John C. Maxwell (born 1947) is an American pastor, author, and “leadership expert.” He is the founder of Injoy, a “people development company.” He graduated from Azusa Pacific University.

Maxwell has written over forty books (mostly on leadership); including “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership” (with Zig Ziglar) and “The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader: Becoming the Person Others Will Want to Follow”, among others. His books have sold over seven million copies, with several on the New York Times Best Seller’s List and translations in over fifty languages.

Over the last few years I have read three of his books. The first of which is titled: “THE 21 MOST POWERFUL MINUTES in a LEADER’S DAY” was quite an eye opener. As he is a pastor, you can guess where much of his leadership inspiration comes from, the bible of course. This is a wonderful fact as all too many people do not read much of the good book anymore.

Aside from the religious connotations, the books are quite worth the price of reading. His books are both well written and quite enlightening to anyone who is interested in becoming a leader.

Of course you may not think of yourself as a leader. But that is ok. If you plan to run your own company, you will become one. If you like to do things in your community, you will become one. Doing anything in which you lead by example, in life, work, play or otherwise, then you w ill become one.

The other two books I have read from his collection are “Developing the Leader Within You” and “Today Matters”.

Of these two books I found that “Today Matters“ is quite profound in what it expresses. Quite literally, that today is the “only” day that truly matters. I like this book because of these three very valid key points.

· Yesterday is gone, over, done with, so do not dwell on it.

· Today is the only day that matters. You must live today for today’s sake. Do not dwell on yesterday, and do not overly worry about tomorrow.

· Tomorrow is not here yet. So live by a good set of guidelines today and tomorrow will work out for itself

It is a hard concept to swallow, but in fact is all too true. Everyone is so worried about yesterday and tomorrow that they forget about today. What you are doing today affects what you do tomorrow.

If you learn how to have the right attitudes, priorities, health, faith, finances and more in the here and now- TODAY!, then you will be better off tomorrow and in the future because you will have a more stable platform from which to grow.

I am presently reading his book “Talent Is Never Enough“. In this book he points out that simply being a talented individual is not enough to get by. It kind of reminds me about high school. There were always a few people who breezed through with ease. But where are they now? You have to do things to maximize your talent’s potential.

I will let you know how the book goes in more detail when I am finished. Until then, consider getting a copy and reading it yourself.

It will never hurt you to improve upon yourself.

To your continued success,

Derek