Book Summaries

By Stan Toler 

• We are the masters or victims of our attitudes.

• Your attitude makes all the difference in the world, and many times it’s the only thing between failure and success in our lives.

• Positive thinkers usually get positive results.

• The way to get rid of negative thoughts is to feed yourself with positive thoughts.

• Treat people like what they should be and they may become what they are capable of.

• In order to have happy lives, we must have happy thoughts.

• It’s said that most people only work at a 50% capacity. It’s the leader’s responsibility to give them purpose so they work to their full potential.

• Praise and approval are likely the most powerful motivators for someone to work hard — be generous with both.

• When you’re kind to others, you help yourself. When you’re cruel to others, you hurt yourself.

• Two lessons about encouragement: first, everyone needs it, and second, it is much more powerful than you realize.

• Your encouragement can change someone’s life forever.

• There are various ways to show appreciation to others, just make sure you make it verbal.

• You can tell the measure of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.

• Excellent leaders give credit where credit is due.

• Use your influence to persuade, not intimidate.

• You are not just known by the company you keep, but also how you keep that company.

• Your words have the power to change the world.

• Words are the key to belief and belief unlocks action.

• The common phrases of naysayers are “that won’t work” and “we have never done it that way.”

• Real influence is guiding people to a vision, not belittling their ideas.

By Joel Schwartzberg 

• Content is not king. Information does inform, but it does not inspire. 

• Purpose is the why we do what we do. 

• Divide what others need to know and what  is neat to know. 

• Make the audience’s relevance more important than the speaker’s interest. 

• “We” and “us” is better than “me” and “I.” A leader involves the team. 

• Leaders benefit from reiterating and repeating the key points. 

• Empathy and teamwork are nice, but they want and need to hear hope.

• It’s hard to put confidence in leaders that don’t have confidence in themselves.

• You should want to support your team more than want your team to support you. 

• Try to be a role model instead of a role manager.

by Og Mandino

• He who has never failed is he who has never tried.
• Fear will never overtake you if determination to succeed is strong enough.

• The difference between those that fail and those that succeed lies in their habits.

• Bad habits are the unlocked door to failure.

• Success lies around the next bend in the road. 

• Persist until you succeed. 

• Small attempts repeated will complete any undertaking

• Remove from your vocabulary such words as quit, impossible, failure, cannot, unable, hopeless and retreat, for they are the words of fools.

• Each nay you receive will prepare you for the yay! Each frown will prepare you for the smile to come.

• Forget what happened to you, whether good or bad, and welcome the sun of a new day. 

• If you persist long enough, you will win.

• Yesterday is buried in the past and you cannot relive it. Think of it no more. Live this day as if it is your last.

• Procrastination must be destroyed with action. Fear must be destroyed with confidence. 

• Decide today to be master of your emotions. 

• Weak is he who permits his thoughts to control his actions. Strong is he who forces his actions to control his thoughts. 

• Cultivate the habit of laughter. 

• Whether you are way down with problems or pressures, remember that this too shall pass.

• Do not be so concerned for the things of today because this too will pass.

• Multiply your value an hundred fold. A grain of wheat can be thrown out, fed to swine or planted to bring much more. The difference between you and wheat is that you as an individual choose your value. 

• All men must stumble to reach the heights of their potential. 

• Action is food and drink that nurtures accomplishments.

• Procrastination keeps you back from success and is born out of fear. 

• Do not avoid the tasks of today for tomorrow, for tomorrow will never come. 

• It is better to act and fail rather than not act in flounder.

• Without action, the fruit will die on the vine. 

• Act now, do not wait on tomorrow for tomorrow is the labor of the lazy. 

• Pray for guidance. 

 

By JC Ryle 

• If you are going to train children up properly, train them in the way they should go, not the way they would go. 

• Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child – Proverbs 22:15; 29:15

• Self-will is probably the first thing that is developed in the heart of a child, and it must be resisted to teach what is Scriptural.

• Love is a grand secret to training.

• Fear causes hypocrisy, secrecy, and lies. Don’t make your children be afraid of you – Colossians 3:21.

• 9 out of 10 of the people we meet are what they are because of their upbringing.

• Don’t believe the lie that you can do nothing but hope for your children to turn out right.

• It is not true love to pamper and indulge your children by giving them what they want. 

• Train your children to love the Bible. You cannot force them to love the Bible, but you can show and cause them to love it.

• Fill your children’s minds with the Scripture. Children absorb much more than you think.

• Teach your children to pray. Prayer is the peculiarity of God’s people. Prayer is the simplest means of men coming to God, and it is within reach of every man.

• Before a child learns to read or speak, he can learn to kneel down by his parents to pray.

• Train them to go to church. Tell them the importance of going to God’s house and listening to preaching. Tell them the importance of not forsaking to assemble. 

• It is sad when there are no children in a church. Children are obliged to go to school whether they like it or not, so why cannot they be obliged to go to church?

• Take your children to church and have them sit with you. It is important to go to church, but make sure they learn to behave correctly in God’s house.

• Train them to a habit of obedience. If you love your children, teach them to make obedience their motto.

• It is not hard to understand why children disobey their Heavenly Father when they are not taught to obey their earthly father.

• Turn them to a habit of always speaking the truth. God is a God of truth, and the devil is the father of lies.

• Be careful of overindulging. It is a parent’s job to teach their children, not humor them. To profit them, not please them.

• Do not allow your children to become idols to you. Learn to say no to your children and not just go along with what they do or say.

• If you do not take care of trouble when your children are young, they will give you trouble when they are old — choose which you prefer.

• Don’t try to be wiser than God. Train your children as He trains His.

• To tell your children what is right while doing what is wrong is to take your children by the hand to Hell while pointing them to Heaven.

• Children learn more by sight then they do by ear.

• The parent who tries to train without being the right example, is building up with one hand and tearing down with the other.

• Train them up while praying and pleading to the Lord. He holds the child’s heart in His hands, and He holds the heart of your children.

• Home is the place where habits are formed. 

By Seth Godin 

• Many people say that quitters never win, and winners never quit, but this is bad advice. Winners quit all the time. They have learned to quit the right things. 

• Sometimes it is right to quit in order to move onto better things.

• Quit the wrong stuff and stick with the right stuff.

• Most people quit when it is painful and stick with something when they should quit.

• You cannot be good in everything, but you should be great in the key areas.

• Successful people do not just survive the dip, they lean into it.

• In a competitive world, adversity is your friend, because most will quit in hard times.

• Most companies, careers, and things in life have a dip in which they bank on people quitting. Those who make it through the dip are the ones who stand out.

• The most successful companies quit products all the time, but they quit them at the right time.

• The time to quit a job is when you don’t need a job, not when it is hard.

• We succeed when we do something remarkable, we fail when we give up too soon.

by John C. Maxwell

• We love stories of those that can achieve something on their own, but the truth is there really is no Rambo or Lone Ranger that achieves things completely on their own.

• Reasons people want to work on their own are ego, insecurity, control, fear of being replaced, naïve, and temperament. 

• The law of the big picture. The goal of the whole is in more important than the individual’s role.

• You can lose with good players, but you cannot win with bad ones. 

• Give up your personal agenda. What is best for the rest?

• The team plays the best when everyone on the team is in the position of their most potential.

• You are most valuable where you add the most value.

• The size of your dream is determined by the size of your team. 

• Your team is as strong as your weakest link.

• Winning teams have players that make things happen.

• Vision gives team members direction and confidence. 

• Rotten attitudes ruin teams.

• Good attitudes does not guarantee a team’s success, but bad attitudes guarantee a teams failure.

• Teammates must be able to count on each other when it counts.

• The team fails to move forward when the team fails to pay the price. 

• If everyone is not willing to pay the price to win, then everyone will pay the price of losing.

• Never forget that you need good communication in your team. Good communication is consistent, clear and courteous.

• Communication creates connection.

• The team will reach their potential only when every member of the team reaches their potential.