Book Review: Be a People Person, by John Maxwell

When I acquired this book, I still had the idea to increase my business of selling books on Amazon.  So courtney told me about this large collection of books. There is former pastor, who left his ministry, marriage and his books behind. Sad story.  I didn't find any books that were worth money, but I picked out a few that looked interesting.

I have always seen John Maxwell books that my dad has been reading.  My dad keeps up to date on leadership issues.  The Wikipedia article states that John Maxwell has written 50 books.  So I was interested in reading something written by him, and I could always work on my people skills!

This book is from 1994, and the original date was 1989.  So that makes it one of the first books John Maxwell has written. And it is really impactful and impressive.  And it is brief which is nice. It is filled with fun and relevant stories, and is really convicting.  I am definitely keeping it around.

Some good quotes, used completely without permission.

• Charisma is being more concerned about making others feel good about themselves than you are in making them feel good about you!
• Helen Keller said "Security is mostly a superstition.  It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.  Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.  Life is either a daring adventure or nothing"
• An insecure leader, on the other hand, believes neither in himself or others. Insecure people are afraid to risk building others up with compliments, because they are constantly in need of compliments themselves.
• Establish your worth according to God's value system.
• Develop friendships with confident people.
• Be aware of the specific reasons why the other person requires persuasion and perhaps has resisted it.
• People do things for their reasons, not your reasons
• You can get everything in life you want if you help enough people get what they want.
• In the final analysis, results are what matter; attendance and activity don't.
• I act as I see myself.  In fact, it is impossible to consistently behave in a manner that is inconsistent with the way we see ourselves.
• Criticism is something you can avoid easily by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.
• Criticism: don't undermine the person's self-confidence. Attack the problem, not the person.  Look at yourself before looking at others.