked the earth) to read Johns message and not find at least one insight that can drastically change his or her own perspective on lifes darker moments.