Change Your World: How Anyone, Anywhere Can Make A Difference

by John C. Maxwell

Walt Disney didn’t waste words when he said, “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.”

Begin to implement some of the things you’ve discovered and designed, but start small. That makes it easier for you to track your progress toward your goal.

ONE EITHER MEETS OR ONE WORKS. ONE CANNOT DO BOTH AT THE SAME TIME.” —PETER DRUCKER

Most of the change you desire to see will come from only 20 percent of what you’re doing.

W. Edwards Deming’s logic, ‘In God I trust; all others must bring data.’

It’s just as important to document what doesn’t work.

“I have failed more than I have succeeded, and it is on the ashes of those failures that all my success has been built.”

“We may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated. It may even be necessary to encounter the defeat, so that we can know who we are.”16

Malcolm Gladwell asserts that an idea spreads like a virus after it reaches a certain small percentage. That point, he wrote, “is the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point.”

AN IDEA SPREADS AFTER 10 PERCENT OF PEOPLE ADOPT IT.

Philosopher John Dewey said, “We do not learn from experience . . . we learn from reflecting on experience.”

call these meetings dream sessions—they imagine what even more success and impact would look like and how to get there.

Add to what they’ve already learned by digging deeper and learning new information. Check to see that they’re making progress in the direction they want to go. Make sure they’re still operating in reality and that things haven’t changed so much that they need to change as well.

Create a roundtable with their core group to help create phase two of the plan, taking what worked and multiplying their efforts in that direction while abandoning what didn’t work. Dre...

TRANSFORMATION IS A PROCESS—NOT A DESTINATION

Anyone can discover, design, deploy, document, and dream. You don’t have to be part of an organization, be a technical person, or know statistics. If you can observe and ask questions, make a simple plan, follow through on it, check to see if your actions are accomplishing what you had hoped, and then adjust your plan to improve it and make it better, then you can do this.

If you don’t measure what you’re doing, you won’t be able to get your great idea to give you the results you desire.

Transformation is within reach of anyone who is willing to change themselves, live good values, value people, and collaborate with others to bring about lasting positive change.

He wants to say yes. He sees life as positive and bursting with possibilities, he is open to them, and he expresses it positively. And because he does, the opportunities flow to him.

How we see things determines how we say things, and how we say things always influences—and often determines—how they turn out.

When you live on the other side of yes, you think and speak positively. You stop asking, “Can we?” and you start asking, “How can we?”

People have become fixated on problems instead of solutions, they talk instead of listen, they rant on social media instead of sitting down at the table together, and they focus on what divides us instead of what could bring us together.

Peter Drucker wrote: “A time of turbulence is a dangerous time, but its greatest danger is a temptation to deny reality.”

“Yes, we have problems.” The process begins with acknowledging, defining, and respecting the problem. “There are answers to this problem.” As we’ve already pointed out, to be successful, you must believe there are answers before you can find them. “We must be part of these answers.”

Change begins with you and me when we take action.

That doesn’t mean there won’t be challenges. Everything worthwhile is uphill.

THE DEFINING CHARACTERISTIC OF ANY TRANSFORMATION CONVERSATION IS HOPE.

You’re optimistic if you think the future will be better than the present . . . You’re hopeful if you think that the future will be better and you have a role in making it so.

The waterfall represents leaders who pour the waters of transformation out to others,

The ladder is a picture of hope, a way for people to climb out

heart represents change from the inside-out when people learn and live good values.

The joined hands tell the story of partnership,

the bridge represents stories of people crossing over from their old way of life to the life they want to live.

If you want people to remember what you communicate in a transformation conversation, include a story.

Jackson said he took a walk in a garden one afternoon, where he saw a mix of exotic plants, many of which were in pots everywhere. When he spotted the gardener, he asked him, “Why do you have all these potted plants?” “These are plants that we sell,” responded the gardener. “Can you guess how old these are?” Jackson looked at the potted plants and took a guess. “I don’t know. A couple of months old?” “No,” the gardener responded. “They are anywhere from three to five years old.” Then he pointed to several large trees in the garden, laden with fruit. “How old do you think these are?” “Ten years?” Jackson guessed. “They’re the same age: three to five years. The difference between them is that those are potted,” he said pointing to the smaller plants, “and these are planted,” he said pointing to the large healthy one.

They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself. —ANDY WARHOL

IF YOU WANT THE COOPERATION OF HUMANS AROUND YOU, YOU MUST MAKE THEM FEEL THEY ARE IMPORTANT.” —NELSON MANDELA