Continued from Page 1

WE BELIEVE SUCCESS COMES FROM RECOGNITION—
SO WE STRIVE FOR IT

In your profession, is there a sure sign that you’ve made it? Would your peers be impressed if you were recognized by Fortune magazine, became a chess grand champion, or won the Lombardi Trophy? If you were named teacher of the year or awarded an honorary doctorate by a prestigious university, would that mean success? Perhaps you have quiet dreams of someday winning an Oscar, an Emmy, or a Grammy. Or do you picture yourself accepting a Pulitzer prize, Fields Medal, or Nobel prize? Every profession or discipline has its own form of recognition. Are you striving to achieve recognition in yours?

In France, a nation of food lovers where chefs receive the highest honors, one of the highest marks of recognition anyone can receive is a three-star rating for his restaurant from the Michelin guide. At present, only twenty-five restaurants in all of France hold that honor. One of them is an establishment in the Burgundy region owned by Bernard Loiseau called the Côte d’Or.

For decades, Chef Loiseau was said to be obsessed with creating the perfect restaurant and receiving the highest rating awarded by Michelin. He worked tirelessly; it takes great work to earn even a two-star rating, but Loiseau achieved it in 1981. And then he worked harder. He perfected each dish on his menu. He improved the restaurant’s service. And he went $5 million in debt to improve and expand his facility. And finally, in 1991, he received his third star. He had accomplished what only a handful of others could.

“We are selling dreams,” he once said. “We are merchants of happiness.”5 But the recognition he received didn’t keep him happy. In the spring of 2003, after the lunch service, he committed suicide by shooting himself. He didn’t warn anyone, nor did he leave a note. Some say he was disconsolate because his rating in another restaurant guide had fallen from nineteen to seventeen (out of twenty). Others described him as a manic-depressive. No one will ever know why he killed himself, but we can be sure that the great recognition he had received in his profession wasn’t enough for him.

WE BELIEVE SUCCESS IS AN EVENT—
SO WE SCHEDULE IT

I’ve dedicated more than thirty years of my life to speaking at events and putting on conferences to help people be more successful and become better leaders. But I’m very realistic about the limited impact an event can make in a person’s life, and I frequently remind conference attendees of those limitations. Events are great places for receiving inspiration and encouragement. They often prompt us to make important decisions to change. And they can even provide knowledge and tools to get us started. However, real, sustainable change doesn’t happen in a moment. It’s a process. Knowing that has always compelled me to write books and record lessons so that people who have made the decision to change have access to tools they can use after the event to help facilitate the process.

We use that process orientation at EQUIP, the nonprofit organization I founded in 1996 with the goal of training and resourcing one million leaders overseas. We don’t simply drop in, put on an event, and disappear. We use a three-year strategy. We begin by translating books and lessons into the local language. After the first teaching event, we give leaders books and tapes to use for their ongoing growth. And teams go back to the country every six months to teach more skills and follow up with leaders.

Don’t get me wrong. Events can be very helpful—as long as we understand what they can and cannot do for us. I want to encourage you to attend events that can be catalysts for change in your life. Just don’t expect them to suddenly bring you success. Growth comes from making decisions and following through on them. And that’s what this book is all about.

Today Matters

People create success in their lives by focusing on today. It may sound trite, but today is the only time you have. It’s too late for yesterday. And you can’t depend on tomorrow. That’s why today matters. Most of the time we miss that. Why? Because . . .

WE OVEREXAGGERATE YESTERDAY

Our past successes and failures often look bigger to us in hindsight than they really were. Some people never get over their past accomplishments: the high school basketball stars or homecoming queens look back at their glory days and define themselves by those accomplishments for the next two decades. The person who receives a patent for an invention might live off the proceeds for the rest of his life and never work another day. A salesperson stays in a five-year slump after being recognized as Employee of the Year. Why? Because he’d rather spend more time thinking about when he was at the top instead of trying to reach that level again.

Even worse are the people who exaggerate what they could have done. You’ve probably heard the saying “The older I am, the better I was.” It’s a curious phenomenon: People who were mediocre high school athletes reach their thirties, and they suddenly believe they could have gone pro. Average businesspeople in dead-end careers at forty believe they could have been Wall Street tycoons if only they had been given a chance. Almost any opportunity that went unpursued looks golden now that it’s too late to go after it.

Then there are the people whose negative experiences shape them for their entire lives. They relive every rejection, failure, and injury they’ve received. And they let those incidents tie them into emotional knots. My friend’s mother still laments that on her fifth birthday, her father gave the best lollipop to her younger sister instead of to her as a present. It still bothers her—and she’s eighty-three years old!

For years I kept a sign on my desk that helped me maintain the right perspective concerning yesterday. It simply said, “Yesterday Ended Last Night.” It reminded me that no matter how badly I might have failed in the past, it’s done, and today is a new day. Conversely, no matter what goals I may have accomplished or awards I may have received, they have little direct impact on what I do today. I can’t celebrate my way to success either.

WE OVERESTIMATE TOMORROW

What is your attitude toward the future? What do you expect it to hold? Do you think things will get better or worse for you? Answer the following questions related to your expectations for the coming two to three years:

1. Do you expect your annual income to go up or down?
Up / Down

2. Do you expect your net worth to increase or decrease?
Increase / Decrease

3. Do you expect to have more or fewer opportunities?
More / Fewer

4. Do you expect your marriage (or most significant relationship) to get better or worse?
Better / Worse

5. Do you expect to have more or fewer friendships?
More / Fewer

6. Do you expect your faith to be stronger or weaker?
Stronger / Weaker

7. Do you expect to be in better or worse physical condition?
Better / Worse

If you’re like most people, your answers reflect that you expect the days ahead to be better. Now, let me ask you one more question: Why do you think that? Is your expectation based on anything other than a vague hope that your life will get better? I trust it is. For many people, it’s not. They just figure that tomorrow is bound to be better, but they have no strategy for making it better. In fact, the worse some people feel about today, the more they exaggerate how good tomorrow is likely to be. They have a lottery mind-set.

Pulitzer prize-winning journalist William Allen White observed, “Multitudes of people have failed to live for today. They have spent their lives reaching for the future. What they have had within their grasp today they have missed entirely, because only the future has intrigued them . . . and the first thing they knew the future became the past.” Hoping for a good future without investing in today is like a farmer waiting for a crop without ever planting any seed.

WE UNDERESTIMATE TODAY

Have you ever asked someone what he was doing and heard him respond, “Oh, I’m just killing time”? Have you ever really thought about that statement? A person might as well say, “I’m throwing away my life” or “I’m killing myself,” because, as Benjamin Franklin asserted, time is “the stuff life is made of.” Today is the only time we have within our grasp, yet many people let it slip through their fingers. They recognize neither today’s value nor its potential.

A friend named Dale Witherington recently e-mailed to me a poem he wrote called “The Lifebuilder’s Creed.” In part, this is what it says:

Today is the most important day of my life.

Yesterday with its successes and victories, struggles and failures is gone forever.

The past is past.

Done.

Finished.

I cannot relive it. I cannot go back and change it.

But I will learn from it and improve my Today.

Today. This moment. NOW.

It is God’s gift to me and it is all that I have.

Tomorrow with all its joys and sorrows, triumphs and troubles isn’t here yet.

Indeed, tomorrow may never come.

Therefore, I will not worry about tomorrow.

Today is what God has entrusted to me.

It is all that I have. I will do my best in it.

I will demonstrate the best of me in it—my character, giftedness, and abilities—to my family and friends, clients and associates.

I will identify those things that are most important to do Today,

and those things I will do until they are done.

And when this day is done

I will look back with satisfaction at that which I have accomplished.

Then, and only then, will I plan my tomorrow,

Looking to improve upon Today, with God’s help.

Then I shall go to sleep in peace . . . content.6

The Missing Piece Has Been Discovered!

If we want to do something with our lives, then we must focus on today. That’s where tomorrow’s success lies. But how do you win today? How do you make today a great day instead of one that falls to pieces? Here’s the missing piece: The secret of your success is determined by your daily agenda.

How would you like every day to . . .

• Possess possibilities?
• Remain focused?
• Enjoy good health?
• Exhibit stability?
• Hold an advantage?
• Possess tenacity?
• Exercise options?
• Sense inner peace?
• Experience fulfillment?
• Feel significant?
• Receive direction?
• Learn and grow?

Wouldn’t that make today a great day?

It all comes down to what you do today. When I talk about your daily “agenda,” I don’t mean your to-do list. Nor am I asking you to adopt a particular kind of calendar or computer program to manage your time. I’m focusing on something bigger. I want you to embrace what may be a whole new approach to life.

Make the Decision Once . . . Then Manage It Daily

There are only a handful of important decisions people need to make in their entire lifetimes. Does that surprise you? Most people complicate life and get bogged down in decision making. My goal has always been to make it as simple as possible. I’ve boiled the big decisions down to twelve things. Once I’ve made those decisions, all I have to do is manage how I’ll follow through on them.

If you make decisions in those key areas once and for all—and then manage those decisions daily—you can create the kind of tomorrow you desire. Successful people make right decisions early and manage those decisions daily. The earlier you make those right decisions and the longer you manage them, the more successful you can become. The people who neglect to make those decisions and to manage them well often look back on their lives with pain and regret—no matter how much talent they possessed or how many opportunities they once had.

Regret in the End

A classic example of such a person was Oscar Wilde. A poet, playwright, novelist, and critic, Wilde was a man of unlimited potential. Born in 1854, he won scholarships and was educated in Britain’s best schools. He excelled in Greek, winning the Gold Medal at Trinity College for his studies. He was awarded the Newdigate Prize and was honored as “First in Greats” at Oxford. His plays were popular, earned him lots of money, and he was the toast of London. His talent seemed limitless. Karen Kenyon, writer for British Heritage magazine, called Wilde “our most quotable writer” after Shakespeare.7

Yet at the end of his life, he was broken and miserable. His wanton living landed him in prison. From jail, he wrote a perspective on his life. In it, he said,

I must say to myself that I ruined myself, and that nobody great or small can be ruined except by his own hand. I am quite ready to say so. I am trying to say so, though they may not think it at the present moment. This pitiless indictment I bring without pity against myself. Terrible as was what the world did to me, what I did to myself was far more terrible still.

I was a man who stood in symbolic relations to the art and culture of my age. I had realised this for myself at the very dawn of my manhood, and had forced my age to realise it afterwards. Few men hold such a position in their own lifetime, and have it so acknowledged. It is usually discerned, if discerned at all, by the historian, or the critic, long after both the man and his age have passed away. With me it was different. I felt it myself, and made others feel it. Byron was a symbolic figure, but his relations were to the passion of his age and its weariness of passion. Mine were to something more noble, more permanent, of more vital issue, of larger scope.

The gods had given me almost everything. But I let myself be lured into long spells of senseless and sensual ease. I amused myself with being a FLANEUR, a dandy, a man of fashion. I surrounded myself with the smaller natures and the meaner minds. I became the spendthrift of my own genius, and to waste an eternal youth gave me a curious joy. Tired of being on the heights, I deliberately went to the depths in the search for new sensation. What the paradox was to me in the sphere of thought, perversity became to me in the sphere of passion. Desire, at the end, was a malady, or a madness, or both. I grew careless of the lives of others. I took pleasure where it pleased me, and passed on. I forgot that every little action of the common day makes or unmakes character, and that therefore what one has done in the secret chamber one has some day to cry aloud on the housetop. I ceased to be lord over myself. I was no longer the captain of my soul, and did not know it. I allowed pleasure to dominate me. I ended in horrible disgrace. There is only one thing for me now, absolute humility.8 (emphasis added)

By the time Wilde saw where his inattention to the day was going to land him, it was too late. He lost his family, his fortune, his self-respect, and his will to live. He died bankrupt and broken at age forty-six.

I believe that everyone has the power to impact the outcome of his life. The way to do it is to focus on today. Benjamin Franklin rightly observed, “One today is worth two tomorrows; what I am to be, I am now becoming.” You can make today a good day. In fact, you can make it a masterpiece. That is the subject of the next chapter.

© 2004 by John C. Maxwell.