Today we will focus on the teachings of one great leader, teacher and author - John Maxwell. Let's reflect on how successful and rich people think compared to the unsuccessful and poor.
I would teach you how to think correctly. The largest gap between successful and unsuccessful people in life is the thinking gap. I'm not talking about being smart, I'm not talking about an IQ, I'm talking about 'how you think', 'how I think'. Successful people think differently than unsuccessful people.
Wise thinking leads to wise living stupid thinking leads to poor living. If you want to have a fulfilled life you have to fill your mind correctly. Right now, you need to focus on today and what I realized so many leaders don't understand is that truly today matters, and we overestimate what we could do tomorrow we over exaggerate what we did yesterday, but we underestimate what we can do right now. The only time you have, the only time I have is now. So, the question for all of us is ‘what am I doing with now?’.
The great leaders they're present in the moment and because of that they maximize the moment so if you're attempted to take that far away glances, well, glance… but get right back to the present moment because today you're preparing to make tomorrow a success.
Well we all want to be motivated and yet so many times we fail to find the secret of motivation and so let me give it to you quickly. JUST DO IT! Motivation is not the cause of action it's the byproduct of action, and there's a lot of difference. If I think motivation is the cause of my action then I'm going to wait to be motivated before I do something but if I realize it's the byproduct of my action than I'll start doing something. Then guess what? Motivation will come and zap you and all of a sudden you feel good, and you're glad you're doing it. You're saying, ‘Wow this is truly wonderful’. So, let it be the byproduct to your life, let it be the foundation for the actions that you take.
Nothing comes to you until you commit yourself. Nothing comes to you if you're just going to try but you're not committed. Nothing comes to you if you're just thinking about it. It's not until you take the action step. It's not until you take the direction, ‘do the thing’ starts to flow through you.
But I'm saying don't cheat yourself out of the possibility of the potential that's on the other side of commitment. Stay with it long enough to find out if there's any fruit in it. You can do goal-setting with a pencil but you have to do go-getting with your legs. You got to take action and it's the action that separates us. The greatest gap in this world is the gap between knowing and doing. Knowing is goal-setting, doing… now that’s goal achieving.
People that are knowledgeable about habits say that it takes 30 days for an action to become a… habit. And habits can be good, and habits can be bad. So, over a period of time you can either be developing habits that are going to help or habits that are going to hurt you. People that grow develop habits that help. The great value of a good habit is you don't have to think about it. That’s why it's a habit. In other words, once you began to, over days and times and periods, begin to practice something that’s good - after a while it becomes automatic to you. It becomes who you are. In fact, I always tell people ‘practice a good habit long enough to make it yours’ and once it's yours now it's automatic. Every day you'll do what you should do.
Often, I have the expression that everything worthwhile is up the hill. That's a fact. You've never heard someone talk about accidental achievements. You've never heard someone that got to the top of the mountain and somebody asked him ‘how did you get there?’, kind of look confused to say ‘I have no idea’. The reason they know how they got there is because they had to walk all the way up the mountain. Nobody lifted them. There were no shortcuts. There's not an elevator, there's not an escalator. It's all effort to get you to the top of the mountain.
What I want you to understand is that inspiration does a lot better when it's coupled with the perspiration. There are a whole lot of people they want to be inspired in great things, but they don't want to do the hard work to achieve those great things. It's not either/or it's both/and. So, I really trust today that you will just kind of roll up your sleeves, look at something you haven't tackled for a while, and dive in! You'll be amazed that once after you do the work you will get inspired. Don't wait to get inspired before you do the work!