John C. Maxwell: TODAY MATTERS: 12 Daily Practices to Guarantee Tomorrow’s Success
(Hachette, 2014)
A motivational teacher and a best-selling author, John C. Maxwell presents twelve daily practices to guarantee a successful career. He shows us how to seize the day. This is significant because the way we live today impacts our tomorrow. Success is created by focusing on today. He highlights the common mistake we all make in overexaggerating yesterday, overestimating tomorrow and neglecting today.
He presents twelve questions we need to ask ourselves. These questions involve key strategies to plan and live one’s life well each day. When honestly answered and practised, they can undoubtedly assure tomorrow’s success. What are these questions? They are meant to check these twelve areas of life: attitude, priorities, health, family, thinking, commitment, finances, faith, relationships, generosity, values and growth.
Maxwell says, “Priorities matter.” Stressing that time is our most precious commodity, he adds, “Money mistakes can often be corrected, but when you lose time, it’s gone forever.” He insists that “Priorities help us to choose wisely,” for priorities determine how we spend our time, and time is precious. He further points out that we choose our life by how we spend time. This goes along with sorting out important priorities daily and making the decision to determine and act on them. If anyone ever thinks he/she needs more time, the answer is that no one gets more time. There are 1,440 minutes a day. No matter what we do, we won’t get more today.
Sales consultant and author Myers Barnes says, “Time management has nothing to do with the clock, but everything to do with organising and controlling your participation in certain events that coordinate with the clock.” Maxwell says, “Since you can’t change time, you must instead change your approach to it.”
The author includes practical exercises at the end of every chapter to help us integrate the twelve practices into our life. This will help us design our daily agenda, manage our time well and find success in life. Maxwell makes it clear how to MAKE TODAY MATTER THE MOST.
John C. Maxwell: Sometimes You Win; Sometimes You Learn: Life’s Greatest Lessons Are Gained From Our Losses (Hachette, 2014)
John C. Maxwell’s primary goal in life is adding value to people. In this book, he offers advice on how to look at losses as opportunities for growth through learning. “Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn”—this is the attitude of successful people. The author presents the positive way of reacting to negative experiences. Failure is not to be brushed under the rug. The losses are going to come and hit us in every area of our life; yet they are life’s greatest lessons if approached the right way.
Maxwell wrote this book to answer the questions about learning from losses. He says, “…if your desire is – to become a learner from losses – you need to change the way you look at losses, cultivate qualities that help you respond to them, and develop the ability to learn from them.”
To do this, he gives the following roadmap:
Humility: The Spirit of Learning
Reality: The Foundation of Learning
Responsibility: The First Step of Learning
Improvement: The Focus of Learning
Hope: The Motivation of Learning
Teachability: The Pathway of Learning
Adversity: The Catalyst for Learning
Problems: Opportunities for Learning
Bad Experiences: The Perspective for Learning
Change: The Price of Learning
Maturity: The Value of Learning
Following this roadmap will help us, not only to learn from our failures, but also to re-examine our values and priorities. We can then bounce back from losses and avoid the tragedy that comes from suffering without learning the lesson or giving in to the downward spiral. The book offers not just suggestions how to get through tough times, but also the most treasured gift – HOPE.
It is filled with real life stories of people who learnt precious lessons from failure. This makes the book a fast and easy read, which can be applied to our own life, especially our failures.
Maxwell convincingly writes, “Losses in life are never fun, but there is one loss no one can afford to experience – the loss of hope.” Read the book and discover that the winning attitude is never: “Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose,” but rather: “Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn.”
Sr Theresa Phawa FMA
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