228 Quotes by John C. Maxwell
John C. Maxwell, a respected author and motivational speaker, has become a global authority on leadership and personal development. Drawing from his background as a former pastor, Maxwell's teachings blend practical insights with ethical considerations, emphasizing the importance of character and values in effective leadership. His numerous books, such as "The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership," provide actionable strategies for individuals aspiring to lead with influence and integrity. Maxwell's approach to leadership transcends industries, offering a roadmap for anyone seeking to harness their potential and inspire positive change. Through his accessible and relatable guidance, he has empowered countless individuals to embrace their roles as leaders and make meaningful contributions to their communities and organizations.
John C. Maxwell Quotes
Motivation gets you going, but discipline keeps you growing. (Meaning)
We cannot become what we need by remaining what we are. (Meaning)
Life is a matter of choices, and every choice you make makes you. (Meaning)
It's better to prepare than to repair. (Meaning)
You add value to people when you value them. (Meaning)
People may hear your words, but they feel your attitude. (Meaning)
A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way. (Meaning)
You don't overcome challenges by making them smaller but by making yourself bigger. (Meaning)
If we're growing, we're always going to be out of our comfort zone. (Meaning)
Where there is no hope in the future, there is no power in the present. (Meaning)
Leadership is taking responsibility while others are making excuses. (Meaning)
To grow yourself, you must know yourself. (Meaning)
The first person you lead is you. (Meaning)
Talent is a gift, but character is a choice. (Meaning)
The person who forgets the ultimate is a slave to the immediate. (Meaning)
Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them. (Meaning)
Encouragement is oxygen for the soul (Meaning)
Learn to say 'no' to the good so you can say 'yes' to the best. (Meaning)
A great leader's courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion, not position. (Meaning)
Do something you hate every day, just for the practice. (Meaning)
Where there is no hope in the future, there is no power in the present. (Meaning)
The first person you lead is you. (Meaning)
To grow yourself, you must know yourself. (Meaning)
Talent is a gift, but character is a choice. (Meaning)
We teach what we know, but we reproduce what we are. (Meaning)
Pay now, play later; play now, pay later. (Meaning)
The only guarantee for failure is to stop trying (Meaning)
He who thinks he leads, but has no followers, is only taking a walk. (Meaning)
Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. (Meaning)
An idea is worthless unless you use it. (Meaning)
Live to learn and you will really learn to live. (Meaning)
Leadership is developed daily, not in a day. (Meaning)
Successful people reject rejection. (Meaning)
Leaders touch a heart before they ask for a hand. (Meaning)
People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision. (Meaning)
To add value to others, one must first value others. (Meaning)
Circumstances do not make you what you are, they reveal what you are. (Meaning)
Be better tomorrow than you are today. (Meaning)
To go nowhere, follow the crowd. (Meaning)
Listen twice as much as you speak. (Meaning)
Momentum solves 80% of your problems. (Meaning)
Family and friendships are two of the greatest facilitators of happiness. (Meaning)
Have the humility to learn from those around you. (Meaning)
There is no success without a successor. (Meaning)
Finish every day and be done with it. (Meaning)
Growth inside fuels growth outside. (Meaning)
The true measure of leadership is influence - nothing more, nothing less. (Meaning)
Be a river - not a reservoir. (Meaning)
Everything rises and falls on leadership. (Meaning)
Your attitude towards failure determines your altitude after failure. (Meaning)
Reflective thinking turns experience into insight. (Meaning)
Fail early, fail often, but always fail forward. (Meaning)
One is too small a number to achieve greatness. (Meaning)
If we are growing we are always going to be outside our comfort zone. (Meaning)
Goals may give focus, but dreams give power. (Meaning)
You cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything. (Meaning)
A lack of realism in the vision today costs credibility tomorrow. (Meaning)
The first step to leadership is servanthood. (Meaning)
The greatest enemy of good thinking is busyness. (Meaning)
Anyone can steer a ship, but it takes a leader to chart the course (Meaning)
Tend to the people, and they will tend to the business. (Meaning)
Leadership is influence. (Meaning)
They can't hurt you unless you let them. (Meaning)
Your core values are the deeply held beliefs that authentically describe your soul. (Meaning)
A leader's lasting value is measured by succession. (Meaning)
Experience isn't the best teacher - evaluated experience is. (Meaning)
Relationships are the foundation of leadership (Meaning)
Disappointment is the gap that exists between expectation and reality. (Meaning)
Leadership ability determines a person's level of effectiveness. (Meaning)
Without failure there is no achievement. (Meaning)
Good character is more to be praised than outstanding talent. (Meaning)
To add growth, lead followers - to multiply, lead leaders. (Meaning)
Positive thinking must be followed by positive doing. (Meaning)
Leadership is the power of one harnessing the power of many. (Meaning)
Dreams don't work unless you do (Meaning)
The truth is that teamwork is at the heart of great achievement. (Meaning)
Always take the high road. (Meaning)
Mistakes are the stepping stones to success. (Meaning)
A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.
You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.
A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.
People may hear your words, but they feel your attitude.
If your habits don't line up with your dream, then you need to either change your habits or change your dream
Every time you make a mistake, don’t bring up everything that’s wrong with yourself; tell yourself that you’re paying the price for growth and that you will learn to do better next time. Every positive thing you can say to yourself will help.
We cannot become what we need by remaining what we are.
Your life today is a result of your thinking yesterday. Your life tomorrow will be determined by what you think today.
Dreams require down payments. Dreams are free, but the journey isn't. There is a price to pay. First, you must pay the price of dealing with criticism from people who matter. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, 'Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong.' Second, you must pay the price of overcoming your fears. Failure, rejection, and looking foolish are common fears - but they are just feelings that can be conquered and removed from your thoughts. Finally, you must be willing to pay the price of hard work in order to realize your dream.
Leaders become great, not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others.
It's said that a wise person learns from his mistakes. A wiser one learns from others' mistakes. But the wisest person of all learns from others's successes.
The person who insists on using yesterday's methods in today's world won't be in business tomorrow
The single biggest way to impact an organization is to focus on leadership development. There is almost no limit to the potential of an organization that recruits good people, raises them up as leaders and continually develops them.
Dont ever be impressed with goal setting; be impressed with goal getting. Reaching new goals and moving to a higher level of performance always requires change, and change feels awkward. But take comfort in the knowledge that if a change doesn't feel uncomfortable, then it's propably not really a change.
Seven Steps to Success 1) Make a commitment to grow daily. 2) Value the process more than events. 3) Don't wait for inspiration. 4) Be willing to sacrifice pleasure for opportunity. 5) Dream big. 6) Plan your priorities. 7) Give up to go up.
Small disciplines repeated with consistency every day lead to great achievements gained slowly over time.
The best way to help people is to see the best in them.
Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it.
When you are bigger than your purpose you have a career. When your purpose is bigger than you, you have a calling.
God chooses what we go through; we choose how we go through it.
SUCCESS is when I add value to MYSELF. SIGNIFICANCE is when I add value to OTHERS.
The greatest day in your life and mine is when we take total responsibility for our attitudes. That's the day we truly grow up.
Life is like riding in a taxi. Whether you are going anywhere or not, the meter keeps ticking.
Find your vision, and let it guide you in all that you do. If you lack vision, look inside yourself. Draw on your natural gifts and desires.
So think long and hard about who you're spending the most time with, for wherever they are headed, so are you.
The only one you should compare yourself to is you. Your mission is to become better today than you were yesterday.
You either spend your life preparing or you spend your life repairing.
If we're growing, we're always going to be out of our comfort zone.
Time management is an oxymoron. Time is beyond our control, and the clock keeps ticking regardless of how we lead our lives. Priority management is the answer to maximizing the time we have.
To be an influencer, you have to love people before you can try to lead them.
The measure of a leader is not the number of people who serve him, but the number of people he serves.
By choosing to embrace and practice good values every day, you choose the higher course in life. And your life goes in a direction that you will always feel good about. You may not always get what you desire, but you will always be the person you desire to be.
A dream becomes a reality as a result of your actions, and your actions are controlled, to a large extent, by your habits.
A great leader's courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion, not position.
The difference between where we are and where we want to be is created by the changes we are willing to make in our lives. When you want something you've never had, you must do something you've never done to get it.
If you lack initiative, recognize that the problem comes from the inside, not from others. Determine why you hesitate to take action. Does risk scare you? Are you discouraged by past failures? Do you not see the potential that opportunity offers? Find the source of your hesitation, and address it. You won't be able to move forward on the outside until you can move forward on the inside.
Successful and unsuccessful people do not vary greatly in their abilities. They vary in their desires to reach their potential.
You build trust with others each time you choose integrity over image, truth over convenience, or honor over personal gain.
Leadership is not about titles, positions or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another.
A successful person finds the right place for himself. But a successful leader finds the right place for others. Few things in life are better than seeing people realize their potential. If you invest in people by helping individuals improve themselves, showing them the way to their “right place”, they will never be the same again. And neither will you. It is impossible to help others without helping yourself.
Motivation gets you going, but discipline keeps you growing.
Make personal growth a daily priority.
The highway of life is filled with flat squirrels that couldn't make a decision.
You have to live with the people to know their needs, and you have to live with God to know how to solve them.
If you don’t try to create the future you want, you must endure the future you get.
Every worthwhile accomplishment has a price tag attached to it. The question is always whether you are willing to pay the price to attain it - in hard work, sacrifice, patience, faith, and endurance.
You will become on the outside, what you believe on the inside.
Failing forward is the ability to get back up after you've been knocked down, learn from your mistake, and move forward in a better direction.
You don't overcome challenges by making them smaller but by making yourself bigger.
All leaders make mistakes. They are a part of life. Successful leaders recognize their errors, learn from them, and work to correct their faults.
Not realizing what you want is a problem of knowledge. Not pursuing what you want is a problem of motivation. Not achieving what you want is a problem of persistence.
Discipline - Success doesn't just happen. You have to be intentional about it, and that takes discipline.
The first person you lead is you.
Leadership is taking responsibility while others are making excuses.
If you don't love where you are right now, you won't love where you are going. Here is what I know: People who are passionate about what they do every day and love where they are in life are the fortunate ones. They have discovered their purpose. They are the difference makers who fully understand the gift of adding value, and yes, they can't help but love where they are going on their journey.
The best gift you can ever give your mentor is to grow. They feed off your growth. I believe that everyone has the seed of success inside, but too many people can't find it in themselves and as a result do not reach their potential. But there are those whose purpose in life is to fertilize the seed of potential in another, who are rewarded by seeing that person grow and blossom before their eyes. Raising up others to a higher level is a mentor's joy and sustenance.
It's true that charisma can make a person stand out for a moment, but character sets a person apart for a lifetime.
The longer you wait to do something you should do now, the greater the odds that you will never actually do it.
You add value to people when you value them.
Your success stops where your character stops. You can never rise above the limitations of your character.
Your talk talks and your walk talks, but your walk talks louder than your talk talks.
It is our decisions not our conditions that determine our quality of life.
It's good to be out of your comfort zone. Just don't step out of your gift zone.
Successful people don't have any fewer problems than unsuccessful people; they just have a different mindset in dealing with them.
Be intentional to add value to every person you meet everyday.
Every time I have had a breakthrough in my life, it has been because of Prayer
People rise and fall to meet your level of expectations for them. If you express skepticism and doubt in others, they will return your lack of confidence with mediocrity. But if you believe in them and expect them to do well, they will go the extra mile trying to do their best.
It's better to prepare than to repair.
You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. Success doesn't just suddenly occur one day in someone's life. Neither does failure. Each is a process. Every day of your life is merely preparation for the next. What you become is the result of what you do today.
Leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less. How do you gain influence from people? You invest in them. How do you invest in them? It starts with giving them time.
True success is obeying God.
To measure a leader, put a tape around his heart, not his head.
People who blame others for their failures never overcome them. They simply move from problem to problem. To reach your potential, you must continually improve yourself, and you can't do that if you don't take responsibility for your actions and learn from your mistakes.
Life is a matter of choices, and every choice you make makes you.
You can easily determine the caliber of a person by the amount of opposition it takes to discourage him or her.
If you start today to do the right thing, you are already a success even if it doesn’t show yet.
If you are a leader, you should never forget that everyone needs encouragement. And everyone who receives it - young or old, successful or less-than-successful, unknown or famous - is changed by it.
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.
Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.
Negative thinking limits God and our potential.
To succeed in life, we must stay within our strength zone but continually move outside our comfort zone.
Don't buy into the notion that mistakes can somehow be avoided. They can't be.
People can open doors for you, but you ... must walk through.
The length and breath of our influence on others are directly related to the depth of our concern for them.
Giving is the highest level of living.
Talent is a gift, but character is a choice.
Nothing speaks like results. If you want to build the kind of credibility that connects with people, then deliver results before you deliver a message. Get out and do what you advise others to do. Communicate from experience.
If you don't change the direction you are going, then you're likely to end up where you're heading.
The GREATEST battle you wage against FAILURE occurs on the INSIDE, not the OUTSIDE.
To achieve your dreams, you must embrace adversity and make failure a regular part of your life. If you're not failing, you're probably not really moving forward.
"I'm not where I'm supposed to be,
I'm not what I want to be,
But I'm not what I used to be.
I haven't learned how to arrive;
I've just learned how to keep going"
If you desire to become a more generous person, don't wait for your income to change. Change your heart.
We are either the masters or victims of our attitudes. It is a matter of personal choice. Who we are today is the result of choices we made yesterday. Tomorrow, we will become what we choose today. To change means to choose change.
Never allow others to put obstacles in the pathway of your dreams
When it comes to money, you can't win. If you focus on making it, you're materialistic. If you try to but don't make any, you're a loser. If you make a lot and keep it, you're a miser. If you make it and spend it, you're a spendthrift. If you don't care about making it, you're unambitious. If you make a lot and still have it when you die, you're a fool-for trying to take it with you. The only way to really win with money is to hold it loosely-and be generous with it to accomplish things of value.
The more you do, the more you fail. The more you fail, the more you learn. The more you learn, the better you get.
Leading well is not about enriching yourself - it's about empowering others
Good thinkers are always in demand. A person who knows how may always have a job, but the person who knows why will always be his boss.
No one stands taller in the climb to success than when he bends over to help up someone else.
People will work eight hours a day for pay, 10 hours a day for a good boss, and 24 hours a day for a good cause!
The secret of successful people lies in their ability to discover their strengths and to organize their life so that these strengths can be applied.
The strength of any organization is a direct result of the strength of its leaders.
If you wait until you feel like doing something, you will likely never accomplish it.
As you begin changing your thinking, start immediately to change your behavior. Begin to act the part of the person you would like to become. Take action on your behavior. Too many people want to feel, then take action. This never works.
Great leaders understand that the right attitude will set the right atmosphere, which enables the right response from others.
When you make a commitment, you create hope. When you keep a commitment you create trust!
There are two kinds of people in this world: those who want to get things done, and those who don't want to make mistakes.
To achieve all that is possible, we must attempt the impossible. To be all we can be, we must dream of being more.
Diligent follow-up and follow-through will set you apart from the crowd and communicate excellence.
We must focus on prayer as the main thrust to accomplish God's will and purpose on earth. The forces against us have never been greater, and this is the only way we can release God's power to become victorious
Pay now, play later; play now, pay later.
We cannot choose how many years we will live, but we can choose how much life those years will have. We cannot control the beauty of our face, but we can control the expression on it. We cannot control life's difficult moments but we can choose to make life less difficult. We cannot control the negative atmosphere of the world, but we can control the atmosphere of our minds. Too often we try to choose and control things we cannot. Too seldom we choose to control what we can ... our attitude.
Give God the first part of every day. Give God the first day of every week. Give God the first portion of your income. Give God the first consideration in every decision. Give God the first place in your life.
One of the major keys to success is to keep moving forward on the journey, making the best of the detours and interruptions, turning adversity into advantage.
Nothing separates successful people from unsuccessful people more than how they use their time!
Don't worry about yesterday it ended last night at midnight.
When values, thoughts, feelings, and actions are in alignment, a person becomes focused and character is strengthened.
In the end, people are persuaded not by what we say, but by what they understand.
The process of achievement comes through repeated failures and the constant struggle to climb to a higher level.
A person sometimes can't make a decision unless they know what decision to make.
Question for God every morning: What is the main event today? What do you want me to focus on today?
He who thinks he leads, but has no followers, is only taking a walk.
"Your attitude is either your best friend or your worst enemy, your greatest asset or your greatest liability"
You can't be a smart cookie if you have a crummy attitude.
We teach what we know, but we reproduce what we are.
You'll never find out what you can do, until you do all you can to find out
Have to sow excellent seeds to have an excellent life. Must start with sowing excellent thoughts.
There are three qualities a leader must exemplify to build trust: competence, connection, and character.
Sometimes the best way to learn is to return to the fundamentals.
Never underestimate the power of an encouraging word.
Nobody ever got ready by waiting. You only get ready by starting.
Where there is no hope in the future, there is no power in the present.
You are the only person who can label what you do a failure. Failure is subjective.
Motivation gets you going, but discipline keeps you growing. That's the Law of Consistency. It doesn't matter how talented you are. It doesn't matter how many opportunities you receive. If you want to grow, consistency is key.
A word of encouragement from a teacher to a child can change a life. A word of encouragement from a spouse can save a marriage. A word of encouragement from a leader can inspire a person to reach her potential.
Attitude is the first quality that marks the successful man. If he has a positive attitude and is a positive thinker, who likes challenges and difficult situations, then he has half his success achieved.
If you don't have peace, it isn't because someone took it from you; you gave it away. You cannot always control what happens to you, but you can control what happens in you.
Encouragement is oxygen for the soul
Nothing of significance was ever achieved by an individual acting alone. Look below the surface and you will find that all seemingly solo acts are really team efforts.
If your a leader, do everything you can to grow yourself and create the right environment for others to grow.
You never display your character more clearly than when you speak about the character of others.
Find something you like to do so much that you would gladly do it for nothing; then learn to do it so well that people are happy to pay you for it.
When the leader lacks confidence, the followers lack commitment.
Courage and initiative come when you understand your purpose in life.
Progress does not occur without change.
God has put a dream inside you. It's yours, and no one else's. It declares your uniqueness. It holds your potential. Only you can birth it. Only you can live it. Not to discover it, take responsibility for it, and act upon it is to negatively affect yourself as well as all those who would benefit from your dream.
To lead yourself, use your head; to lead others, use your heart. Always touch a person's heart before you ask him for a hand.
What most people really want is to be listened to, respected, and understood.
Have the humility to learn from those around you.
While we don't always get what we want, we always get what we choose.
― John C. Maxwell Quotes
Chief Editor
Tal Gur is an author, founder, and impact-driven entrepreneur at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own daring design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 major life goals around the globe. His journey and most recent book, The Art of Fully Living, has led him to found Elevate Society.
