Be All You Can Be: A Challenge to Stretch Your God-Given Potential by John Maxwell Read Free Book Online

motives, he has everything. Dedicate your potential by giving your best to others.
    Develop your potential . You can develop your potential by beginning to accept personal responsibility. Then, realize that God is interested in your development. God is even more interested in your development than he is in your mistakes. Forget your mistakes; start developing. Never limit your potential. Don’t you dare sell yourself short. Fifty years ago Johnny Weismuller was the greatest swimmer of all time. He had fifty swimming records. Today, thirteen-year-old girls break his records every time there’s a swim meet. Don’t limit your potential.

chapter 4

    VICTORIOUS BECAUSE OF A VISION

    H ELEN K ELLER WAS ASKED ONE TIME WHAT would be worse than being born blind. She quickly replied, “To have sight and no vision.” I’ve found that if you ask successful people what has really helped them get where they are in life, invariably they’ll talk about a goal, a dream, a mission, a purpose—something that has been motivating them throughout the years to become what they have finally become.
    Tragically, our world is full of what I would call mundane men, people who see only what is immediate. They only reach out for things they can tangibly put their hands on. They go for the convenient. They never look beyond themselves, and they never look at what they could be. A mundane man may be a truck driver, a bank president, or a schoolteacher. Mundane men can be found in every profession. A mundane man is really someone who lacks depth because he lacks vision. The poorest person in the world is not the person who doesn’t have a nickel. The poorest person in the world is the one who doesn’t have a vision. If you don’t have a dream—a goal and a purpose in life—you’re never going to become what you could become.
    There is a distinguishable difference between successful and unsuccessful people: Successful people are motivated by a dream beyond them. They have a dream that is bigger than themselves; they have something that constantly keeps them going. It’s out of their reach, and yet they believe that if they work hard enough, they will someday hold that dream in their hands. That’s a successful person. Unsuccessful people are only motivated by today. They are not tomorrow thinkers. They’re not looking beyond themselves. They grab with gusto the present, not even taking into consideration what tomorrow may present them.
D REAM S TAGES
    When you receive a vision that could change your life or you’re grabbed by a dream that could really help you become what you want to be, there’s a natural sequence that happens. First, there’s the “I thought it” stage. That’s when a dream just flashes by. Could it be? Maybe this is for me. What would happen if I did that? That’s the “thought it” stage. Every person goes through this stage. Probably not a week goes by in which we don’t dream. Could this be me? What would happen if I did this? We go from the “I thought it” stage to the “I caught it” stage. After we think about some of the dreams that we have and the visions that God gives us, we get excited, and we begin to talk about that dream and see ourselves in it.
    I think everyone goes through these first two stages. But stage three makes the difference between the person who will be successful and the person who won’t be successful. It’s what I call the “I bought it” stage. After we catch that dream, there’s a time when we have to put a deposit down on it. There comes a time when we have to make an investment in it to make it happen. No dream comes true automatically. We have to buy that dream.
    The successful person goes into that third stage and buys the dream. They decide to pay the price. But just as the successful person buys it, the unsuccessful person fights it. It’s at that stage they begin to rationalize; they begin to think about why it wouldn’t work, why it’s not possible, and they