Every time we make an excuse, we fail to learn from our mistakes.

I love the story about the shortest letter to the editor written to England's newspaper the Daily Mail. When the editor invited readers to send in their answers to the question, "What's wrong with the world?" writer G. K. Chesterton is reputed to have sent the following: Dear Sir, I am. Yours sincerely, G. K. Chesterton.

Before I discovered that helping myself made me more capable of helping others. That's one of the reasons I tell people that to add value to others, they must make themselves more valuable. You can't give something you don't have. You can't tell what you don't know. You can't share what you don't feel. No one gives out of a vacuum.

Stopping to reflect is one of the most valuable activities people can do to grow.

Final analysis, results are what matter; attendance and activity don't.

Psychologist and New York Times best-selling author Phil McGraw states, "I always say that the most important relationship you will ever have is with yourself. You've got to be your own best friend first." How can you be "best friends" with someone you don't know or don't like? You can't. That's why it's so important to find out who you are and work to become someone you like and respect.

We should work on changing ourselves before trying to improve others. A great danger to good leadership is the temptation to try to change others without first making changes to yourself.

The bottom line is that when you long for the gifts, favor, position, or opportunities of someone else, it distracts you from the gifts, favor, position, and opportunities that God has given YOU.

Most people's natural inclination is to judge themselves according to their best qualities while they measure others by their worst. As a result, they point to areas where their teammates need to grow. But the truth is that every person is responsible for his own growth first.

The unexamined life is not worth leading." I would add that the unexamined leader is not worth following.

No matter what our circumstances, our greatest limitation isn't the leader above us—it's the spirit within us.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.