Archive for Maxwell Daily Reader
Unleashing the power of passion
Posted by: | CommentsOne of my roles as a motivational teacher is to try to help people reach their potential. For years, I tried to inspire passion in audiences by going about it the wrong way. I used to tell people about what made me passionate, what made me want to get out and do my best. But I could see that it wasn’t having the effect I desired – people just didn’t respond. I couldn’t ignite others’ passion by sharing my own.
I decided to change my focus. Instead of sharing my passion, I started helping others discover their passion. To do that, I ask these questions:
- What do you sing about?
- What do you cry about?
- What do you dream about?
The first two questions speak to what touches you at a deep level today. The third answers what will bring you fulfillment tomorrow. The answers to these questions can often help people discover their true passion.
While everybody can possess passion, not everyone takes the time to discover it. And that’s a shame. Passion is fuel for the will. Passion turns your have-to’s into want-to’s. what we accomplish in life is based less on what we want and more on how much we want it. The secret to willpower is what someone once called wantpower. People who want something enough usually find the willpower to achieve it.
You can’t help people become winners unless they want to win. Champions become champions from within, not from without.
Enlarging others
Posted by: | CommentsTeam members always love and admire a player who is able to help them go to another level, someone who enlarges them and empowers them to be successful.
Players who enlarge their teammates have several things in common:
- Enlargers value their teammates: Your teammates can tell whether you believe in them. People’s performances usually reflect the expectations of those they respect.
- Enlargers value what their teammates value: Players who enlarge others listen to discover what their teammates talk about and watch to see what they spend their money on. That kind of knowledge, along with a desire to relate to their fellow players, creates a strong connection.
- Enlargers add value to their teammates: Adding value is really the essence of enlarging others. It’s finding ways to help others improve their abilities and attitudes. An enlarger looks for the gifts, talents, and uniqueness in other people, and then helps them to increase those abilities.
- Enlargers make themselves more valuable: Enlargers work to make themselves better, not only because it benefits them personally, but also because it helps them to help others. If you want to increase the ability of a teammate, make yourself better.
How do your teammates see you? Are you an enlarger? Do you make them better than they are alone through your inspiration and contribution? Do you know what your teammates value? Do you capitalize on those things by adding value to them in those areas?
Take some specific steps to enlarge your teammates today.
Cultivating a Positive Attitude
Posted by: | CommentsEnglish heart surgeon Martyn Lloyd-Jones asserted, “Most unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself rather than talking to yourself.” What kind of voices do you hear? When you face new experiences, does a voice in your head say you’re going to fail? If you’re hearing negative messages, you need to learn to give yourself positive mental pep talks. The best way to retrain your attitude is to prevent your mind from going down any negative forks in the road.
To improve your attitude, do the following:
Feed yourself the right “food.” If you’ve been starved of anything positive, then you need to start feeding yourself a regular diet of motivational material. Read books that encourage a positive attitude. The more negative you are, the longer it will take to turn your attitude around. But if you consume a steady diet of the right “food,” you can become a positive thinker.
Achieve a goal every day. Some people get into a rut of negativity because they feel they’re not making progress. If that describes you, then begin setting achievable daily goals for yourself. A pattern of positive achievement will help you develop a pattern of positive thinking.
Write it on your wall. We all need reminders to help us keep thinking right. Alex Haley used to keep a picture in his office of a turtle on a fencepost, to remind him that everybody needed the help of others. As incentive, people put up awards they’ve won, inspirational posters, or letters they’ve received. Find something that will work for you and put it on your wall.
Allow yourself to dwell only on the positive
and not the negative today.
Don’t lose your marbles!
Posted by: | CommentsMy friend Dwight Bain sent me a story of a ham radio operator who overheard an older gentleman giving advice to a younger man.
“It’s a shame you have to be away from home and family so much,” he said. “Let me tell you something that has helped me keep a good perspective on my own priorities. You see, one day I sat down and did a little arithmetic. The average person lives about 75 years. Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and came up with 3,900, which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in his lifetime.
“It took me until I was 55 years old to think about this in any detail,” he continued, “and by that time I had lived through over 2,800 Saturdays. I got to thinking that if I lived to be 75, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy.”
He went on to explain that he bought 1,000 marbles and put them in a clear plastic container in his favorite work area at home. “Every Saturday since then,” he said, “I have taken one marble out and thrown it away. I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the really important things in life. There’s nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight.”
Then the older gentleman finished, “Now let me tell you one last thought before I sign off and take my lovely wife out to breakfast. This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure if I make it until next Saturday, then I have been given a little extra time.”
We can’t choose whether we will get any more time, but we can choose what we do with it.
From The 17 Essential Qualities of a Team Player
Image courtesy of photobucket
Understanding people makes the difference
Posted by: | CommentsThe ability to understand people is one of the greatest assets anyone can ever have. It has the potential to positively impact every area of your life, not just the business arena. For example, look at how understanding people helped this mother of a preschooler.
Leaving my four-year-old son in the house, I ran out to throw something in the trash. When I tried to open the door to get back inside, it was locked. I knew that insisting my son open the door would have resulted in an hour-long battle of the wills. So in a sad voice, I said, “Oh, too bad. You just locked yourself in the house.” The door opened at once.
Understanding people certainly impacts your ability to communicate with others. David Burns, a medical doctor and professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, observed, “The biggest mistake you can make in trying to talk convincingly is to put your highest priority on expressing your ideas and feelings. What most people really want is to be listened to, respected, and understood. The moment people see that they are being understood, they become more motivated to understand your point of view.” If you can learn to understand people – how they think, what they feel, what inspires them, how they’re likely to act and react in a given situation – then you can motivate and influence them in a positive way.
- from The Maxwell Daily Reader
Today on A Minute with Maxwell, my free daily video, I’m talking about LOVE – with a special message for my wife Margaret. To receive a daily notification whenever a new video is posted, you can subscribe here:
Besides daily videos, you’ll be able to access my three-part teaching series on making this your best year ever. I hope it serves you well.
