That low man seeks a little thing to do,
John Maxwell’s books always contain so many great quotes from other wise men and women. Here are a few that caught my highlighter in Intentional Living.
“To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.” —Soren Kierkegaard
“If you aren’t in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?” —T.S. Eliot
“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently…. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” —Steve Jobs
“One of the best places to start to turn your life around is by doing whatever appears on your mental ‘I should’ list.” —Jim Rohn
“You must get involved to have an impact. No one is impressed with the won-lost record of a referee.” —Napoleon Hill
“Most people don’t aim too high and miss. They aim too low and hit.” —Bob Moawad
“Anybody can do their best. God helps us do better than our best.” —Catherine Bramwell-Booth
“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it makes some difference that you have lived and lived well.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth, or power. Those rewards create almost as many problems as they solve. Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter, so that the world will be at least a little bit different for our having passed through it.” —Rabbi Harold Kushner
“People who matter most are aware that everyone else does, too.” —Malcolm Forbes
“Selfishness is the greatest challenge for a coach. Most players are more concerned with making themselves better than the team.” —John Wooden
“There is a direct relationship between your own level of self-esteem and the health of your personality. The more you like and respect yourself, the more you like and respect other people. The more you consider yourself to be a valuable and worthwhile person, the more you consider others to be valuable and worthwhile as well. The more you accept yourself just as you are, the more you accept others just as they are.” —Brian Tracy
“One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody.” —Mother Teresa
“Choose the way of life. Choose the way of love. Choose the way of caring. Choose the way of hope. Choose the way of belief in tomorrow. Choose the way of trusting. Choose the way of goodness. It’s up to you.” —Leo Buscaglia
“We’re concerned with how things turn out; God seems more concerned with how we turn out.” —Philip Yancey
“Most hockey players follow the puck on the ice. I never skate to where the puck is. I skate to where it is going.” —Wayne Gretzky
John Maxwell has a lot of great quotes himself! Here is the first batch of quotes I shared from Intentional Living. And be sure to check out my review of this outstanding book.
Intentional Living by John Maxwell has a very different feel to it, compared to other Maxwell books, but I still liked it a lot! You can check out my book review by clicking here. One of the things vary familiar about this Maxwell book is the excellent content. Here is the first batch of quotes from Intentional Living.
“Most people want to hear or tell a good story. But they don’t realize that they can and should be the good story. That requires intentional living. It is the bridge that crosses the gap to a life that matters.”
“No one stumbles upon significance. We have to be intentional about making our lives matter. That calls for action—and not excuses. Most people don’t know this, but it’s easier to go from failure to success than from excuses to success.”
“If you want to live a life that matters, don’t start when you get good; start now so you become good.”
“Trying alone does not communicate true commitment. It’s half-hearted. It is not a pledge to do what’s necessary to achieve a goal. It’s another way of saying, ‘I’ll make an effort.’ That’s not many steps away from, ‘I’ll go through the motions.’ Trying rarely achieves anything significant. If an attitude of trying is not enough, then what is? An attitude of doing!”
“Every time we choose action over ease we develop an increasing level of self-worth, self-respect, and self-confidence.”
“Intentional living always has an idea. Unintentional living always has an excuse. Intentional living fixes the situation. Unintentional living fixes the blame. Intentional living makes it happen. Unintentional living wonders what happened. Intentional living says, ‘Here’s something I can do.’ Unintentional living says, ‘Why doesn’t someone else to do something?’”
“If you want to make a difference and live a life that matters, you need to embrace some words and reject others. We all have a running dialogue in our heads. What we say to ourselves either encourages us or discourages us. The words we need to embrace our positive words, words such as we, can, will, and yes. What do we need to eliminate? Me, can’t, won’t, and no.”
“Trying to make a huge change overnight often creates fear, uncertainty, and resistance, because the change appears unachievable. The idea of making small changes is less threatening and helps us overcome our hesitation and procrastination.”
“Do you believe in yourself? Your belief will drive your behavior. The thought I don’t think I can often arises out of I don’t think I am.”
“Purpose is the rudder on your boat. It gives you direction and keeps you going in the right direction when the wind is blowing and the waves are crashing against you. It provides calm and confidence in the midst of the storm.”
I believe I have read every book John Maxwell has written, and I found Intentional Living to be different from every other book so far.
The teaching points were still there, but they felt different. The quotes from other wise men and women were still there, but not as many of them. This book was different, because it was personal.
I love to read biographies and autobiographies of successful men and women, and then try to dig out the leadership lessons from their lives. But Dr. Maxwell did this for me in Intentional Living. He told his life story in a very personal way (it felt a lot like a memoir or autobiography), but then he also wrote about the leadership lessons from his life. Thankfully, he didn’t stop there, but then went on to challenge us with ways to apply those leadership lessons to our own lives.
John Maxwell calls us to live an intentional life—
“Living intentionally will motivate you to start asking questions and begin prioritizing whatever is important to you. … Can I make a difference? Whom should I help? How can I help them? How can I add value to them? … An unintentional life accepts everything and does nothing. An intentional life embraces only the things that will add to the mission of significance.”
If you feel that your life lacks intentionality, this book will help you make the changes necessary. If you feel that your life is intentional now, this book will help you laser-focus on the most significant things you can do to take your impact of significance to a whole new level.
I am a Center Street book reviewer.
“‘And Enoch walked with God’ [Genesis 5:24]. If so much as this can be truly said of you and me after our decease, we shall not have any reason to complain that we have lived in vain.” —George Whitefield
“A neglect of secret prayer has been frequently an inlet to many spiritual diseases, and has been attended with fatal consequences.” —George Whitefield
“You have heard many men’s dying words, and these are mine: A life spent in communion with God is the pleasantest life in the world.” —Matthew Henry, to a friend when near his death
Sgt. Jason Kelley is a wonderful asset to my hometown, and our surrounding area. So I couldn’t be happier that he has been named Kent County Deputy of the Year!
We are losing a pastor who has been so involved in our city. Pastor Tom Holloway is moving to South Carolina, and I am going to miss him.
A U.S. Army chaplain has found an innovative way to water baptize soldiers. Love it!
Eric Metaxas asks, “How can anyone defend Planned Parenthood after the sickening video came to light this week?” Check out his insightful answer.
[VIDEO] Here is the video from another Periscope broadcast I did about handling fear—
Liquid Leadership by Brad Szollose was a bit “light” on leadership development content for my tastes, but I still found a few good quotes to share with you. Check out my review of this book by clicking here.
“Baby boomers tend to isolate themselves from younger people and treat them as expendable kids, while Gen Yers to undervalue the experience of Boomers and ignore them. Either attitude is a mistake and insulting.”
“Innovation cannot thrive in environments where anxiety is too high; but in environments where anxiety is low, creativity is high. Fragile thoughts need time to survive and thrive.”
“Something remarkable took place over the past twenty-five years: People stop worshipping the companies they work for and begin instead to see themselves as value added to the bottom line, partners in success. Today’s workforce has amazingly high self-esteem and won’t look up to you just because you’ve ‘earned’ the corner office.”
“It is easy to be a leader when times are good. But when times are tough, these are the moments that make a leader great.”
“Leaders who are more involved in the day-to-day process can easily see what is creating the status quo environment, which enables them to change it. And when they make changes, they can make them organically, because they are viewed as a trusted ally instead of an intruder.”
“Your job is to be the best shepherd possible of ideas and implementation.”
“In an environment that allows truth telling, you must make sure each team member understands how to present a sticky subject without destroying a fellow colleague’s contribution. In other words, speak properly and respectfully when critiquing. Speaking the truth should not be used as a way to get even or to make a coworker look bad. Making someone feel as if they are under attack leaves angry feelings and creates a hostile environment. But when everyone is supportive and nurturing, people feel safe to admit their weaknesses. The common goal is to get better.”
“When people have a sense of purpose built into what they do, you don’t just get an employee—you get a person’s talent, passion, and full attention. … But real engagement—real, 100 percent commitment—requires a workplace that isn’t just making stuff but, in someway, changing the world.”
“Make sure each and every member of your organization understands the company’s mission, where the company is going, and how it plans on getting there. Try to make the vision exciting for everyone. Team members need to be crystal clear as to goals, purposes, and intentions for the group. Keep the mission of each team front and center, and they’ll stay on target, and your employees will understand how to earn their place on the team. High standards will guarantee greater output.”
“You never change the existing reality by fighting it. Instead, create a new model that makes the old one obsolete.” —Buckminster Fuller
“I am going to share with you the key to success in any business: the secret, in a word, is ‘heart-power.’ Capture the heart, and you’ve captured the person.” —Vince Lombardi
This is a periodic series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.
God Can’t Stop
Men are apt to cry to God to stop—‘If only God would leave me alone!’ God never will. His passionate, inexorable love never allows Him to leave men alone, and with His children He will shake everything that can be shaken till there is nothing that can be shaken anymore; then will abide the consuming fire of God until the life is changed into the same image from glory to glory, and men see that strong family likeness to Jesus that can never be mistaken.
From Our Brilliant Heritage
God loves you too much to leave you where you are. He will keep pursuing you until He has all of you.
He created you on purpose. He created you for a specific purpose. He created you to accomplish a purpose only you can accomplish. So His love for you won’t let Him stop until You are fulfilling your divine purpose.
Chambers also wrote, “Some of us have never allowed God to make us understand how hopeless we are without Jesus Christ.”
We cannot fulfill our God-ordained purpose on our own. Let His loving hands mold you and fill you with His life today!
This is a devotional from John Piper which I found so intriguing that I wanted to share the entire thing with you.
What Is Your Aim?
Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works. (Hebrews 10:24)
When you get up in the morning and you face a day, what do you say to yourself about your hopes for the day? When you look from the beginning of the day to the end of the day, what do you want to happen because you have lived?
If you say, “I don’t even think like that, I just get up and do what I’ve got to do,” then you are cutting yourself off from a basic means of grace and a source of guidance and strength and fruitfulness and joy. It is crystal clear in the Bible, including this text, that God means for us to aim consciously at something significant in our days.
God’s revealed will for you is that when you get up in the morning, you don’t drift aimlessly through the day letting mere circumstances alone dictate what you do, but that you aim at something—that you focus on a certain kind of purpose. I’m talking about children here, and teenagers, and adults—single, married, widowed, moms, and every trade.
Aimlessness is akin to lifelessness. Dead leaves in the back yard may move around more than anything else—more than the dog, more than the children. The wind blows this way, they go this way. The wind blows that way, they go that way. They tumble, they bounce, they skip, they press against a fence, but they have no aim whatsoever. They are full of motion and empty of life.
God did not create humans in his image to be aimless, like lifeless leaves blown around in the backyard of life. He created us to be purposeful—to have a focus and an aim for all our days. What is yours today?
By the way, you can sign up for lots of helpful devotionals through BibleGateway.
The years have left their imprint
Craig T. Owens 