John C. Maxwell's Blog, page 28

Merry Christmas from My Family to Yours!

We wish you a Christmas overflowing with joy and a New Year filled with God's richest blessings....}

Want a better holiday? Follow my dad’s advice.

Well, it’s the week before Christmas, and I suspect that you might be spending some of this time with family. I’ll be spending a lot of time with Margaret, our kids and grandkids in the days before Christmas. I’m so excited about the chance to connect and pour into the grandkids.I consider myself incredibly blessed to have a family where we unconditionally love each other, but I recognize that not everyone experiences the same blessing. For many people, the holidays can be extra stressful bec...

5 Surefire Ways to Sharpen Your Skills

Recently, another leader asked me about how he should go about sharpening his skills in the areas where he was naturally gifted. He had already done something that I consider really important: he had discovered his strengths. Now he was ready to focus his efforts at growth in those areas, so he could really improve where he could make an impact.I gave his question some thought, and soon some specific ways to grow came to mind. Here are the thoughts I shared with him that day. To sharpen our s...

Will your Christmas be about getting…or giving?

Welcome to December, 2014! I don’t know about you, but I can’t believe it’s already here. In only a few short weeks, we’ll be celebrating Christmas, and then 2015 will be on its way.One thing I enjoy doing around the holidays is preaching at my home church, Christ Fellowship, in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. I preached just a few days ago on the weekend after Thanksgiving. And I’ll preach again the weekend after Christmas. My Christ Fellowship messages are always available to view at Christ Fe...

A Heart Attacking

Recently I was on a plane from Paraguay to Guatemala with Jeff Williams. Jeff is not only a tremendous business leader from Vancouver, Canada, he is a significant strategist and supporter of EQUIP, our non-profit leadership organization. He also attends several John Maxwell Company leadership experiences each year. More than all of that, Jeff has become a great friend and role model for me in generosity. He is very generous with his time, talents and finances. Knowing I was going to write thi...

Happy Thanksgiving!

“The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest.” ~William BlakeHere in the United States, tomorrow is Thanksgiving. For most of us, that means time with family, great food, and a chance to reflect on what we’re thankful for from the past year. When I look back on this year, I can’t help but be thankful for some amazing blessings. Among them…Getting to spend time with my 93-year-old dad and his wife, Betty.A healthy family and wonderful grandchildren.My team, who make me better than I am.The...

Excuse Me, Your Attitude Is Showing

Leaders are readers of people. They study a person like they would a book, by paying careful attention to words. If you listen careful to the words someone says, you will learn a lot about that person. Specifically, you’ll discover the person’s attitude toward life, which reveals his or her gratitude for life.A positive attitude can be a person’s greatest asset. In fact, an upbeat attitude can take people to places that their ability could never carry them on its own. Attitude acts like a boo...

Blindness to Blessings Impairs Our Influence

An immigrant shopkeeper’s son came to see him one day. Observing the disorganization of his father’s shop, the son complained, “Dad, I don’t understand how you run this store. You keep your accounts payable in a cigar box. Your accounts receivable are on a spindle. All your cash is in the register. You never know what your profits are.”“Son, let me tell you something,” answered his dad. “When I arrived in this land all I owned was the pants I was wearing. Now your sister is an art teacher. Yo...

Leadership Lessons from Job

In my new book, Learning from the Giants, I write about what it would be like to spend time with several giants of the faith, to ask them questions and hear them share the lessons they learned from their life experiences.The following is an excerpt from my chapter on Job, whose full story is in the Bible’s Book of Job. Here I discuss three important leadership lessons that we can learn from this great Biblical individual.We often think of Job as the person who suffered or the rich man who los...

Should Encouragement Be Discouraged?

In an era when all children get a trophy—regardless of performance, are told they can do anything they want to in life—even if they obviously cannot, and are showered with applause for even the most meager achievement, perhaps leaders should give less encouragement, not more. After all, when youth leagues stop keeping score to avoid hurt feelings, what incentives do players have to hone their skills? If employees are rewarded simply for showing up, what motivation do they have for working wit...