Today Matters: 12 Practices to Guarantee Tomorrow’s Success
Read: 2023
Education/Leadership, Non-Fiction
My friend Rick Lopez is a devout follower and fan of John Maxwell. Since Rick is probably the most organized and intentional person I’ve ever met in my life, I figured I should familiarize myself with Mr. Maxwell’s thinking.
“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.” In other words, today matters. A lot.
Maxwell uses the wisdom of John Wooden and Steven Covey in his emphasis on making today a masterpiece.
Some highlights:
- Express gratitude to others daily.
- Focus on your top priority – make sure you get that done. If you have six things on your list, and you just get #1 done, that’s a good day.
- Take care of yourself and your body so that you are ready to make the most of the day. “My friend Zig Ziglar asks the question, ‘If you had a million-dollar racehorse, would you allow it to smoke cigarettes, drink whiskey, and stay out all night? How about a thousand-dollar dog?’ Of course you wouldn’t.
So much of what I read encourages us to not dwell on the past, to stop wondering about the future, and to focus on the present moment. That’s the Power of Now. Maxwell does a great job of not just finding peace by focusing on the present moment, but by maximizing our potential by making the most of each day.
One of my new goals is to imitate my friend Rick and make the ideas of this book fundamental to my day each and every day.
You can purchase the book here.
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