John Maxwell 12 Daily Practices
Xena Donovan
Maxwell then ends his book by recommending that his readers rate these twelve choices into the order of their own personal best and worst, from top to bottom. He suggests that each reader then choose two practices from his top 6 and one from his bottom 6, in order to spend time specifically on these during a week. As the reader perfects or improves upon these first three areas, he should then add another and then another, until all twelve are represented in a single daily routine.
Mark Cole: Hey, welcome to the John Maxwell Leadership Podcast. We are so glad you have joined us today. Today, I'm joined in studio with Jason Brooks and he and I are going to take John Maxwell's lesson today and apply it to you. Now, over the next two weeks, we're going to be sharing with you a lesson John did called Making Today a Better Tomorrow. Making Today a Better Tomorrow and today is part one. Now, I love it because this time of the year is the time of year to where we try to make this year a better next year. This is the time of year that many of us do year-end reviews. We kind of review this year in light of wanting to grow and build on next year's plan. And it's in that setting that I want to get your mind to not only think like John challenges us in this lesson to make today a better tomorrow, but let's take 2020 and let's make 2021 a better year.
In other words, let's not write off 2020 like I've heard so many people say. Let's actually make this year, the year of COVID, the year of shutdown, the year of polarization, let's make this year a better next year. If you haven't already, go to maxwellpodcast.com/bettertomorrow to download the bonus resource and to take notes with today's lesson. Now, we're going to do this in two parts, because I want to give you plenty of time to go and apply. So listen to John, come back and join Jason and I, as we illustrate and apply John's lesson today. Now here is John Maxwell.
John Maxwell: Basically, what I'm going to share with you in this lesson is what I do today has a direct relationship with what's going to happen to me tomorrow. And let me put it another way so we understand it. What I am today is a result of decisions I made yesterday. In other words, everything that I'm enjoying or realizing or suffering from today has something to do with decisions and disciplines that I put in order yesterday. So just like yesterday determined today, today determines tomorrow. So we're going to talk about it. The secret of your success is determined by your daily agenda. In other words, what you and I do daily is already determining our success. Here we are. Most people underestimate today and overestimate tomorrow. I see that happening all the time.
Most of us, we underestimate today and we overestimate tomorrow. In other words, we look at today and say, "Well, what are you doing today?" "Well, I'm just kind of hanging [inaudible 00:03:22]. I'm killing time." No, you're not killing time, you're killing opportunity. There's a lot of things you're killing. "Well, but you know what? Tomorrow, I'm going to turn this thing around, tomorrow, I'm going to get disciplined, tomorrow, I'm going to prioritize, and tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow." We overestimate tomorrow, we underestimate today. You see, what I'm doing today affects tomorrow. We overestimate what tomorrow is, we underestimate what today is. We overestimate what we're going to have, we underestimate what we do have.
My success agenda is determined by two things. The daily decisions that I make and secondly, the daily disciplines I practice. I have just given you the essence of success. Your daily decisions and your daily disciplines. If you today can make the right decisions and practice the right disciplines, success is going to be automatic, I guarantee you. Now let's look at the daily decisions I make quickly. You don't make decisions because they're easy and you don't make decisions because they're cheap. You don't make decisions because they're popular. You make decisions because they're right. That's only reason to make decisions, because they're right.
And my guideline for making right decisions are the following seven things. Number one, seek out wise counsel. I never trust myself to make right decisions without seeking wise counsel. People that have a pattern of making right decisions. Don't just seek out anybody, be wise in who you seek out. Seek out people who have made a habit of making good, solid wise decisions. Number two, look for patterns in the guidance that you are given. I have found that when I began to seek counsel from wise people, there's usually a set of patterns or principles that they give me follow that just seemed to be the same until I say, "Okay, there are three or four people have given me these patterns or these principles. I think I can buy into them."
Now, number three and four, again, I just want to say, this is my personal faith. So, whenever I do a lesson like this, I'm not trying to convert you but I have to be honest with you to who I am. So three and four go to my personal faith, okay? Number three is the Bible. For me, God's word gives me great direction. And number four is prayer. When I'm going to make right decisions, I'll seek wise counsel, I look for patterns in the guidance that I am given, I go to the Bible, I go to prayer. Number five, does this decision give me peace? Number six, what is the downside? I always ask the question, what's the downside? In other words, can I live with it? If this turns out wrong, can I live with it? If I'm in a business, I lose money, can I lose that much money? Look at the downside. Can I live with it? You got to always look at the downside.
And number seven, does this decision match my gifts and my abilities? And I have found those seven guidelines help me in making the right decisions, and the reason that's important is remember, my success is determined by the daily decisions I make and the daily disciplines I practice. Now, let me talk to you about the daily disciplines that I practice. Let me give you the common denominator of success. The common denominator of success is forming the habit of doing things that failures do not like to do. Boy, isn't that the truth? Just look what failures don't like to do and do it and it's almost a guarantee that you're going to be successful.
There are two types of pain in life. One is the pain of self-discipline. And everyone of us know what it's like to have to do something that we don't want to do but we know we should do it. That's the pain of self-discipline and it's eased by the reward of daily progress. When you're done at the end of the day, you said, "Man, I sure didn't like missing all that dessert, but man, this is good." If you don't practice the pain of discipline, you'll practice the second pain, the pain of regret. And regret increases with missed opportunities in age. One of the things I find is that, as people get older and miss opportunities, many times they have a lot more regret. "Boy, I wish I would have done this when I was that age. And I certainly wish I had made that decision back there."
Now, when I talk about daily decisions, I'm talking about goal-setting. Decisions I make, these are the things that I want to do today. When I talk about daily disciplines, I'm talking about goal-doing. One is setting the goal and the other is doing the goal. And again, I've already put it in your lesson, but I thought I should put it the second time because I want to really emphasize this. The secret of my success is determining in my daily agenda. And my daily agenda and my secret of success is composed of two things. I've already said it, but I'll say it again, the decisions I make and the disciplines I practice. What are the decisions I'm making today? What are the disciplines I'm practicing today?
So what I wanted to do is I wanted to give you in this lesson, decisions and disciplines that I make and practice daily. Now, this is from me, and I want to just say something before I give you this part of the lesson. This has been a process for me. Sometimes when I do a lesson, because I'm trying just to teach principles, I can sound better than I really am or I can look better than I really am. And I just want to tell you on the front end, I didn't just discover this at 18 and practice it every day. It's still a discovery for me. It's still a discipline for me.
There are days when I don't do as well in some of these areas as I should. So I just want to give you that setting before I start going through this, because what I'm going to give you is tremendous truth. What I'm going to give you is life-changing truth. But also I want you to understand, I'm still a work in process, but these are the daily disciplines and decisions that I try every day to make and follow through on.
Let's go. Number one, responsibility. I have decided to accept responsibility and be responsible daily. Couple of quotes, Michael Korda quote, "Success on any major scale requires you to accept responsibility, in the final analysis, the one quality that all successful people have is the ability to take on responsibility." Boy, that is a huge statement. Somebody comes and says, "Let me tell you about my abilities." You stop them right there and say, "Do you have the main ability?" "What's that?" "The ability to take on responsibility." Because if you don't have the ability to take on responsibility, no matter what your other abilities are, there'll be squandered. I promise you.
Erich Fromm says, "Today responsibility is often meant to denote duty, something imposed upon one another from the outside, but responsibility in its true sense is an entirely voluntary act. It is my response to the needs expressed or unexpressed of another human being." I just think that is a huge statement. Maturity doesn't come with age. It comes with acceptance of responsibility. [inaudible 00:11:10] but it's not in your notes. He said, "The reason people blame things on previous generation is that there's only one other choice." Haven't we met people like that? Just pick up your responsibility. It's a decision and a discipline that you make every day.
64591212e2