Success is a Choice, by John C. Maxwell

This Book is For:

*Anyone who has had difficulty in the past making choices that were aligned with the higher version of themselves that they knew existed somewhere, but in unrealized form.

*Ambitious professionals who never stop investing in their own education and success, and who want to absorb some extra wisdom from a globally-recognized expert in leadership and personal development.

*Leaders of all types of organizations - leaders with titles and those without - who are looking for a playbook they can use to inspire those they seek to lead and show them the way to greater heights than they've ever reached before.

*Everyone who feels as though there are unrealized talents and untapped potential trapped somewhere within themselves, and who need just a little bit of encouragement and guidance to help bring it out.

Summary:

“Live the life you were meant to. Try to see yourself as you could be, and then do everything in your power to believe that you can become that person. That is the first important step in becoming a successful person."

-John C. Maxwell

Reading this book feels like gaining access to secret knowledge - except nothing here is a secret. John C. Maxwell has exposed millions of people to these life-changing and career-lifting ideas over many decades of global thought-leadership.

Maxwell's books always pass the test for whether I'll decide to read anything else he's written: immediately after I read his book (and many times, during), my life just gets better. Sometimes in profound ways. The present book is all about choices, and specifically, those choices that are always leading us either toward or away from our desired future.

Every single thought we think and action we take is either a +1 or a -1 on the road to achieving our vision, and Success is a Choice is studded with +1s on every damn page. It's a book about stacking the odds in our favor by doing every single thing within our power in order to give us the best possible chance of succeeding. A lot of it comes down to simply making the right choices, and this is a manual for how to do that (virtually) every time.

Making the right choices - over and over again until you win - is how you eventually construct your dream life, and consistently making the incorrect choices will make this as-yet-unrealized dream life a more and more distant reality. It's really as simple as that.

We all start with different talents and abilities, advantages and disadvantages, and it's the choices we make in addition to our talents that makes the greatest difference. It's in the choices we make to believe in ourselves; to fire up our passion; to initiate action; to focus our energy; to cultivate good relationships; and embracing practice (all covered in the book) where we can recognize our power to make the desired changes in our lives. It's choices, all the way down.

In this breakdown, we're going to talk about how you have the power to choose your attitude, your actions, and your beliefs, and that these choices will ultimately determine your level of success. We're going to talk about the most dangerous kind of safety you need to avoid at all costs, and how to shake up the world. We're also going to talk about the utter necessity of keeping your standards high, and why taking big swings in life is far superior to any other, more conservative strategy.

In the end, your level of success is mostly determined by your choices, multiplied by your effort. Luck exists, sure, and not everything worth attempting has a 100% chance of succeeding. We know that. But there are three things that the most successful people on the planet all do exceedingly well: they get started, they keep going, and they never give up.

Key Ideas:

#1: Change Your Beliefs, Change Your Life

“Personal breakthroughs begin with a change in your beliefs. Why? Because your beliefs determine your expectations, and your expectations determine your actions. A belief is a habit of mind in which confidence becomes a conviction that we embrace."

The main takeaway of Dr. Maxwell Maltz's classic book, Psycho-Cybernetics is that it's literally impossible for anyone to outperform their self-image, to achieve anything greater than they believe themselves deserving of achieving. This is exactly what John C. Maxwell is driving at here as well.

Your expectations determine your reality, and we see what we expect to see. If you believe yourself incapable of negotiating a deal any larger than $10,000, that's exactly the level you'll remain stuck at. Try to close business for, say, $25,000 or $100,000 and you'll self-sabotage, and otherwise subconsciously create the conditions for your own failure. You don't believe that you can do it, and you don't expect that it will ever happen, so why take the actions that would cause anything different to happen?

Moreover, as Maxwell reminds us, this is a habit of mind, developed through repetition, that can become a defining "script" that we keep running, eventually causing us to resign ourselves to staying at our previous level.

Of course, no one is seriously suggesting that you can "believe" your way into becoming a top 1% expert in your field by next week, or that you'll automagically 10X your income by "expecting" it to happen. But if you don't expect it to happen, it won't, no matter how long you're willing to wait.

The good news, however, is that beliefs are malleable. We can choose them for ourselves, and we can adopt different ones if our current beliefs aren't serving us or taking us where we want to go.

Again, this is a habit of mind. We become what we think about most of the time, so it makes sense that, should you wish to create different (and better) results in your life, you should spend most of your time thinking about how exactly you're going to make that happen. And, crucially, believing that it's possible with consistent effort over a long enough period of time.

I mean, what's the alternative? What else could you believe about yourself that's better? If you can choose what to believe - and choose what to reinforce through repetition - why would you choose to believe anything other than the most empowering beliefs you can find?

#2: Yesterday Doesn't Exist

“I’ve never known a person focusing on yesterday who had a better tomorrow."

The past doesn't exist anymore, the future will never exist, and so, really, all you have is right now. This present moment. But if I had to choose between living in the past, and living in the future, I'd take the future every time.

Sure, learn from the past, extract its lessons and look back on all the great times you've had with fondness, but you can't live there. As executive coach Dan Sullivan always says, make sure that your future is bigger than your past.

Successful people are always analyzing what they could have done better in the past, looking for the lesson and crystallizing the wisdom, but they don't stay in the past. They use the past to set themselves up for a better future. Your past is what it was, but your future is what you'll fashion it into.

#3: When You Think of Limits, You Create Them

“Your potential is really up to you. It doesn't matter what others might think. It doesn't matter where you came from. It doesn't even matter what you might have believed about yourself at a previous time in your life. It's about what lies within you and whether you can bring it out."

What lies behind you and what lies ahead of you are as nothing compared to what lies within you. Ralph Waldo Emerson said it a little differently than I did in that first sentence, but that's from memory, so give me a break, okay? Seriously, though, he's absolutely correct.

Obviously, we have some limits to what we can have, achieve, do, and become. But most of those limits are self-imposed. If you actually pushed on some of those limits, they'd fall right over or collapse into dust. They're imaginary. Set up by your own mind to protect you from disappointment and feelings of failure.

But let me ask you a question: what would your limits be if no one (including you) told you what they were? What could you accomplish if there were nobody to swoop in and say, "No, you can't do that"?

As we've seen, beliefs can be changed. You have the ability to choose between empowering beliefs and disempowering beliefs, and the choice that you make has a lot to do with how your life eventually turns out.

More often than not it's a case of your disempowering beliefs never having been questioned. Never having been scrutinized or put to the test. The truth of your abilities and potential is far more expansive and unlimited. When you think of limits, you create them.

#4: A Dangerous Safety

“Safe living generally makes for regrets later on. We are all given talents and dreams. Sometimes the two don't match. But more often than not, we compromise both before ever finding out.

Later on, as successful as we might be, we find ourselves looking back longingly to that time when we should have chased our true dreams and our true talents for all they were worth.

Don't let yourself be pressured into thinking that your dreams or your talents aren't prudent. They were never meant to be prudent. They were meant to bring joy and fulfillment into your life."

-Richard Edler

Your dreams don't have to make sense to anyone but you. They don't have to be "practical" - that's why they're called dreams!

But dreams are a huge part of makes life worth living. It's having that great big exciting "thing" pulling you out of bed each morning that gives brightness and vibrancy to your days and bounce to your step. It gives you an energy, an aura (for lack of a better word) that is persuasive, captivating, and magnetic.

Personally, I find dreams to be more motivating when there's actually a real chance that you may one day achieve them. Again, it all comes back to beliefs. But honestly, it's whatever keeps you alive! The actual results of taking action toward your dream each day barely even matter. Because if you don't have a dream, man, you're dead. You're dead - it's just that they may not bury you for another few decades or so.

One supremely important thing to keep in mind, though, is that there is literally no downside to dreaming (and acting) BIG. To making BIG moves and taking MASSIVE action in service of what's most important to you in this world. "Realistic" barely even enters into the equation. You'll never regret pursuing a massive dream. But you'll be crushed by settling for realistic.

#5: Shake Up the World

“The world stands aside to let anyone pass who knows where he or she is going.”

-David Star Jordan

I want you to notice something about the world we're all living in. The people who have taken over their respective fields and who dominate the marketplace with their products and ideas are all confident, shameless self-promoters.

Not in a negative way (or at least not all of them), but they are all supremely confident individuals who have set an extremely high valuation on themselves and then gone on to force the rest of the world to recognize that value.

One of the most important ideas I've ever come across in all my wide reading is that the universe takes you at your word. You teach other people how to treat you, and if you show up to command their attention and respect - most people will give it to you. People take you at your own valuation. Set a high price on yourself, be loud about your value, ability, and worth, and other people will see these things in you too.

In the same way that you can don a suit, march into an office building you've never been to before, and no one will stop you, the rest of the world won't be able to stop you if you're moving fast enough and making enough noise. The whole world is like that office building. Enter with enough confidence, and barely anyone will even attempt to stop you. They'll just assume that you know exactly who you are, where you're going, and why you deserve to be there.

The timid, tentative, average masses were never going to make it. They're going to get stopped at the door of the world because they've chosen not to wear that "suit" of confidence and blow right by security. So go over the top. Be "shameless." Be assertive. You can even be a little bit crazy.

Actually...no. Don't just be a little bit crazy; be completely fucking unhinged. You see, here's another Great Truth of the world that only a few people realize: if you're only a little bit crazy, they'll think you're weird. But if you are absolutely, totally fucking unhinged, they'll make you their leader.

#6: Someone Will Notice

“Set your standards high and keep them high, even if you think no one else is looking. Somebody out there will always notice, even if it's just you."

-Dianne Snedaker

Another one of the most important things I've learned after reading more than 1,250+ books (at the time of writing) is that you must never, ever, EVER lie to yourself. It's one of the most damaging things you could ever do.

The simple truth is that you have an internal monitoring system that is paying close attention to every single thing you say and do - even those things you only say to yourself. There's a part of you that's constantly keeping a running tally of the lies you've told yourself, the promises to yourself that you've broken, and all those times you let yourself down. But from today forward, you can just...stop doing those things! You don't ever have to lie to yourself again, and it's vital for your success and fulfillment that you don't.

In life, you get what you tolerate, and so another important consideration in all this is the kind of standards you set - and maintain - for yourself. What are your standards? What are your non-negotiables? What do you absolutely refuse to compromise on, give up, or do?

Your standards and your internal dialogue matter to an extraordinary degree. Someone is always looking and listening. Most of the time, it's you. You're the one you have to impress. You're the one you have to consistently fight for, and the one you have to categorically refuse to give up on.

#7: The Inevitable Result of Taking BIG Swings

“You can’t shoot for the stars and remain unaffected by the effort.”

Remember that lame poster we all had hanging in our classrooms when we were kids? The one that said, "Shoot for the moon; even if you miss you'll land among the stars"? Yeah, that one? Well, turns out there's a lot of truth in that idea.

Arnold Schwarzenegger hit on the same idea in his book, Be Useful. He said that if you aim for a smaller goal, then the larger goal is automatically out of reach. This is because going after a big goal changes you in ways that going after a smaller, more "realistic" goal just doesn't.

The strategy that you deploy and the actions you take in service of a 10X goal are fundamentally different than those required to pursue a 2X goal, and small, incremental steps will never get you to 10X. They'll get you to 2X at most, whereas even if you aim for 10X and miss, you may end up at 6X or 8X instead.

Where exactly you end up is shrouded in the fog of the future, but the one single guarantee is that you will changed by the attempt. It's inevitable, and there's simply no way that you can take massive hacks at an audacious goal without being affected by the effort. The actual, specific results you achieve matter far less than the mere fact that you actually went for it.

#8: Make Yourself Bigger

“Prior to his success on Everest, Hillary had been part of another expedition, in which the team not only had failed to reach the summit but also had lost one of its members.

At a reception for the expedition members in London, Hillary stood to address the audience. Behind the platform was a huge photograph of Everest. Hillary turned to face the image of the mountain and exclaimed, 'Mount Everest, you have defeated us. But I will return. And I will defeat you. Because you cannot get any bigger, and I can."

You don’t overcome challenges by making them smaller. You overcome them by making yourself bigger! That's the side of the equation you need to work on.

What's fascinating about this is that when you make yourself bigger, your problems become (relatively) smaller. Of course, problems can grow in size too. You have to stay on top of things. But the goal here is to become so large and powerful that any and every single problem you could ever face pales in comparison to the vital power of your personality and will.

#9: Set Yourself Apart

“Just knowing what you want to do and then making an effort to pursue it distinguishes you from almost everybody else."

It's never been easier than it is today to be great. Barely anyone is even trying to be great, so your competition is effectively zero. The bar is so low, it's on the goddamn ground. You can literally just step over it and win.

When you make the choice to separate yourself from your competition - to do whatever it takes to make your dream a reality - you've already placed yourself in rare air, inside a close-knit society of winners and high-achievers who are miles above everybody else in terms of results and accomplishments.

Nowadays, something like 99% of podcasts don't make it past episode 10. That means if you publish just 11 episodes of your podcast, you're automatically in the top 1% of podcasts - worldwide. And it's not just in podcasting where this shows up. Basically, people don't show up. That's the problem!

If you do, however - if you not only show up but give it your all - then that makes you one dangerous individual with a very good shot at being successful in anything you choose to do in life.

That's not to say that you should settle, or even that you should be glad that your competition didn't show up. It's far more honorable to beat an opponent that's actually worthy of you. But just realize that simply by starting, you're already winning. Now, the only thing left to do is not quit.

#10: The Greatest Good You Can Do for Another

“The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own."

-Benjamin Disraeli

All this talk about "beating the competition" obscures a fundamentally important point. Success isn't just about yourself. Not only is it damn-near impossible to succeed without the help of others, it's also extremely fucking lonely.

My core business philosophy is that you can get anything you want in life, just as long as you help enough other people get what they want. I learned that from Zig Ziglar many years ago and have never forgotten it.

Success is cool and everything, and fast cars are awesome. Being able to travel wherever and whenever you want, and never look at grocery prices when you go shopping? I love all these things and more. But there's a stronger, more lasting satisfaction that comes as a direct result of helping other people win that you literally could never experience by yourself.

Much of my work involves showing other people how to become more successful in life, and making it easier and faster for the people coming up behind me. But a massive part of my own motivation is the awesome feeling that comes with holding up the mirror to their own greatness, what they're already capable of, with or without my help. That's a real joy.

Always remember not only to share your own riches, but to show others their own as well. Help people out. Encourage them. Guide the way. Offer them your protection and guidance, as someone who's traveled further down the road they're planning to embark upon. Because as George Eliot wrote in Middlemarch:

"What are we here for, if not to make life a little less difficult for one another?"

Book Notes:

“Some people say that they feel burned out. The truth is that they probably never were on fire in the first place."

“Your potential is a picture of what you can become. Belief helps you see the picture and reach for it.”

"If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astonish ourselves."

-Thomas Edison

"The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems."

-Mohandas Gandhi

"John Powell, author of The Secret of Staying in Love, estimates that the average person reaches only ten percent of his potential, sees only ten percent of the beauty that is all around him, hears only ten percent of its music and poetry, smells only ten percent of its fragrance, and tastes only ten percent of the deliciousness of being alive. Most neither see nor seize their potential."

“When you discover you've been leading only half a life, the other half is going to haunt you until you develop it."

-Phillips Brooks

“When it comes to believing in themselves, some people are agnostic!”

"There is but one cause of human failure. And that is man's lack of faith in his true self."

-William James

“Don’t listen to those who say, 'It's not done that way.' Maybe it's not, but maybe you'll do it anyway. Don't listen to those who say, 'You're taking too big a chance.' Michelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor, and it would surely be rubbed out today."

-Neil Simon

"Harvey McKay tells the story of a professor who stood before a class of thirty senior molecular biology students.

Before he passed out the final exam, he stated, 'I have been privileged to be your instructor this semester, and I know how hard you have worked to prepare for this test. I also know most of you are off to medical school or grad school next fall. I am well aware of how much pressure you are under to keep your GPAs up, and because I am confident that you know this material, I am prepared to offer an automatic B to anyone who opts to skip taking the final exam.'

The relief was audible. A number of students jumped up from their desks, thanking their professor for the lifeline he had thrown them. 'Any other takers?' he asked. 'This is your last opportunity.' One more student decided to go.

The instructor then handed out the final exam, which consisted of two sentences. 'Congratulations,' it read, 'you have just received an A in this class. Keep believing in yourself.' It was a just reward for the students who had worked hard and believed in themselves."

“You don’t overcome challenges by making them smaller. You overcome them by making yourself bigger!"

“If you don’t live it, you don’t believe it.”

-Paul Harvey

“It is the greatest shot of adrenaline to be doing what you've wanted to do so badly. You almost feel like you could fly without the plane."

-Charles Lindbergh

“Passion is the foundation for excellence.”

“My grades went up because my passion did.”

“You can’t be successful and play it safe.”

“These firefighters focus on what’s wrong rather than what’s right. They find the cloud that comes with every silver lining.”

“Spend more time with people who see you not just as who you are but as you could be.”

“I am convinced that my life belongs to the whole community; and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in the life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I got hold of for a moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before turning it over to future generations."

-George Bernard Shaw

"To succeed, jump as quickly at opportunities as you do at conclusions."

-Benjamin Franklin

“Too many people wait around for their ship to come in. When they take that approach to life, they often find it to be hardship. The things that simply come to us are rarely the things we want."

"I believe you don't motivate people. What you do is hire motivated people, then make sure you don't demotivate them."

-Tom Golisano

"All problems become smaller if you don't dodge them, but confront them. Touch a thistle timidly, and it pricks you; grasp it boldly, and its spines crumble."

-William Halsey

“I read daily to grow in my personal life. I listen to others daily to broaden my perspective. I spend time thinking daily to apply what I am learning. And I try to write daily so that I can remember what I've learned. I also try to share those lessons with others."

“You can claim to be surprised once; after that, you’re just unprepared.”

“People don’t get a second chance to seize a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

“Developing discipline always begins with a struggle. There is no easy way to become a disciplined person. It has nothing to do with talent or ability. It is not a matter of conditions but of choice. But once the choice is made and practice becomes a habit, two things become obvious. The first is a separation between the person who practices and the one who doesn't. The second thing that emerges is a winning spirit. The harder you work, the harder it becomes to surrender."

“You cannot push anyone up a ladder unless he is willing to climb himself."

-Andrew Carnegie

“The difference between the ordinary and the extraordinary is the extra!"

“You beat fifty percent of the people in America by working hard; you beat forty percent by being a person of honesty and integrity and standing for something; and the last ten percent is a dogfight in the free enterprise system."

-Art Williams

“If you see a turtle on top of a fence post, you know he had help getting there."

-Alex Haley

"Thousands of people have talent. I might as well congratulate you for having eyes in your head. The one and only thing that counts is: Do you have staying power?"

-Noel Coward

"We are determined to win the battle. We will fight them until hell freezes over, and then, if we have to, we'll fight them on the ice."

-Joseph Lanier

“At a sales convention, the corporate sales manager got up in front of all two thousand of his firm's salespeople and asked, 'Did the Wright brothers ever quit?' 'No!' the sales force shouted.

'Did Charles Lindbergh ever quit?' he asked. 'No!' the salespeople shouted again. 'Did Lance Armstrong ever quit?' 'No!' He bellowed for a fourth time, 'Did Thorndike McKester ever quit?'

There was a confused silence for a long moment. Then a salesperson stood up and asked, 'Who in the world is Thorndike McKester? Nobody's ever heard of him.'

The sales manager snapped back, 'Of course you never heard of him - because he quit!'"

"Success is a little like wrestling a gorilla. You don't quit when you're tired - you quit when the gorilla is tired."

-Robert Strauss

"Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at its testing point."

-C. S. Lewis

"What on earth would a man do with himself if something didn't stand in his way?"

-H. G. Wells

“If we could kick the person responsible for most of our troubles, we wouldn't be able to sit down for a week."

“Inside every individual there are six people. They are: who you are reputed to be, who you are expected to be, who you were, who you wish to be, who you think you are, and who you really are."

"Never let a day pass without looking at some perfect work of art, hearing some great piece of music, and reading, in part, some great book."

-Goethe

“It’s truly remarkable how much a person has to learn before he realizes how little he knows. The world is vast, and we are so limited. There is much for us to learn, and we can learn much - as long as we remain teachable."

“Blessed are they that laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be entertained."

-Chinese Proverb

“If you see a bomb technician running, try to keep up with him."

-U.S. Ammo Troop

“The greatest enemy of learning is knowing.”

“If you want to know how long it will take to get to the top, consult a calendar. If you want to know how long it can take to fall to the bottom, try a stopwatch."

“Talent can be cultivated in tranquility; character only in the rushing stream of life."

-Goethe

“Your character is always your choice.”

“People can no sooner blame their character on their circumstances than they can blame their looks on a mirror. Developing character is your personal responsibility. It cannot be given to you; you must earn it."

“Almost all our faults are more pardonable than the methods we think up to hide them."

-Francois La Rochefoucauld

“You have God-given talent; develop it. You have opportunity before you; pursue it. You have a future that is bright; look forward to it. But above all else, you have the potential to become a person of character; follow through with it. Character, more than anything else, will protect everything in your life that you hold dear."

“My friends have made the story of my life. In a thousand ways they have turned my limitations into beautiful privileges, and enabled me to walk serene and happy in the shadow cast by my deprivation."

-Helen Keller

“Tom has changed my life forever. He has been a lifter in so many areas of my life. If you ever encounter someone who has that impact on you, fight to preserve that relationship, show your gratitude often, and give whatever you can in return."

“Every man is entitled to be valued by his best moments."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

"My friends didn't believe that I could become a successful speaker. So I did something about it. I went out and found me some new friends!"

-Joe Larson

“Life is too long to spend it with people who pull you in the wrong direction. And it's too short not to invest in others. Your relationships will define you. And they will influence your talent - one way or the other. Choose wisely."

“You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand."

-Woodrow Wilson

Important Insights from Related Books:

Your Next Five Moves, by Patrick Bet-David:

In this business classic, one of the biggest breakout entrepreneurial success stories of the modern era lays out his personal playbook for how you can out-think, out-plan, and out-execute your competition in the fight they never even saw coming.

Sample Quotes from the Book:

“Your vision must align with who you want to be. Your choices must align with your vision. Your effort must align with the size of your vision. Your behavior must align with your values and principles.”

“A visionary is someone who is not living in the here and now. He or she has already seen at least five moves ahead and is living in that reality.”

“The ability to solve problems well is the ability to take a complex issue you’re facing and break it down into a step-by-step formula that helps you identify the root of the problem.”

Read the Full Breakdown: Your Next Five Moves, by Patrick Bet-David

Change Your Paradigm, Change Your Life, by Bob Proctor:

If you want something you've never had before, you're going to have to do something you've never done before. The problem is that when we try to do this, our minds actively resist the change in an effort to remain comfortable. This book will show you how to move past that and create lasting success.

Sample Quotes from the Book:

“There’s perfection within you, and that perfection is seeking expression within and through you. It is always for expression, expansion, and greater good."

“Our paradigm was built through repetition – constant, spaced repetition – and that’s the way it’s going to be changed.”

“The income you earn is in direct ratio to the need for what you do, your ability to do it, and the difficulty of replacing you. There’s got to be a tremendous need for what you’re doing, so you’re going to get really good at it, and you’re going to be really difficult to replace.”

Read the Full Breakdown: Change Your Paradigm, Change Your Life, by Bob Proctor

It Takes What It Takes, by Trevor Moawad:

Positive thinking can work sometimes. Negative thinking works negatively 100 percent of the time. But what about NEUTRAL thinking? Could it be the key to world-class performance?

Sample Quotes from the Book:

“The actual truth is not negative or positive when you remove judgement from it. It simply is. Neutral is the harmony between two extremes, negative and positive.

Neutral thinkers remain aware of the situation as it changes from moment to moment. We give ourselves the opportunity to learn from every situation, even if the outcome is not optimal at that specific time. The next behavior remains consistently in our control."

"Nothing hit me between the eyes like the illusion of choice. It so clearly is true, and yet we all compete against our own choices every day."

-Chris Brearton

“They were a collection of winners and, more important, a group organized around great behaviors. After all, winners win only when they behave like people who win."

Read the Full Breakdown: It Takes What It Takes, by Trevor Moawad

Be Useful, by Arnold Schwarzenegger:

Vision. Overwhelming self-belief. And a sickening work ethic. These qualities and more helped Arnold Schwarzenegger climb the peak of three of the most difficult fields in the world to succeed in. His book shows you how you can climb too.

Sample Quotes from the Book:

“It’s not hours in the day you lack, it’s a vision for your life that makes time irrelevant.”

“Failure has never killed a dream; quitting kills every dream it touches.”

“The picture in my mind was so clear you could have put a frame around it and hung it on a wall.”

Read the Full Breakdown: Be Useful, by Arnold Schwarzenegger

Action Steps:

So you've finished reading. What do you do now?

Reading for pleasure is great, and I wholeheartedly support it. However, I am intensely practical when I'm reading for a particular purpose. I want a result. I want to take what I've learned and apply it to my one and only life to make it better!

Because that's really what the Great Books all say. They all say: "You must change your life!" So here, below, are some suggestions for how you can apply the wisdom found in this breakdown to improve your actual life.

Please commit to taking massive action on this immediately! Acting on what you've learned here today will also help you solidify it in your long-term memory. So there's a double benefit! Let's begin...

#1: Raise Your Standards

We don't rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the level of our standards and systems. Your standards represent the quality of life you refuse to compromise on. The level you insist on operating upon.

For each area of your life, I want you to make your standards conscious, and choose to elevate them from where they are now. If there's one area of your life that isn't up to your satisfaction, raise your standards in that area and refuse to settle for anything less.

Decide on your standard for that area (finances, fitness, family, etc.), make a plan, and never, ever lie to yourself about the results of that plan or your current trajectory. Practice brutal self-honesty, and make a self-promise that you will make this new standard your new normal.

#2: Choose One More Empowering Belief

You choose your beliefs, which then determine your expectations, which, in turn, determine your reality. So start choosing some more empowering beliefs!

You already have a set of beliefs for each and every area of your life, the only problem is that you didn't consciously choose all (or even many) of these beliefs, and thus you're operating under mistaken beliefs that aren't taking you anywhere near where you want to go.

Similar to the previous exercise, choose one area of your life you're not currently satisfied with and examine the beliefs you have in that area. Do you believe that "people like you" aren't meant to succeed? Do you believe that "money is hard to come by"? Do you believe that you'll "never lose the weight"? None of these beliefs are serving you. And, importantly, you have the power to change them.

Then, what you need to do is reinforce those new beliefs through constant repetition. Surround yourself with people who believe the kinds of things you want to believe. Read books and watch YouTube videos created by people experiencing the kinds of results that you want.

Do this often enough, for long enough, and your current, disempowering beliefs will gradually be replaced by more empowering ones.

#3: Offer Mentorship to Someone Two Steps Behind You

The best way to learn anything is to teach it to someone else. You don't even have to be too far ahead of someone else to be a great teacher. In fact, there's such a thing as being too advanced to be a great teacher.

For example, you wouldn't go to Bill Gates to learn how to build a website. Sure, I mean there's no doubt he could do it, but he likely hasn't done so in years. Taking a company public, raising investor money, navigating governmental policy - sure, go to Bill for things like that. But if you just want to learn how to build a website, go to someone 10 steps behind him but a few steps ahead of you.

A good rule is to spend 33% of your time helping people behind you, 33% of your time networking and strategizing with people at your level, and 33% of your time learning from people more advanced than you are. I'm not sure where you'd spend the other 1% of your time - picking up another John C. Maxwell book wouldn't be a bad idea though!

"The path to success is to take massive, determined action."

-Tony Robbins

About the Author:

John C. Maxwell is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, coach, and speaker who has sold more than 26 million books in fifty languages.

In 2014 he was identified as the #1 leader in business by the American Management Association and the most influential leadership expert in the world by Business Insider and Inc. magazine.

He is the founder of The John Maxwell Company, The John Maxwell Team, EQUIP, and the John Maxwell Leadership Foundation, organizations that have trained millions of leaders. In 2015, they reached the milestone of having trained leaders from every country of the world.

The recipient of the Mother Teresa Prize for Global Peace and Leadership from the Luminary Leadership Network, Dr. Maxwell speaks each year to Fortune 500 companies, presidents of nations, and many of the world’s top business leaders.

Additional Resources:

John-Maxwell.com | Official Website

Success is a Choice | Free Companion Workbook

This Book on Amazon:

Success is a Choice, by John C. Maxwell

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