Professional Documents
Culture Documents
By John C. Maxwell
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I choose to die.
I choose to hate.
I choose to close.
I choose to cry.
I choose to deny.
I choose to ignore.
I choose to be right.
I choose to scatter.
I choose to work.
I choose to be angry.
I choose to despair.
I choose to give up.
I choose to suffer.
I choose to destroy.
I choose to fail.
I choose to extinguish.
I choose to get by.
I choose to follow.
I choose to drift.
I choose my choices.
I choose to live.
I choose to love.
I choose to open.
I choose to laugh.
I choose to believe.
I choose to hear.
I choose to relate.
I choose to focus.
I choose to play.
I choose to accept.
I choose to hope.
I choose to persist.
I choose to heal.
I choose to create.
I choose to succeed.
I choose to ignite.
I choose to excel.
I choose to lead.
I choose to commit.
I choose my life.
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4. We Grow Stronger
Eleanor Roosevelt observed, You gain strength, courage,
and confidence by every experience in which you really
stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself,
I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing
that comes along. You must do the thing you think you
cannot do.
Every time that you take responsibility, face your fear, and
move forward despite experiencing losses, failures,
mistakes, and disappointments, you become stronger.
5. We Back Up Our Words With Our Behavior
The ultimate step in taking responsibility is making sure
our actions line up with our words. Jeff OLeary, author of
The Centurion Principles, advised, Sign your work at the
end of each day. If you cant do that, find a new profession.
If you are willing to put your name on anything you do,
that indicates a high level of integrity. To put your life on
the line indicates an even higher one.
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Chapter Three
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in its a habit but, my eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.
Chapter Four
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.
Chapter Five
I walk down another street.
4. Teachable People Encourage Others to Speak into
Their Lives
Teachable people need to surround themselves with
people who know them well and who will lovingly, yet
honestly, speak into their life.
That process becomes further complicated if you are
highly successful. When you are influential and highly
respected, people tend to tell you what you want to hear,
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1. Preparation
If you want to be ready to meet whatever challenges
youre going to face on a given day and learn from them,
you need to be prepared. That means working in
advanceevery day.
How do I go about preparing for my day so that I can learn
from it? I start each morning by looking at my schedule. As
I review my commitments for the day, I ask myself some
questions:
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2. Contemplation
Time alone is essential to learning. Contemplation allows
people to observe and reflect on the occurrences of their
lives and derive meaning from them. Stopping and
thinking allows us to gain perspective on both the
successes and failures of our day so that we can find the
lessons within them. It also enables you to plan how you
can improve in the future.
Its good to remember that theres much to learn from
negative experiences. In science, mistakes always precede
discoveries. It is impossible to make discoveries without
an accumulation of errors. To a scientist, a mistake is not
failureits feedback. Using that feedback, a scientist can
ask not just What happened? but also What does it
mean? That comes from using critical thinking skills.
Without them, we miss the meaning of the occurrences in
our lives.
As you spend time in contemplation, ask yourself
questions like these:
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3. Application
The true value of teachability comes when we take
something that we learn and apply it. We can learn a lot
from our mistakes if we remain teachable. Not everyone
does that. When people make mistakes, they generally do
one of three things in response to them: They resolve to
never make another mistake, which is impossible. They
allow their mistake to make them into cowards, which is
foolish. Or they make up their minds to learn from their
mistake and apply the lesson to their lives, which is
profitable.
Teachability under Fire
Some people may be tempted to think that teachability is for
people with advantages and that its more difficult for people who
are underprivileged, facing adversity, or suffering pain to be
teachable. But I dont think thats true. I believe teachability is an
attitude, a mind-set that teachable people carry with them
wherever they go and whatever they experience.
The desire to learn is a great motivation to keep on living, whether
you are a child first exploring the world, a worker, a prisoner, or
an elderly person in the December of life. It keeps us young and
alive and full of hope. That is the power of remaining teachable.
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of water to try to put the fire out. Or you can pour gasoline
on it and make it explode. Same problem, two different
results.
Taking a potentially volatile situation and making it worse
is only one way of aggravating a problem. We can also
make problems worse when we respond to them poorly.
Some of the ways we can do that include:
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is their idea! The truth is that just about everybody resists change.
Why? Because
Change Can Feel Like a Personal Loss
For every thing we gain we lose something. We like gaining, but
we dont like losing. We want to have the one without the other.
But life doesnt work that way. Every beginning ends something.
Every ending begins something new. We are continually making
trades in life. Unfortunately, if you resist change, you are trading
your potential to grow for your comfort. No change means no
growth.
Change Feels Awkward
Change always feels different. Because its unfamiliar, it often
doesnt feel right. Let me give you an example.
Change Goes against Tradition
Some people believe that nothing should ever be done until
everyone is convinced that it ought to be done. The problem with
that is it takes so long to convince them that by the time they
finally agree to the change, its time to move on to something else.
No wonder some people believe that progress means moving
backward slowly. They bring life to the old riddle: How many
traditionalists does it take to change a lightbulb? Answer: Four.
One to put in the new bulb and three tell you how wonderful the
old bulb was.
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them there. Wise is the person who fortifies his life with
the right friendships. Every minute you spend with the
wrong people takes away the time you have to spend with
the right ones. Change accordingly.
4. Determine to Live Differently than Average People
One of lifes important questions is Who am I? But even
more important is Who am I becoming? To answer that
question satisfactorily, we must keep one eye on where
we are and the other eye on where we will be. Most people
dont do that. They have one eye on where they have been
and one eye on where they are now. That tells them who
they are. (Some people dont even examine themselves
that much.) However, to know who you are becoming
requires you not only to know where you are now but also
to know where youre going and how you need to change
to get there.
5. Unlearn What You Know to Learn What You Dont
Know
Psychiatrist David Burns says it this way: Never give up
your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the
ability to learn new things and move forward with your
life.
Change is difficult for all of us, yet it is essential if we want
to turn our losses into gains. It is the price we must pay for
learning. And dont let anyone tell you, You cant teach an
old dog new tricks. A lot of dog trainers have proven that
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COMFORT ZONE
RESULT
Inside Your Strength Zone Inside Your Comfort Zone Good Performance Winning is Possible
Inside Your Strength Zone Outside Your Comfort
Zone
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END