Stephen Covey Quotations | Page 7

Whether or not we belong to a church or service organization or have a job that provides meaningful service opportunities, not a day goes by that we can't at least serve one other human being by making deposits of unconditional love.

You have two ears and one mouth. Use them accordingly.

By centering our lives on correct principles and creating a balanced focus between doing and increasing our ability to do, we become empowered to the task of creating effective useful and peaceful lives.

Humility is the mother of all virtues. Humility says we are not in control, principles are in control, therefore we submit ourselves to principles. Pride says that we are in control, and since our values govern our behavior, we can simply do life our way.

If you don't have confidence in the diagnosis, you won't have confidence in the prescription.

While I believe in the power of positive thought, I do not believe that you or I can simply psyche ourselves into success or peace of mind.

The leader is the one who climbs the tallest tree, surveys the entire situation, and yells, 'Wrong jungle!' ... Busy, efficient producers and managers often respond ... 'Shut up! We're making progress!'

Nevertheless, the only way we can move from where we are now to where we would like to be is to accept where we are now.

We're often so busy cutting through the undergrowth we don't even realise we're in the wrong jungle.

Exercise integrity in the moment of truth.

Before a performance, a sales presentation, a difficult confrontation, or the daily challenge of meeting a goal, see it clearly, vividly, relentlessly, over and over again. Create an internal "comfort zone". Then, when you get into the situation, it isn't foreign. It doesn't scare you.

One thing's for sure. If we keep doing what we're doing, we're going to keep getting what we're getting. One definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing and expect different results.

Frustration is a function of our expectations.

Be a function of your values rather than a function of the impulse or desire of any given moment.

Remember that our reactions are a product of our perceptions, and our perceptions are a result of what is at the center of our life.

Employees are given the chance to help shape their company by participating in a company-wide communications program making suggestions on waste reduction, environmental improvement, customer satisfaction, quality improvement, and safety issues.

We value the clock for its speed and efficiency. The clock has its place, efficiency has its place, after effectiveness. The symbol of effectiveness is the compass a sense of direction, purpose, vision, perspective, and balance. But the empowerment process itself is not efficient.

Trust is the glue that holds everything together.

Principles are natural laws that are external to us and that ultimately control the consequences of our actions. Values are internal and subjective and represent that which we feel strongest about in guiding our behavior.

If you don't set your goals based upon your Mission Statement, you may be climbing the ladder of success only to realize, when you get to the top, you're on the WRONG building.

Everyone has values; even criminal gangs have values. Values govern people's behavior but principles govern the consequences of those behaviors.

What is important to another person must be as important to you as the other person is to you

If we spend most of our time concerned about things we cannot truly directly influence, what we can influence will be reduced. If we spend our energies on those things over which we can expect positive results, we will expand our influence.

What you see often depends on what you are looking for.

Through it all I have learned that parenting is basically a life of self sacrifice.

Highly effective people tend to be proactive. They decide to find a better job or to have better health, rather than of responding to whatever curves life throws at them.

The only way we can handle change around us is to know what is changeless about ourselves

Common sense is not always common practice.

All things are created twice, but not all first creations are by conscious design. In our personal lives, if we do not develop our own self-awareness and become responsible for first creations, we empower other people and circumstances outside our Circle of Influence to shape much of our lives by default. We reactively live the scripts handed to us by family, associates, other people's agendas, the pressures of circumstance - scripts from our earlier years, from our training, our conditioning.

'Efficient' scheduling and control of time are often counterproductive. The efficiency focus creates expectations that clash with the opportunities to develop rich relationships, to meet human needs, and to enjoy spontaneous moments on a daily basis.

The greatest thing you can do for your children is love your spouse.

By centering our lives on timeless, unchanging principles, we create a fundamental paradigm of effective living. It is the center that puts all other centers in perspective.

If our feelings control our actions, it is because we have abdicated our responsibility and empowered them to do so.

There are principles that govern human effectiveness - natural laws in the human dimension that are just as real, just as unchanging and unarguably there as laws such as gravity are in the physical dimension.

Perhaps the greatest role of parenting, more than directing and telling children what to do, [is] helping [children] connect with their own gifts, particularly conscience.

Being proactive is more than taking initiative. It is recognizing that we are responsible for our own choices and have the freedom to choose based on principles and values rather than on moods or condition. Proactive people are agents of change and choose not to be victims, to be reactive, or to blame others.

Communication is the most important skill in life. We spend most of our waking hours communicating. But consider this: You've spent years learning how to read and write, years learning how to speak. But what about listening?

None of us see the world as it is but as we are, as our frames of reference, or maps, define the territory.

Doing the right things for the right reason in the right way is the key to Quality of Life!

We could not have gotten where we are without coming the way we came.

Vision is about more than just getting things done, accomplishing some task, achieving something; it is about discovering and expanding our view of others, affirming them, believing in them, and helping them discover and realize the potential within them-helping them find their own voice.

Patience is emotional diligence.

All things are created twice. All things. Vision is the first creation. For a house it's called the blueprint. For a life it's called a mission. For a day it's called a goal and a plan. For a parent it's called a belief in the unseen potential of a child. For all, it is the mental creation which always precedes the physical, or second, creation.

It's like the more you know the more you know you don't know.

In order to have influence, you have to be influenced.

Integrity in the Moment of Choice Quality of life depends on what happens in the space between stimulus and response.

Give no answer to contentious arguments or irresponsible accusations. Let such things "fly out open windows" until they spend themselves.

We can't live without eating, but we don't live to eat.

Nothing is as fast as the speed of trust.

You think effectiveness with people and efficiency with things.

If there is no gardener there is no garden.

Happen to things, don't let things happen to you

The core of any family is what is changeless, what is going to be there──shared vision and values.

We are free to choose our response in any situation, but in doing so we chose the attendant consequence. If we pick up one end of the stick, we pick up the other.

Our capacity for production and enjoyment is ?a function, in the last analysis, of our character, our integrity.

We think we see the world as it is, when in fact we see the world as we are.

They [Nazi captors]had more liberty, more options to choose from in their environment; but he [Viktor Frankl] had more freedom, more internal power to exercise his options.

The first job of a leader-at work or at home-is to inspire trust. It's to bring out the best in people by entrusting them with meaningful stewardships, and to create an environment in which high-trust interaction inspires creativity and possibility.

Trust is equal parts character and competence... You can look at any leadership failure, and it's always a failure of one or the other.

The process of building trust is an interesting one, but it begins with yourself, with what I call self trust, and with your own credibility, your own trustworthiness. If you think about it, it's hard to establish trust with others if you can't trust yourself.

We must seek to understand the intent of communication without prejudging or rejecting the content... Communication, after all, is not so much a matter of intellect as it is of trust and acceptance of others, of their ideas and feelings, acceptance of the fact that they're different, and that from their point of view, they are right.

If the big rocks don't go in first, they aren't going to fit in later.

When people seriously undertake to identify what really matters most to them in their lives, what they really want to be and do, they become very reverent. They start to think in larger terms than today and tomorrow.

Leadership without mutual trust is a contradiction in terms.

Trust is the glue that holds everything together. It creates the environment in which all of the other elements win-win stewardship agreements, self-directing individuals and teams, aligned structures and systems, and accountability can flourish.

The more aware we are of our basic paradigms, maps, or assumptions, and the extent to which we have been influenced by our experience, the more we can take responsibility for those paradigms, examine them, test them against reality, listen to others and be open to their perceptions, thereby getting a larger picture and a far more objective view.

Whether you're on a sports team, in an office or a member of a family, if you can't trust one another there's going to be trouble.

Visualising something organises one's ability to accomplish it.

Effective interdependence can only be built on true independence.

You are dependent if you allow the weaknesses of other people to ruin your emotional life!

Distinguish between the person and the behavior or performance.

Success comes from the ability to view each arising problem as an opportunity for self improvement.

When your happiness comes primarily from the happiness of others, you know you have moved from a 'me' experience to a 'we' experience. And the whole problem-solving and opportunity-seizing process changes.

The highest challenge inside organizations is to enable each person to contribute his or her unique talents and passion to accomplish the organization's purpose.

In our personal lives, if we do not develop our own self-awareness and become responsible for first creations, we empower other people and circumstances to shape our lives by default.

To listen with empathy is the most important human skill.

Passion is the fire, enthusiasm and courage that an individual feels when she is doing something she loves while accomplishing worthy ends, something that satisfies her deepest needs.

When we look through the lens of each others' weaknesses, we make others' strengths irrelevant and their weaknesses more evident.

Sacrifice really means giving up something good for something better.

We all go through stages. Concerns about appearances, making good impressions, being popular, comparing yourself to others, having unbridled ambition, wanting to make money, striving to be recognized and noticed and trying to establish yourself, all fade as your responsibilities and character grow.

Spiritual Intelligence represents our drive for meaning and connection with the infinite.

Values determine behavior; Principles determine the consequences of behavior.

To blame and accuse other people, is to choose to empower them, to control us.

Win-win is a belief in the Third Alternative. It's not your way or my way; it's a better way, a higher way.

When a person has access to both the intuitive, creative and visual right brain, and the analytical, logical, verbal left brain, then the whole brain is working...And this tool is best suited to the reality of what life is, because life is not just logical-it is also emotional.

When people have a real sense of legacy, a sense of mattering, a sense of contribution, it seems to tap into the deepest part of their heart and soul. It brings out the best and subordinates the rest.

Building and repairing relationships are long-term investments.

Be proactive. Ask yourself, "Are my actions based on self-chosen values or on my moods, feelings and circumstances?"

A life of integrity is the most fundamental source of personal worth.

Intrinsic security doesn't come from what other people think of us or how they treat us. It doesn't come from our circumstance or out position. It comes from within. It comes from accurate paradigms and correct principles deep in our own mind and heart. It comes from inside-out congruence, from living a life of integrity in which our daily habits reflect our deepest values.

Management is clearly different from leadership. Leadership is primarily a high-powered, right-brain activity. It's more of an art it's based on a philosophy. You have to ask the ultimate questions of life when you're dealing with personal leadership issues.

If my sense of security lies in my reputation or in the things I have, my life will be in a constant state of threat and jeopardy-a fear that these possessions may be lost, stolen, or devalued. If I'm in the presence of someone of greater net worth, fame, or status, I feel inferior. If I'm in the presence of someone of lesser net worth, fame or status, I feel superior. My sense of self-worth constantly fluctu-ates. I don't have any sense of constancy, anchorage, or persistent selfhood. I am constantly trying to protect and insure my assets, properties, securities, position, or reputation.

Putting first things first means organizing and executing around your most important priorities. It is living and being driven by the principles you value most, not by the agendas and forces surrounding you.

Every exaggeration of the truth once detected by others destroys our credibility and makes all that we do and say suspect.

To judge individuals before understanding them is a form of human rejection and feeds upon itself.

In the end, life teaches us what is important, and that is family.

Reducing children to a test score is the worst form of identity theft we could commit in schools.

Communication is the most important single activity of man.

The fire inside people is like a match; the way to ignite that flame is initially through friction, then other matches are lit through warmth.

We do make a difference - one way or the other. We are responsible for the impact of our lives. Whatever we do with whatever we have, we leave behind us a legacy for those who follow.