Stephen covey quotes

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

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.

Sacrifice really means giving up something good for something better.

Do what is important, not what is urgent.

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

The undisciplined are slaves to moods, appetites and passions

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

I think the most significant work we'll do in our whole life, in our whole world is done within the four walls of our home.

All broken relationships can be traced back to broken agreements

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

If we keep doing what we're doing, we're going to keep getting what we're getting.

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.

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

Response-ability is the ABILITY to choose our response to any circumstance or condition.

Beginners are many; finishers are few.

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.

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.

Most people say their main fault is a lack of discipline. On deeper thought, I believe this is not the case. The basic problem is that their priorities have not become deeply planted in their hearts and minds.

Live your life by a compass, not a clock.

You always reap what you sow; there is no shortcut.

The key to success is dedication to life-long learning.

Most of us think we don't have enough time to exercise. What a distorted paradigm! We don't have time not to. We're talking about three to six hours a week - or a minimum of thirty minutes a day, every other day. That hardly seems an inordinate amount of time considering the tremendous benefits in terms of the impact on the other 162 - 165 hours of the week.

If you want to be trusted, be trustworthy.

Almost every significant breakthrough is the result of a courageous break with traditional ways of thinking.

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

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.

Your most important work is always ahead of you, never behind you.

The ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of the proactive person. Reactive people are driven by feelings, by circumstances, by conditions, by their environment. Proactive people are driven by values - carefully thought about, selected and internalized values.

You don't see the world as it is, you see it according to who you are.

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.

The key to growth is to learn to make promises and to keep them.

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

Writing is another powerful way to sharpen the mental saw. Keeping a journal of our thoughts, experiences, insights, and learnings promotes mental clarity, exactness, and context.

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.

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

Free your heart from hatred - forgive. Free your mind from worries - most never happen. Live simply and appreciate what you have. Give more. Expect less.

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

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

Life is not accumulation, it is about contribution.

While we cannot always choose what happens to us, we can choose our responses.

Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important.

Internal victories precede external victories.

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

Always surround yourself with people who are even more talented and competent than you.

The greatest risk is the risk of riskless living.

Every human has four endowments - self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom... The power to choose, to respond, to change.

It doesn't really matter how fast you're going if you're heading in the wrong direction.

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.

Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.

Building and repairing relationships are long-term investments.

Begin with the end in mind.

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.

Seek to understand before you seek to be understood.

Live out of your imagination, not your history.

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

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.

All things are created twice; first mentally; then physically. The key to creativity is to begin with the end in mind, with a vision and a blue print of the desired result.

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

There are three constants in life... change, choice and principles.

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

Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

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

Where you are headed is more important than how fast you are going. Rather than always focusing on what's urgent, learn to focus on what is really important.

Leadership is a choice, not a position

Link yourself to your potential, not to your past.

Management works in the system; leadership works on the system.

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

Be sure that, as you scramble up the ladder of success, it is leaning against the right building.

We see the world, not as it is, but as we are──or, as we are conditioned to see it.

The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.

Time management is a misnomer, the challenge is to manage ourselves.

When you show deep empathy toward others, their defensive energy goes down, and positive energy replaces it. That's when you can get more creative in solving problems.

Leaders are not born or made - they are self made

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

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

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

You can retire from a job, but don't ever retire from making extremely meaningful contributions in life.

Trust is a function of two things: character and competence. Character includes your integrity, your motive and your intent with people. Competence includes your capabilities, your skills, and your track record. Both are vital.

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

You have to water the flowers you want to grow.

You can't change the fruit without changing the root.

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.

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

To begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination. It means to know where you're going so that you better understand where you are now and so that the steps you take are always in the right direction.

Communication is the most important single activity of man.

Common sense is not always common practice.

How different our lives are when we really know what is deeply important to us, and keeping that picture in mind, we manage ourselves each day to be and to do what really matters most.

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

It's better to be trusted than to be liked.

Don't get buried in the thick of thin things.

When the trust account is high, communication is easy, instant, and effective.

When you really listen to another person from their point of view, and reflect back to them that understanding, it's like giving them emotional oxygen.

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

Trust is the glue of life. It's the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It's the foundational principle that holds all relationships.

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.

The challenge is not to manage time, but to manage ourselves.

Petty things become unimportant when people are impassioned about a purpose higher than self.

Make small commitments and keep them. Be a light, not a judge. Be a model, not a critic. Be a part of the solution, not the problem.

The way we see the problem is the problem.

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.

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

The key to creating passion in your life is to find your unique talents, and your special role and purpose in the world.

Each of us guard a gate of change that can only be opened from the inside.

Anyone can count the seeds of an apple. Who can count the apples in a seed?

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

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

Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us.

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

As you care less about what people think of you, you will care more about what others think of themselves.

The more deeply you understand other people, the more you will appreciate them, the more reverent you will feel about them. To touch the soul of another human being is to walk on holy ground.

Trust is the highest form of human motivation. It brings out the very best in people. But it takes time and patience.

The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.

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.

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.

Most people think of leadership as a position and therefore don't see themselves as leaders.

Unless you’re continually improving your skills, you’re quickly becoming irrelevant.

If we want to make a change in our lives, we should first focus on our personal attitudes and behaviors.

It takes humility to seek feedback. It takes wisdom to understand it, analyze it and appropriately act on it.

We don't invent our missions, we detect them.

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

See every problem as an opportunity to exercise creative energy.

When you have too many top priorities, you effectively have no top priorities.

Self-awareness involves deep personal honesty. It comes from asking and answering hard questions.

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.

One of the most important ways to manifest integrity is to be loyal to those who are not present. In doing so, we build the trust of those who are present.