Stephen Covey Quotations | Page 6

To maintain the P/PC Balance, the balance between the golden egg (production) and the health and welfare of the goose (production capability) is often a difficult judgment call. But I suggest it is the very essence of effectiveness.

We are free to choose our actions, . . . but we are not free to choose the consequences of these actions.

Live, love, laugh, leave a legacy.

We simply assume that the way we see things is the way they really are or the way they should be. And our attitudes and behaviors grow out of these assumptions.

You can't talk your way out of a problem you behaved your way into!

The only thing that endures over time is the 'Law of the Farm.' You must prepare the ground, plant the seed, cultivate, and water if you expect to reap the harvest.

When you have a challenge and the response is equal to the challenge, that's called 'success'. But once you have a new challenge, the old, once-successful response no longer works. That's why it is called a 'failure'.

In the space between stimulus (what happens) and how we respond, lies our freedom to choose. Ultimately, this power to choose is what defines us as human beings. We may have limited choices but we can always choose. We can choose our thoughts, emotions, moods, our words, our actions; we can choose our values and live by principles. It is the choice of acting or being acted upon.

Courage isn't absenct of fear, it is the awareness that something else is important

To change ourselves effectively, we first had to change our perceptions.

Lose/Win people bury a lot of feelings. And unexpressed feelings come forth later in uglier ways. Psychosomatic illnesses often are the reincarnation of cumulative resentment, deep disappointment and disillusionment repressed by the Lose/Win mentality. Disproportionate rage or anger, overreaction to minor provocation, and cynicism are other embodiments of suppressed emotion. People who are constantly repressing, not transcending feelings toward a higher meaning find that it affects the quality of their relationships with others.

Admission of ignorance is often the first step in our education.

My behavior is a product of my own conscious choices based on principles, rather than a product of my conditions, based on feelings.

Habit 1: Be Proactive Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind Habit 3: Put First Things First Habit 4: Think Win/Win Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood Habit 6: Synergize Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw

Effective people are not problem-minded; they're opportunity minded. They feed opportunities and starve problems.

...to learn and not to do is really not to learn. To know and not to do is really not to know.

We must look at the lens through we see the world, as well as the world we see, and that the lens itself shapes how we interpret the world.

Empathic listening takes time, but it doesn't take anywhere near as much time as it takes to back up and correct misunderstandings when you're already miles down the road; to redo; to live with unexpressed and unsolved problems; to deal with the results of not giving people psychological air.

People can't live with change if there's not a changeless core inside them.

Habit is the intersection of knowledge (what to do), skill (how to do), and desire (want to do).

Vision is seeing a future state with the mind's eye. Vision is applied imagination.

Network marketing has come of age. It's undeniable that it has become a way to entrepreneurship and independence for millions of people

Results matter! They matter to your credibility.

I find most meetings are a waste of time, because they are so ill-prepared and there's little opportunity for true synergy in producing better solutions than what anyone originally thought of. So I work hard to only attend those meetings that have strategic importance and miss all kinds of other seemingly urgent meetings.

Peace of counscious is greater than peace of mind. Peace of mind is more externally oriented. Peace of consciousness is when you know you have been honest in all your business dealings.

Develop all four intelligences. PQ (physical intelligence) which represents 70 trillion cells that fight disease and digest your breakfast. IQ (intellectual intelligence) EQ (emotional intelligence) the sensing and wisdom of the heart - - and SQ (spiritual intelligence) having to do with meaning, purpose and integrity around your selected value system and your believed source. When combined, they change the world for good.

The more people train their counsciousness, the more sensitivie they are to it. It's like you had your own voice coming to you.

People don't listen to understand. They listen to reply. The collective monologue is everyone talking and no one listening.

Compliance does not foster innovation, trust does. You can't sustain long-term innovation, for example, in a climate of distrust.

True greatness will be achieved through the abundant mind that works selflessly - with mutual respect, for mutual benefit.

If you want to get something done, give it to a busy man.

One thing about trust is that everyone's for it.

My temptation is emotional, and resisting will further my needed weight loss and strengthen my character. Furthermore, nothing tastes as good as thin feels.

As we make and keep commitments, even small commitments, we begin to establish an inner integrity that gives us the awareness of self-control and the courage and strength to accept more of the responsibility for our own lives. By making and keeping promises to ourselves and others, little by little, our honor becomes greater than our moods.

Principle-centered people are constantly educated by their experiences.

Sometimes poor behavior is simply bad execution of good intent.

What we are communicates far more eloquently than anything we say or do. There are people we trust because we know their character. Whether they're eloquent or not, whether they have human-relations techniques or not, we trust them and work with them.

As people enable themselves to achieve one or two goals for the year that are most meaningful, they will find power, peace of mind, and confidence in their abilities because they have achieved what they set out to accomplish. Your commitment to achieving what matters most will become the foundation for tremendous accomplishments and contributions. You will become the change you seek to make.

The deepest hunger of [a child's] human heart is to be understood, for understanding implicitly affirms, validates, recognizes and appreciates the intrinsic worth of another.

Live the law of love. We encourage obedience to the laws of life when we live the laws of love.

Actually I did not invent the seven habits, they are universal principles and most of what I wrote about is just common sense. I am embarrassed when people talk about the Covey Habits, and dislike the idea of being some sort of guru.

If you don't choose to do it in leadership time up front, you do it in crisis management time down the road.

Don't prioritize your schedule, schedule those priorities.

Taking initiative is a form of self-empowerment.

If we know how to listen to our own heart, we can listen to the hearts of others.

I believe that the habit of constant reading of good books and scholarly periodicals and magazines in many disciplines is vital to give a larger perspective and to constantly sense the interdependent nature of life.

Trust is the one thing that affects everything else you're doing. It's a performance multiplier which takes your trajectory upwards, for every activity you engage in, from strategy to execution.

I try to exercise regularly every day, if I can. It renews you and it gives you more balance in your life. This is a key leverage point.

Affirm people. Affirm your children. Believe in them, not in what you see but in what you don't see - their potential.

Principles are the simplicity on the far side of complexity.

Personal leadership is the process of keeping your vision and values before you and aligning your life to be congruent with them.

Our lives are the results of our choices. To blame and accuse other people, the environment, or other extrinsic factors is to choose to empower those things to control us.

A good affirmation has five basic ingredients: it's personal, it's positive, it's present tense, it's visual, and it's emotional.

True leadership is moral authority, not formal authority. Leadership is a choice, not a position. The choice is to follow universal timeless principles, which will build trust and respect from the entire organization. Those with formal authority alone will lose this trust and respect.

It is extremely ironic that the more we care about what people think about us the less we care about people, and the less we care about what people think about us the more we begin to care for others

You can't hold someone accountable for results if you supervise their methods.

The best way to develop courage is to set a goal and achieve it, make a promise and keep it.

Inevitably, anytime we are too vulnerable we feel the need to protect ourselves from further wounds. So we resort to sarcasm, cutting humor, criticism - anything that will keep from exposing the tenderness within. Each partner tends to wait on the initiative of the other for love, only to be disappointed but also confirmed as to the rightness of the accusations made.

What is common sense isn't common practice.

Do what is important, not what is urgent.

The ability to establish, grow, extend, and restore trust is the key professional and personal competency of our time.

Self-awareness is our capacity to stand apart from ourselves and examine our thinking, our motives, our history, our scripts, our actions, and our habits and tendencies.

Consult the wisdom of your heart as well as your mind.

Contrary to what most people believe, trust is not some soft, illusive quality that you either have or you don't; rather, trust is a pragmatic, tangible, actionable asset that you can create.

The role of the leader is to foster mutual respect and build a complementary team where each strength is made productive and each weakness irrelevant.

Keeping a personal journal a daily in-depth analysis and evaluation of your experiences is a high-leverage activity that increases self-awareness and enhances all the endowments and the synergy among them.

The key to motivation is motive.

Difference is the beginning of synergy.

The 8th Habit, then, is not about adding one more habit to the 7 - one that somehow got forgotten. It's about seeing and harnessing the power of a third dimension to the 7 Habits that meets the central challenge of the new Knowledge Worker Age. The 8th Habit is to Find Your Voice and Inspire Others to Find Theirs.

You can't live principals you can't understand.

Valuing differences is what really drives synergy. Do you truly value the mental, emotional, and psychological differences among people? Or do you wish everyone would just agree with you so you could all get along? Many people mistake uniformity for unity; sameness for oneness. One word--boring! Differences should be seen as strengths, not weaknesses. They add zest to life.

I won't take time to repeat all the obvious benefits of physical exercise but will only underscore the well-attested fact that a program of regular exercise increases one's efficiency in every facet of life, including the depth and restfulness of sleep. And the time taken can be minimal; just a few minutes of calisthenics and running in place in one's room or jogging around the yard or block is often sufficient. Exercising doesn't take time. It saves time. Still, few consistently do it.

During the first few minutes in lift-off, the astronauts were strictly controlled and were powerfully buffeted by the forces of nature struggling to keep them on earth. This is somewhat comparable to the pull of the flesh when our alarm goes off early in the morning. Unless we put "mind over mattress" and carry out the resolves made the night before, we will experience our first defeat that day. Not sufficient to finish. Mission aborted.

If we overcome the pull and "get up and get at it," we will have won a victory. We have kept our own resolve. We can then move to other things, for by small means great things are accomplished. Thus, even this one small step is also in another sense a giant leap.

Be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

Vital to quality of life is the ability to work together, learn from each other, and help each other grow.

The ability to manage well doesn't make much difference if you're not even in the right jungle.

Highly proactive people don't blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. Their behavior is a product of their own conscious choice.

Habit 7 is taking the time to sharpen the saw. By renewing the four dimensions of your nature - physical, spiritual, mental and social/emotional, you can work more quickly and effortlessly. To do this, we must be proactive. This is a Quadrant II (important, not urgent) activity that must be acted on. It's at the center of our Circle of Influence, so we must do it for ourselves.

I believe that correct principles are natural laws, and that God, the Creator and Father of us all, is the source of them, and also the source of our conscience. I believe that to the degree people live by this inspired conscience, they will grow to fulfill their natures; to the degree that they do not, they will not rise above the animal plane.

An abundance mentality springs from internal security, not from external rankings, comparisons, opinions, possessions, or associations.

It takes courage to realize that you are greater than your moods, greater than your thoughts, and that you can control your moods and thoughts.

The great contributors in life are those who, though afraid of the knock at the door, still answer it.

Make specific appointments with yourself to work on goals, and treat an appointment with yourself as you'd treat an appointment with anybody else.

To set and work toward any goal is an act of courage.

The key to acting with integrity is to simply stop playing the game.

The great apparent dichotomy is that the more we give, the more we get.

Principles are the territory. Values are maps.

We can act instead of being acted upon.

Conscience connects us with the wisdom of the ages and the wisdom of the heart.

When two people in a marriage are more concerned about getting the golden eggs, the benefits, than they are in preserving the relationship that makes them possible, they often become insensitive and inconsiderate, neglecting the little kindnesses and courtesies so important to a deep relationship. They begin to use control levers to manipulate each other, to focus on their own needs, to justify their own position and look for evidence to show the wrongness of the other person. The love, the richness, the softness and spontaneity begin to deteriorate.

Leaders are not born or made - they are self made

The nature of life is to be a study of contrasts: joy/sadness, full/empty. The Main Thing is to Keep The Main Thing The Main Thing.

Many people think in terms of either/or: either you're nice or you're tough. Win-win requires that you be both. It is a balancing act between courage and consideration. To go for win-win, you not only have to be empathic, but you also have to be confident. You not only have to be considerate and sensitive, you also have to be brave. To do that-to achieve that balance between courage and consideration-is the essence of real maturity and is fundamental to win-win.

Unless people feel that they are accepted and that they have a right to express their feelings without fear of embarrassment or ridicule, all they will do is react and rebel and struggle for their identity.

We're constantly making choices about the way we spend our time. The issue is not between the good and the bad, but between the good and the best. So often, the enemy of the best is the good.

Your systems are perfectly designed to get the results that you are getting.

When we succumb to believing that we are victims of our circumstances and yield to the plight of determinism, we lose hope, we lose drive, and we settle into resignation and stagnation.

Humility is the mother of all virtues: the humble in spirit progress and are blessed because they willingly submit to higher powers and try to live in harmony with natural laws and universal principles. Courage is the father of all virtues; we need great courage to lead our lives by correct principles and to have integrity in the moment of choice.

People with a scarcity mentality think there is only so much in the world to go around. It's as if they see life as a pie. When another person gets a big piece, then they get less. Such people are always trying to get even, to pull others down to their level so they can get an equal or even bigger piece of the pie.