University of Minnesota - UMN Executive Leadership Insights
No Limits
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No Limits

Blow the CAP Off Your Capacity

John C. Maxwell
Center Street, 2018
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Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Applicable
  • Engaging
  • Inspiring

Recommendation

Prolific leadership author John C. Maxwell targets a list of 17 core leadership capabilities – including creativity, discipline and character– and details how you can maximize your potential in each area. His primary message is that your personal abilities are unlimited, but you must work your way out of the mental limits – or “caps” – you’ve set for yourself. Maxwell assures you that when you eliminate the ways you tamp down your core capacities and stop holding yourself back, you can move from supposed limits to limitless potential.

Summary

Your potential is unlimited when you have the right attitude and make the right decisions.

In the 1920s, mountaineer George Mallory led Britain’s first three expeditions to climb Mt. Everest. The first two expeditions were unsuccessful. During Mallory’s third expedition, an avalanche killed him and most of his people. 

Back in England, the surviving expedition members participated in a banquet to honor those who had died. One of the survivors spoke vehemently, addressing the mountain directly. He issued this challenge: “I speak to you, Mount Everest, in the name of all brave men living and those yet unborn. Mount Everest, you defeated us once; you defeated us twice; you defeated us three times. But Mount Everest, we shall someday defeat you, because you can’t grow any bigger and we can!

A couple of decades after the Mallory tragedy, New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Tibetan Sherpa Tenzing Norgay made it to the summit of Mount Everest. In the years since then, more than 7,000 people have reached that mountaintop – evidence of people’s ability to expand their personal capacities. 

Mountains are...

About the Author

Author, speaker and pastor John Maxwell also wrote Developing the Leader Within You; The 5 Levels of Leadership; The Self-Aware Leader, and many other titles. Business Insider and Inc. have referred to Maxwell as the world’s most influential leadership expert, and his books sell in the millions

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