Stephen Covey Quotations | Page 3

As human beings, we are responsible for our own lives. Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions. We can subordinate feelings to values.

Love - the feeling - is a fruit of love, the verb.

The key to the ability to change is a changeless sense of who you are, what you are about and what you value.

In addition to self-awareness, imagination and conscience, it is the fourth human endowment - independent will - that really makes effective self-management possible. It is the ability to make decisions and choices and to act in accordance with them. It is the ability to act rather than to be acted upon, to proactively carry out the program we have developed through the other three endowments. Empowerment comes from learning how to use this great endowment in the decisions we make every day.

I am convinced that if we as a society work diligently in every other area of life and neglect the family, it would be analogous to straightening deck chairs on the Titanic.

True independence of character empowers us to act rather than be acted upon.

Proactive people carry their own weather with them.

More essential than working on attitudes and behaviors is examining the paradigms out of which those attitudes and behaviors flow.

The way we see things is the source of the way we think or the way we act

Interdependence is a choice only independent people can make

Make time for planning: Wars are won in the general's tent.

You can buy a person's hands but you can't buy his heart. His heart is where his enthusiasm, his loyalty is.

As we create synergy among the roles of our lives, there's more of us to put into the time we have.

Power is the faculty or capacity to act, the strength and potency to accomplish something. It is the vital energy to make choices and decisions. It also includes the capacity to overcome deeply embedded habits and to cultivate higher, more effective ones.

Without trust, the best we can do is compromise.

Balance isn't either/or; it's 'and'.

It's easy to say ''no!'' when there's a deeper ''yes!'' burning inside.

The more involved you are, the more significant your learning will be.

I don't read blogs but occasionally people tell me about what they contain, and I do take questions that come from blogs.

I am senting many books for endorsement purposes, which enables me to stay relevant in my own field, and I have people that help me decide which ones I should read and endorse.

I love interaction with audiences. If were my choice, I would spend most of my time interacting with audiences. Walking around and asking them to challenge me.

Executives need to understand the economic benefits of trust dividend, especially when the behavior is real, not artificially or superficially created as PR to manipulate trust.

Unfortunately, too many executives believe the myths about trust. Myths like how trust is soft and is merely a social virtue. The reality is that trust is hard-edged and is an economic driver.

Trust is a function of both character and competence. Of course you can't trust someone who lacks integrity, but if someone is honest but they can't perform, you're not going to trust them either. You won't trust them to get the job done.

Trust is a powerful accelerator to performance and when trust goes up, speed also goes up while cost comes down - producing what we call a trust dividend.

Brands need to reinvent themselves from time to time to stay relevant.

I am fortunate to have a very helpful team that enables me to spend time doing things that are important but not necessarily urgent. People who have no such team need to also make these larger decisions so that they can cheerfully say No to that which is urgent but not important.

When I started teaching I realized that I had never had such a level of satisfaction and such a feeling of fulfillment and sense of contribution. Just like that. But, usually it's more cumulative, slow, evolutionary and less revolutionary.

Belief is another word for paradigm. It's a synonymous. Your belief of the way things are. Values are the way things should be, it's a paradigm of the way things should be. Beliefs are the paradigms of the way things are.

Trust is a competency. It's something you can get good at. It's a strength you personally, and your team and your company can master. Being good at it will elevate every other strength you have.

Strategy is important, but trust is the hidden variable. On paper you can have clarity around your objectives, but in a low-trust environment, your strategy won't be executed.

Trust is clearly a key competency. A competency or skill that can be learned, taught, and improved and one that talent can be screened for.

I see myself living by correct principles and accomplishing worthy purposes. One of my favorite quotes is, "The greatest battles of life are fought out every day in the silent chambers of one's own soul." (David O. McKay).

I win the private victory when I have made my mind up and commit to live by correct principles and to serve worthy purposes.

I keep my phone number unlisted and rely on my associates to handle all voice mail, e-mail, faxes.

People are social beings and want interaction and social learning is the primary form of learning, just as word of mouth advertising is the highest form of advertising.

I believe that God is the source of all the universal, timeless principles. And to Him, I give all the credit and the glory. However, to a person who is not religious, I believe they can live to the highest level of their conscience and develop spiritual intelligence that surpasses most people, including many religious people, who profess but do not practice.

Most learning is social, or what I call the cultural DNA. Everyone knows that word of mouth advertising is the best advertising. That's social learning.

Listen, involve, synergize at work. Then you will bury the old and create an entirely new winning culture which will unleash people's talents and create complementary teams where strengths are made productive and weakness are made irrelevant through the strengths of others.

All things are created twice. There is a mental (first) creation, and a physical (second) creation. The physical creation follows the mental, just as a building follows a blueprint. If you don't make a conscious effort to visualize who you are and what you want in life, then you empower other people and circumstances to shape you and your life by default.

At the core, there is one simple, overarching reason why so many people remain unsatisfied in their work and why most organisations fail to draw out the greatest talent, ingenuity, and creativity of their people and never become truly great, enduring organisations. It stems from an incomplete paradigm of who we are - our fundamental view of human nature. The fundamental reality is, human beings are not things needing to be motivated and controlled; they are four-dimensional - body, mind, heart, and spirit.

When parents see their children's problems as opportunities to build the relationship instead of as negative, burdensome irritations, it totally changes the nature of parent-child interaction. Parents become more willing, even excited, about deeply understanding and helping their children. . . . This paradigm is powerful in business as well.

We must never be too busy to take time to sharpen the saw.

To achieve goals you've never achieved before, you need to start doing things you've never done before.

I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.

In the absence of wake-up calls, many of us never really confront the critical issues of life.

What does it matter how much we do if what we're doing isn't what matters most?

Live your life by a compass, not a clock.

The reality is that everybody makes mistakes. The issue isn't whether you will make them, it's what you will do about them. It's whether you will choose the path of humility and courage or the path of ego and pride.

If two people have the same opinion, one is unnecessary. ... I don't want to talk, to communicate, with someone who agrees with me; I want to communicate with you because you see it differently. I value that difference.

If you can hire people whose passion intersects with the job, they won't require any supervision at all. They will manage themselves better than anyone could ever manage them. Their fire comes from within, not from without. Their motivation is internal, not external.

Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply. They're either speaking or preparing to speak. They're filtering everything through their own paradigms, reading their autobiography into other people's lives.

The amateur salesman sells products; the professional sells solutions to needs and problems.

Improve relationships with others by assuming that they can hear everything you say about them

Nothing is as fast as the speed of trust. Nothing is as fulfilling as a relationship of trust. Nothing is as inspiring as an offering of trust. Nothing is as profitable as the economics of trust. Nothing has more influence than a reputation of trust.

As you begin to think more in terms of importance, you begin to see time differently.

Most people define greatness through wealth and popularity and position in the corner office. But what I call everyday greatness comes from character and contribution.

We judge ourselves by our intentions. And others by their actions.

Motivation is a fire from within. If someone else tries to light that fire under you, chances are it will burn very briefly.

Too many vacations that last too long, too many movies, too much TV, too much video game playing - too much undisciplined leisure time in which a person continually takes the course of least resistance gradually wastes a life. It ensures that a person's capacities stay dormant, that talents remain undeveloped, that the mind and spirit become lethargic and that the heart remains unfulfilled.

If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster.

It's not what people do to us that hurts us. In the most fundamental sense, it is our chosen response to what they do to us that hurts us.

The key is in not spending time, but in investing it.

What you do has far greater impact than what you say.

If I really want to improve my situation, I can work on the one thing over which I have control - myself.

Integrity is conforming reality to our words - in other words, keeping promises and fulfilling expectations.

By behaving in ways that build trust with one, you build trust with many.

The problems in life come when we're sowing one thing and expecting to reap something entirely different.

Organize and execute around priorities.

When you make a commitment to yourself, do so with the clear understanding that you're pledging your integrity.

Begin with the end in mind.

I am personally convinced that one person can be a change catalyst, a 'transformer' in any situation, any organization. Such an individual is yeast that can leaven an entire loaf. It requires vision, initiative, patience, respect, persistence, courage, and faith to be a transforming leader.

Life is a mission, not a career.

You can't have the fruits without the roots.

It's not enough to have values without vision ; you want to be good, but you want to be good for something. On the other hand, vision without values can create a Hitler . An empowering mission statement deals with both character and competence; what you want to be and what you want to do in your life.

It is possible to be busy-very busy-without being very effective.

If you put good people in bad systems you get bad results. You have to water the flowers you want to grow.

You can learn great things from your mistakes when you aren’t busy denying them.

Success in one role can't justify failure in another.

Look at the word responsibility-"response-ability"-the ability to choose your response. Highly proactive people recognize that responsibility. They do not blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. Their behavior is a product of their own conscious choice, based on values, rather than a product of their conditions, based on feeling.

The most important ingredient we put into any relationship is not what we say or what we do, but what we are. And if our words and our actions come from superficial human relations techniques (the Personality Ethic) rather than from our own inner core (the Character Ethic), others will sense that duplicity. We simply won't be able to create and sustain the foundation necessary for effective interdependence.

Ineffective people live day after day with unused potential. They experience synergy only in small, peripheral ways in their lives. But creative experiences can be produced regularly, consistently, almost daily in people's lives. It requires enormous personal security and openness and a spirit of adventure.

The key to the 99 is the one. Or, put another way, the key to the group is the one individual. Think about the one, talk to the one, regard the one, serve the one. If you are sincere and constant, you will discover that gradually your influence with the many will be magnified.

To know and not to do is not to know.

Listen to your conscience regarding something that you simply know you should do, then start small on it - make a promise and keep it. Then move forward and make a little larger promise and keep it. Eventually you'll discover that your sense of honor will become greater than your moods, and that will give you a level of confidence and excitement that you can move to other areas where you feel you need to make improvements or give service.

When you engage in a work that taps your talent and fuels your passion-that rises out of a great need in the world that you feel drawn by conscience to meet-therein lies your voice, your calling, your soul's code.

Prepare your mind and heart before you prepare your speech . What we say may be less important than how we say it.

Be a light, not a judge. Be a model, not a critic

We immediately become more effective when we decide to change ourselves rather than asking things to change for us.

Little kindness and courtesies are so important. In relationships, the little things are the big things.

Humility is the mother of all virtues, courage the father, integrity the child and wisdom the grandchild.

Happiness, like unhappiness, is a proactive choice.

We hear a lot about identity theft when someone takes your wallet and pretends to be you and uses your credit cards. But the more serious identity theft is to get swallowed up in other people's definition of you.

If you are an effective manager of your self, your discipline comes from within; it is a function of your independent will. You are a disciple, a follower, of your own deep values and their source. And you have the will, the integrity, to subordinate your feelings, your impulses, your moods to those values.

But until a person can say deeply and honestly, "I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday," that person cannot say, "I choose otherwise.

Many people seem to think that success in one area can compensate for failure in other areas. But can it really?... True effectiveness requires balance.

Our greatest joy and our greatest pain comes in our relationships with others.

If you want to be trusted, be trustworthy.

Be a light, not a judge, be a model not a critic. Little by little, your circle of influence will explode and you will avoid the emotional metastasizing cancers of complaining, criticizing, competing, comparing and cynicism, all which reflect victimization, all of which are the opposite of being proactive.

Beginners are many; finishers are few.