The following contains excerpts from the book, Today Matters (John Maxwell).
At our music school in Midland, Texas we believe that music is more than sound, it is relationships. In Leadership, the subject of relationships is paramount, and one of the most profound relationships that can be had is the relationships with one’s self. Learning to lead one’s own life with excellence and integrity is the first step toward leading others on that journey.
The premise of the book is that however you want your life to turn out, each day must reflect those values, goals and priorities. Making each day a ‘masterpiece’ is how to reach life-goals. The book is divided into twelve sections, based upon Maxwell’s ‘daily dozen’ topics.
Prior to these sections, he discusses the understanding of what ‘success’ really means. “The root problem is that most people misunderstand success. If we have a faulty view of success, we take a faulty approach to our day. As a result, today falls to pieces.” We must be prepared for opportunity when it comes. “When opportunity comes, it’s too late to prepare.” (John Wooden) Real sustainable change doesn’t happen in a moment. It’s a process. Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Willian Allen White observed, “Multitudes of people have failed to live for today. They have spent their lives reaching for the future. What they have had within their grasp today they have missed entirely, because only the future has intrigued them…and the first thing they knew the future because the past.” Hoping for a good future without investing in today is like a farmer waiting for a crop without ever planting any seed.
As teachers at our music school in Midland, Texas we instill into our students the value of daily progress. Many people are looking for the big events to define their lives, while it is the daily, incremental progress that produces results that last.
The secret of your success is determined by your daily agenda. There are only a handful of important decisions people need to make in their entire lifetimes. If you make decisions in those key areas once and for all- and then manage those decisions daily- you can create the kind of tomorrow you desire. Successful people make right decisions early and manage those decisions daily. You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. “The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his time when it comes.” (Benjamin Disraeli)
I believe there are two ingredients necessary to make every day a masterpiece: decisions and discipline. They are like two sides of the same coin; you could call them “goal-setting” and “goal getting.”
Faith
“I am fully convinced that the soul is indestructible, and that its activity will continue through eternity.” (Johann Wolfgang von Goerthe)
“We are not human being having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual being having a human experience.” (Teilhard de Chardin)
“The vast majority of these studies show a relationship between greater religious involvement and better mental health, better physical health, or lower us of health services.” (Purdue University study)
True leadership starts with the heart- with character. The underlying message from God is not to act differently, but to become different. Not to act honestly, but to become an honest person. Then honesty will be at the core of your leadership style. It will be at the core of your life.
Relationships
Consultant John Luther observes, “Natural talent, intelligence, a wonderful education- none of these guarantees success. Something else is needed: the sensitivity to understand what other people want and the willingness to give it to them. Worldly success depends on pleasing others. No one is going to win fame, recognition, or advancement just because he or she thing it’s deserved. Someone else has to thing so too.”
At our music school in Midland, Texas we teach that music is more than sound, it is relationships. Being willing to listen to other’s desires is the first step to touching their hearts and influencing an audience with one’s art.
All things being equal, the likable person wins. But all things not being equal, the likable person still wins.
Consider:
When people don’t like you…they’ll try to hurt you.
If they can’t hurt you…they won’t help you.
If they have to help you…they won’t hope you succeed.
When they hope you don’t succeed…life’s victories feel hollow.
“You can’t make the other fellow feel important in your presence if you secretly feel that he is a nobody.” (Les Giblin)
The solution is to place a high value on people. Expect the best from everyone. Assume people’s motives are good unless they prove them to be otherwise. Value them by their best moments. Give respect freely but expect to earn it from others. Maxwell observes that giving people respect first is one of the most effective ways of interacting with others.
We believe every person deserves respect at our music school in Midland, Texas. Each student has unique talents and abilities that can be ‘unearthed’ or discovered. When we help the student discover their unique talents and enable them to develop them, they become empowered to use those talents for the benefit of others.
“Carve your name on hearts and not on marble.” (Charles Spurgeon)
“Always start a relationship by asking: Do I have ulterior motives for wanting to relate to this person? Is my caring conditional? Am I trying to escape something? Am I planning to change the person? Do I need this person to help me make up for a deficiency in myself? If your answer to any of these questions is ‘yes,’ leave the person alone. He are she is better off without you.” (‘Loving Each Other,’ by Leo Buscaglia)
Maxwell says, “Every evening, I evaluate this area of my life by asking myself, ‘Have I been thoughtful toward people today? Would they express joy that they have spent time with me?’ If the answer is yes, the I’ve done my part.”
“Life is an exciting business and most exciting when lived for others.” (Helen Keller)
Generosity
No one likes to be around people who think only of themselves. In contrast, nearly everyone enjoys being around people who are giving.
“No man can live happily who regards himself alone, who turns everything to his own advantage. You must live for others if you wish to live for yourself.” (Roman poet, Seneca)
“You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of home and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.” (U.S. President Woodrow Wilson)
“You have not lived a perfect day, even though you have earned your money, unless you have done something for someone who will never be able to repay you.” (Ruth Smeltzer)
“No man becomes rich unless he enriches others.” (Andrew Carnegie)
Rabbi Harold Kushner said, “The purpose of life is not to win. The purpose of life is to grow and to share. When you come to look back on all that you have done in life, you will get more satisfaction from the pleasure you brought to other people’s lives than you will from the times that you outdid and defeated them.”
There is a difference in attitude between competing and completing. In sports we compete, while in music we complete. At our music school in Midland, Texas we encourage our students to see the greatness in their peers and to look for ways to collaborate for the common good.
“Do all the good you can, to all the people you can, in a ll the ways you can, as long as you can.” (D.L. Moody)
“Everybody only lives so long. The one thing people remember about you isn’t how much money you made or the deals you swung. What they remember is if you were a nice guy.” (Dave Thomas, owner of Wendy’s Hamburgers)
“When I lay down the reins of this administration, I want to have one friend left, and that friend is inside myself.” (U.S. President Abraham Lincoln)
“Try not to become men of success. Rather, become men of value.” (Albert Einstein)
The gap between knowing and doing is significantly greater than the gap between ignorance and knowledge. Discrepancies between values and practices create chaos in a person’s life. If you talk your values but neglect to walk them, then you will continually undermine you integrity and credibility. Successful people do what’s right no matter how they feel about it.
Growth
Novelist Robert Louis Stevenson said, “To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.”
The greatest obstacle to growth is not ignorance. It’s the illusion of knowledge.
“The secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.” (Missionary physician, Albert Schweitzer)
A lot of people try to make external changes when they feel stagnate. Maxwell asserts, however, if you make personal growth your goal, then your focus is on changes you can make on the inside.
Business philosopher and author Jim Rohn puts it another way: “In order to do more, I’ve got to be more.”
Personal growth for each student is our goal at our music school in Midland, Texas. When students begin to see the value of daily incremental growth, this is when they set themselves on a lifetime journey of fulfillment and empowerment for the sake of serving others.
Peter Drucker, the father of modern management, said, “The great mystery isn’t that people do things badly but that they occasionally do a few things well. The only thing that is universal is incompetence. Strength is always specific. Nobody ever commented for example, that the great violinist Jascha Heifetz probably couldn’t play the trumpet very well.”
Maxwell encourages focus on priorities in three main areas: requirement, return, and reward.
Elite racers think in terms of improving by fractions of a second. Don’t waste your time on anything of low value. Mike Abrashoff, author of ‘It’s You Ship,’ says, “Up is not an easy direction. It defies gravity, both cultural and magnetic.”
The greatest of all miracles is that we need not be tomorrow what we are today.
“How do people even approach the idea of figuring out their potential? I think the best place to start is where your dreams and your strengths meet.” (Maxwell)