Success Is a Choice

Make the Choices that Make You Successful

John C. Maxwell

• Publisher: HarperCollins Leadership
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780785238607
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Personal Success

Are you tired of not reaching your full potential? Do you feel you have the talent to succeed but are unappreciated and trapped? Learn how to unlock your potential for success!

Abridged from his New York Times bestselling book,? Beyond Talent, leadership expert and author Dr. John C. Maxwell states that if the above describes you, this book can help you learn the right choices that lead to success from the go-to-guru for business professionals across the globe.

In Success Is a Choice, Maxwell shows you how to take the next steps that successful people chose, including:

• Believing in themselves
• Firing up their passion
• Initiating action
• Focusing their energy
• Cultivating good relationships
• Embracing practice

The choices you make in addition to your talent make the greatest difference. With authentic examples and time-tested wisdom, Success Is a Choice shares fourteen choices you need to make to live the life of your dreams.

It's time to go beyond talent by making right choices that will help you really stand out.

Chapter 1
Commit to Choices That Bring Success

Where does success come from? French poet and dramatist Edouard Pailleron pointed out, “Have success and there will always be fools to say that you have talent.” When people achieve great things, others often explain their accomplishments by simply attributing everything to talent. But that is a false and misleading way of looking at success. If talent alone were enough, then why would you and I know highly talented people who are not highly successful?

Talent is never enough. Peter Drucker, the father of modern management, said, “There seems to be little correlation between a man’s effectiveness and his intelligence, his imagination, or his knowledge . . . Intelligence, imagination, and knowledge are essential resources, but only effectiveness converts them into results. By themselves, they only set limits to what can be contained.”1 If talent were enough, then the most effective and influential people would always be the most talented ones. But that is often not the case. Consider this:

• More than fifty percent of all CEOs of Fortune 500 companies had C or C- averages in college.
• Sixty-five percent of all U.S. senators came from the bottom half of their school classes.
• Seventy-five percent of U.S. presidents were in the Lower-Half Club in school.
• More than fifty percent of millionaire entrepreneurs never finished college!2

Clearly talent isn’t everything. So what makes the difference?

Do You Have What It Takes?

So what does it take to succeed? Can anyone be successful? And where does talent fit in at all? Here’s what I believe:

1. Everyone Has Talent

People have equal value, but not equal giftedness. Some people seem to be blessed with a multitude of talents. Most of us have fewer abilities. But know this: all of us have something we can do well.

In their book Now, Discover Your Strengths, Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton state that every person is capable of doing something better than the next ten thousand people. And they support that assertion with solid research. They call this area the strength zone, and they encourage everyone to find it and make the most of it. It doesn’t matter how aware you are of your abilities, how you feel about yourself, or whether you previously have achieved success. You are who you ae, and you do have talent, which you can develop.

2. Develop the Talent You Have, Not the One You Want

If I asked you who would be more successful, the person who relies on his talent alone or the person who realizes his talent and develops it, the answer would be obvious. Then I’ll ask you this question: Why do most people spend the majority of their time focused on strengthening their weaknesses?

One thing I teach people at my conferences is to stop working on their weaknesses and start working on their strengths. (By this I mean abilities, not attitude or character issues, which must be addressed.) It has been my observation that people can increase their ability in an area by only two points on a scale of 1 to 10. For example, if your natural talent in an area is a 4, with hard work you may rise to a 6. In other words, you can go from a little below average to a little above average. But let’s say you find a place where you are a 7; you have the potential to become a 9, maybe even a 10, if it’s your greatest area of strength and you work exceptionally hard! That helps you advance from 1 in 10,000 talent to 1 in 100,000 talent—but only if you do the other things needed to maximize your talent.

3. Anyone Can Make Choices That Will Add Value to Talent

So if you should focus on developing your best talent, and not your weaknesses, where should you expend your energy? On your choices. The key choices you make—apart from the natural talent you already have—will set you apart from others who have talent alone. Orator, attorney, and political leader William Jennings Bryan said, “Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.”

Success is your choice. If you’re willing to commit yourself to making the right choices, you can achieve success. I’ve discovered fourteen key choices that can make a difference.

• Commit to Choices That Bring Success
• Believe in Yourself
• Fire Up Your Passion
• Initiate Action
• Focus Your Energy
• Value Preparation
• Embrace Practice
• Embody Perseverance
• Demonstrate Courage
• Become More Teachable
• Develop Strong Character
• Cultivate Good Relationships
• Commit to Responsibility
• Lean In to Teamwork

Make these choices, and you can become the successful person you’ve always desired to be.

You Can Do It!

I believe the ideas in this book can help you. Life is a matter of choices, and every choice you make makes you. What will you do for your career? Whom will you marry? Where will you live? How much education will you get? What will you do with today? But one of the most important choices you will make is who will you become! Life is not merely a matter of holding and playing a good hand as you would hope to do in a card game. What you start with isn’t up to you. Talent is God-given. Life is doing a great job of playing the hand you have been dealt. That is determined by your choices.

Who You Are + Right Choices = Success

If you’re willing to commit to making the right choices, you can reach your potential and fulfill your destiny.

I was reading a book by Dr. Seuss to my grandchildren called Oh, the Places You’ll Go! In it, I found a wonderful truth. It said,

You have brains in your head.

You have feet in your shoes.

You can steer yourself

Any direction you choose.3

I believe that with all my heart. My prayer is that this book will help you steer yourself in the right direction and make right choices that will empower you to become a success.