What You Do Today Matters! | John Maxwell | Top 10 Rules

Make every day your masterpiece. The secret of your success, the secret of my success, is determined by what we do daily. The more valid reasons you have to accomplish a dream, the higher the odds are that you will. How we view things determines how we do things.

Need motivation?

Watch the Top 10 with Believe Nation.

What's up, Believe Nation? It's Evan. I believe in you, and this channel is designed to be a part of your daily success routine. So let's get your motivation to a 10 and get you believing in you. Grab a snack and chew on today's lessons from a man who started his journey as a pastor in a small church in Ohio to becoming a leadership expert and a man who sold over 30 million books worldwide. He's John Maxwell, and here's my take on his Top 10 Rules of Success Volume 3. Enjoy. Also, if you wanna know what John and other successful entrepreneurs have to say about building unstoppable confidence, check out my 254 Confidence series where every day For the next 254 days, I will send you a morning video for free to help you build your confidence. The link to join is in the description below.

I've never met a person who was not successful that didn't have a great amount of self-discipline within their life.

Okay, let's kick it off with rule number 1, make today count.

Make every day your masterpiece. The secret of your success, the secret of my success is determined by what we do daily. And we've missed this all the time. I wrote a book called Today Matters. The reason I wrote the book Today Matters is because today matters. We overexaggerate yesterday. We just think we were amazing yesterday. We weren't. Just trust me. Of course, when you're my age, 71, you don't need to worry about it, you forget. The other day I was in a car and Margaret looked at me, she said, John, we're forgetting everything. I said, we kinda are, aren't we? She said, let's do a plan. I said, what's your plan? She said, you remember who we are and I'll remember where we're going. Hey, it's working, it's really working. You gotta divide it up a little bit. You gotta divide it up. We overexaggerate yesterday. Hey, we overestimate tomorrow. Oh yeah, oh tomorrow, I'll get to that tomorrow. Oh yeah, oh yeah, I'll do that tomorrow. Oh yeah, oh yeah, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. By the way, good intentions are worthless. Worthless, folks. When are you gonna fall out of love with good intentions? They're worthless. Good intentions are worthless unless they lead to good actions. Nobody ever had their life changed by somebody hoping, thinking. Good intentions are not enough.

Rule number 2: Don't live someone else's dream.

I wrote a book, oh, I know, maybe 8, 10 years ago called Put Your Dream to the Test. Okay. And it's just a good solid book, and in it The kind of the thesis of that book was that the more valid reasons you have to accomplish a dream, the higher the odds are that you will. Now that's a powerful thesis. So I mean, there's no cotton candy here. There's no hype stuff here. And so I basically looked at what are the valid reasons to achieve a dream, and there were 10 of them. And so I formed it in a way of questions. But the first one, the first question is, is your dream really your dream? And that's where we start at. 'Cause can I tell you something? If your dream isn't really your dream, ain't going to work. And I tell people in this book, hey, the first dream we have isn't our dream. It's our parents' dream. My mom and dad, when I was 7, they thought I was going to be a musician. And so I've taken piano lessons from 7 years old to about 13. I wasn't any good at it. It wasn't your giftedness. It wasn't my giftedness, but they're so proud. They go to my recitals and clap. You see, I'm living their dream. I'm playing the piano. I can't play the piano. I'm not very good at it. I'm not gifted, but it doesn't matter. I'm living their dream. So what I tell people all the time is we start off our life living someone else's dream, probably our parents. So what happens is a lot of people as adults, they never switch. So true. And so they're still living someone else's dream. And again, it's like a biblical analogy. It's King David before he was king putting on King Saul's armor. Yes, yes. It's not fitting and he's staggering around there. Well, I know a lot of people, They're putting on someone else's armor and they just aren't going to achieve because it's not who they are. It's not their dream.

Rule number 3, change your perspective.

How we view things determines how we do things. That's just an incredible principle. Now, each one of these I could preach 30 minutes on, but they won't let me do that. But how I view things determines exactly. So if I view things in a perspective of wanting to I serve with excellence, guess what I'll do? I'll serve with excellence. If I view things in a very kind of average way, then I'll put average into that endeavor. So how I view things is how I do things. Let me give you another perspective principle that's just huge too, and that is what you see is who you will be. And we see things not as they are, we see things as we are. That's why two people can be in the same situation, same experience, same place, and see things completely different than anyone else. So what is before you isn't what you see. Who you are is what you see.

Rule number 4: Make a difference.

You see, my journey on how to make a difference was when I was in my 20s and my assistant— I was a pastor, I started off pastoring. She gave me a Christmas present, I opened it up and the title, it was a book, and the title of the book was The Greatest Story Ever Told. Now I love to read and I thought, oh my gosh, what a title, The Greatest Story Ever Told. I, with great anticipation, opened up the book and when I opened up the book, all, much to my surprise, all the pages were blank. And I looked at her and I said, it says The Greatest Story Ever Told. She said, turn to the first page. I turned to the first page and she had written a note for me. Dear John, your life is before you. You fill these pages with your dreams, with your hopes, with matters of your heart. You write your story and make it the greatest story ever told. I took that book home with me and the next morning, I wasn't a writer at that time at all, next morning I started writing my first book and this was for me. And the first words on that blank page, the first words I put on that blank page was, I want to make a difference. Because that's exactly what I wanna do, I wanna make a difference. So as you start to take this make a difference journey in our series that we've been doing on vision, and this is the last of the four, as you start your make a difference journey, the first step, one, is I want to make a difference. It begins there, it's already in your heart. It was sown in your heart when you were created. I can still remember being in the 4th grade and walking across the campus at a camp meeting. My father was an overseer for about 250 pastors, and he was so greatly loved, and he made such a difference in so many leaders' life. And I would hold his hand, and I was 4th grade, and I kinda wanted to go to lunch, and it's only a 3-minute walk across the campus, but for my dad it was a 30-minute walk, 'cause he'd stop and pray with people and encourage people, believe in people and love on people. And I would watch people come and just, I could tell how much they adored him and loved him. And I'm in the 4th grade and I'm saying, when I get older, I wanna be just like my dad. I just wanna make a difference. I just wanna add value to people. I really, I just wanna make a difference. And when you think about it, when you're making a difference, your spirit is high, your morale is high. All of a sudden you feel good about yourself and you feel good about others.

Rule number 5: Start moving.

I'm responsible, Ed, to move on what I see today.

Mm-hmm.

There's a whole bunch of people, they're wanting to hold and not move because they don't see 3 days, 5 days, you know, 2 years out, whatever. And what I'm saying is it's kind of like the lights of a car. If I go to the parking lot at night, turn on the lights and say, oh my gosh, I can't go anywhere, I don't see my house. Well, no, no, no. Get in the car and start moving in the direction you're supposed to move in. And guess what? You only get about 300 feet of light. You don't get 7 miles of light. You don't get to see your house. You've got to utilize the light you've got so that you can get to where you want to go. And so many people, they're uncomfortable with that light because it's, well, it's not long enough and what's around the corner. And the whole issue is you don't know what's around the corner until you go around the corner. Oh gosh, that's so good. And so you just, so you have to be very comfortable, which I am. You have to be very comfortable with traveling, not having all the answers. So true. But can I tell you something? The only way you get all the answers is to go all the way through. Absolutely. You don't get all the answers on this side. And so if I've gotta have it lined up and straight and right, and I feel comfortable with it, then I'll never be the leader. And here, I really believe this, Ed. I believe a lot of leaders fall short because they're unwilling to take what they know now and act on it. And so therefore, they never get to know what they could know.

Rule number 6: Shift your mindset.

Every miracle in the Bible has one thing in common, just one thing in common. Trust me on this, I've studied it. The only thing in common— every miracle in the Bible begins with a problem. You never see a miracle in the Bible without a problem first. There's a problem And then a miracle. So what does that mean? Well, what that means is that when you have a problem, you're blessed because you're a candidate for a miracle. You see, the only person that has a problem is the person that doesn't have a problem. Ah. You see, if you have a little problem, you're a candidate for a little miracle. If you got a big problem, you're a candidate for a big miracle. I mean, choose the problem and choose the miracle. But if you have no problem, you're not a candidate for a miracle. I feel badly for you.

Rule number 7, value people.

In the business community, the number 1 question they're asking me right now is how to deal with millennials. Yeah. And, you know— Forbes magazine number 2 challenge. Yeah. And so what I say to them is this. Before we deal with them, before we fix them or whatever we're going to do with them— They don't think they need fixing. That's exactly right. And maybe they don't. But we do. I share with these leaders, value them. You see, everything begins with valuing people. There are gaps, obvious age gaps, thinking gaps, but the first thing you have to do is you have to find common ground, and the common ground that I find with people is I value them, period. No strings attached. Regardless of age, regardless of anything, I value them. That's kind of Jesus-like. That's what he did in the gospels. Now, the moment that you value a millennial, you find some common ground, you can then begin to have some understanding, of which I say it's our responsibility as elders, seniors, to understand them first instead of making sure they understand us.

Rule number 8: Follow your calling.

When I made this transition into the, uh, into the business world, uh, what I discovered was, as you were talking a moment ago, the, you know, you feel the tug on your heart, the kind of like, wow, I started here and now I'm over here. Here's what I believe. I believe that as you follow your dream It gets bigger. And when it gets bigger, there are more things that you're learning about it that you didn't know when you started. In the beginning, the dream is just, you know, it's just very little and you can kind of see it. So you go that way, but then it begins, then it begins to expand. And for me, it's a calling. And let me just say this. I'm not trying to be over-spiritual, but somebody asked me the other day what a calling was. And I like kind of my new definition for calling. Okay. In fact, in my book, Leadership, one of my chapters is shifting from career to calling. And how do I make that shift? But I think a calling is a purpose with a divine touch.

Rule number 9, serve.

If you want 2019 to be the year that you really want it to be, here's the secret of making it a great year. Every day, serve someone. Every day. Every day, add value to people. Every day, serve one. Every day, live the intentional life of doing for others sometimes what they cannot do for themselves. And if you will put people first and add value to them and serve them, it becomes absolutely amazing what you and I are going to have and achieve, how we're gonna help people, and in return, how it comes back to us. Benjamin Franklin said this. No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of someone else. If you're helping someone else lift a load in your life, you become a very useful person. Mahatma Gandhi said that the best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. But perhaps on this kind of a theme, my favorite quote is from Albert Schweitzer, who said, I don't know what your destiny will be, but One thing I do know, the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve. Boy, he's right on. The happiest people are not always the most successful people, but they're the ones who serve the best. I've met a lot of unhappy successful people, haven't you? But I've never met, never met an unhappy person that gave their life of serving and giving and adding value to other people. Martin Luther King Jr.

said, "Everybody can be great because everybody can serve." And rule number 10, the last one before a very special bonus clip, is love what you do.

You're probably wondering, is there more for John Maxwell at this age? Are you finished writing? Are you starting a whole new thing? Are you— you're not going to stop dreaming. No, I'm not even— in fact, I'm having the greatest time of my life. I'm learning more right now than I've ever learned. Through the John Maxwell Leadership Foundation, we're doing transformation in countries and we're seeing greater changes than I've ever seen before. And people come say, "Well, when are you going to retire?" And I say, "I'm not going to retire." That doesn't seem to satisfy them, so I just tell them, "When I die, I'll retire. I won't do any more speaking, I won't write any more books. When I'm dead, I'm dead." I want to do is live until I die and not get the two confused. You know what I mean?

Now I've got a really special bonus clip from John on how to keep growing that I think you're really going to enjoy. But before that, it's time for the 3-point landing questions. Time to go from just watching another video to taking action in your life or business. And if you're feeling bold, leave your answers in the comments below. Here we go. Question number 1: How can you serve someone today? Number 2: What do you need to just start moving on today? And number 3: What mindset shift do you need to make?

The greatest detriment of tomorrow's success is today's success. Because the tendency is for me when I'm successful, Ed, to hold on to it and say, okay, okay, let's not change anything. We've got the formula, we got it down. We're making some good money, we're helping some people. So let's, you know, let's kind of box it and kind of set it apart and let's keep it just as it is. And of course, that's a disaster. In fact, that's one of the reasons why I wrote the book Leaderships is because I wanted to help people understand that that there's no such thing as leading people the same way forever, that you have to keep learning and growing and, and, and shifting and making those shifts in your life.

If you want more John Maxwell, check out the first top 10 rules video I made on him. The link is right there next to me. I think you'll enjoy it. Continue to believe, and I'll see you there.

And that never quite rang true with me. This something-for-nothing entitlement mindset that invades so many people's lives.