Book Summary Preview : Your Road Map for Success

The Big Idea
John C. Maxwell, best-selling author of the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, begins this book by sharing an article about how people define success. He reveals that most people who want to be successful misunderstand success, that it is an ideal situation incorporating impossible elements. Some want to have the beauty of a Cindy Crawford or the business acumen of a Bill Gates. He redefines success but stating what it is not. It is not wealth, not a feeling of success, specific possessions, power or achievement. He then cites specific examples of well-known personalities who had achieved all these but could still not consider themselves succesful.

He then sets out to present the idea that after studying the subject of success, success knows your purpose in life, growing to reach your maximum potential and sowing seeds that benefit others. Then success is a journey, not necessarily a destination. This thinking frees an individual to become a success today and not at some distant time in the future.

Knowing Your Purpose
Maxwell quotes psychologist, Viktor Frankl, “Everyone has his own specific vocation… that demands fulfillment. Everyone’s task is as unique as his specific opportunity to implement it.” Maxwell urges people to ask identify his purpose by asking him “For what am I searching? Why was I created? And Do I believe in my potential?” He also says the time to start seeking that purpose is now.

Growing to your Potential
Maxwell says success comes as the result of growing to our potential. He warns that we can do anything but not everything.

He recommends four steps towards growing out toward your potential:

1. Concentrate on one main goal. It is important to know what you are willing to give up to achieve that goal.
2. Concentrate on continual improvement. Each day you should work on being a little bit better than you were yesterday.
3. Forget the past. Despite the mistakes of the past you must learn from them and move on. The past should not hinder you from reaching your potential. He cites Booker T. Washington who did not let slavery and poverty hold him back from founding the Tuskegee Institute. He cites Helen Keller who though blind and dead, went on to finish college and become a noted lecturer and author.
4. Focus on the future. You can only look forward. You will always have room to improve yourself.
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