Attitude Shaping and Shifting: “Maxim”ize Your Life

Maxims are just short pithy quotes or sayings designed to convey a truth or principle of life. I recommend collecting and storing the good ones by subject and memorizing the best ones. They will elevate your thoughts, shape your perspectives, and alter your behavior over time. Winston Churchill wrote, “Quotations, when engraved upon the memory give you good thoughts.” And Samuel Johnson, “He is a great benefactor of mankind who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may easily be impressed on the memory, and so recur habitually to the mind.”

You should collect and memorize the ones that resonate and have meaning for you but here are some of my favorites:

"When predictability goes up, impact goes down."
Howard Hendricks

"You have a strategy that is perfectly designed to get the results you are getting."
Andy Stanley

"Every adversity carries with it the seed for an equal or greater benefit."
W. Clement Stone

"It’s your job as a leader to create an atmosphere that… transforms antagonism into creative energy."
John Kao, Harvard Business School

“He who can copy can do.”
Leonardo da Vinci

“The way we see the problem is the problem.”
Stephen Covey

"It is possible to move a mountain by carrying away small stones."
Chinese Proverb

"I have a plan of action, but the game is a game of adjustments."
Mike Krzyzewski, Basketball Coach, Duke University

"I wake up so excited I can’t eat breakfast."
Stephen Spielberg, Film Maker

"I tap dance to work each morning."
Warren Buffet

You can find another set listed in the right hand side-bar of this blog that specifically have to do with selling.

Also, some of the most powerful maxim’s you can memorize are found in the Bible. Over the years I have committed dozens of these to memory:

“Be bold and strong and remember the Lord your God is with you where ever you go.” From Joshua 1:9
(I have recited this one over and over as I was walking into tough cold calls)

“For I know the plans I have for you says the Lord, plans for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11

“All things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose.”
Romans 8:28

“A gentle answer deflects anger, but harsh words make tempers flare.” Proverbs 15:1