This is a foundational book in the canon of personal development literature, dating orginally from 1989. It is excellent.
It's also dense, and I mean this positively. There's a lot of carefully, intricately thought-out value here. Almost every page in this book has some useful thought worth writing down and applying to your life. I found myself carefully reading and re-reading passages. Very few personal development books offer this kind of heft.
This is the type of book that you have to work at, but are generously repaid for your effort. In fact, I attempted (and failed) to read this book some twenty years ago: this reflects my character (and attention span) at that time rather than the value of the book. I simply wasn't ready. I wasn't willing to put in the effort.
One final thought about reading this book at the particular stage of life I'm at right now: I realize that many of the things that I'd like to do in life I'll likely never do, and that I've lived fifty-plus years and have done so little, and oh, how I could have prioritized my time and my efforts much much more effectively than I did! This feeling sits with me as I'm reading this book--a sinking feeling of lost and perhaps irretrievable opportunity. And to be honest it at times made me want to put the book down, even though I know that that's a cop-out, that it's just another example of ego-based homeostasis, and that objectively I likely still have a lot of time left. I guess this is all the more reason to read this book all the more closely and make all the more use of it.
Notes:
1) Interesting comment in the acknowledgments for the author thanks his editor "for helping me to better understand the difference between writing and speaking." I never appreciated that until I started my little YouTube channel. There's a difference for sure, although I'm still not quite certain what it is.
Part 1: Paradigms and Principles
2) The author discusses how he viewed a discipline problem with one of his sons as a (negative) reflection upon him and his wife as parents: if you're a good parent (especially a parent who's also a renowned success coach) how can you have a kid that struggles with an issue that should be easily solved? Of course this struggle isn't about "you" the parent: the fact that Covey saw it this way meant he was using the wrong paradigm.
3) "I became particularly interested in how perceptions are formed, how they govern the way we see, and how the way we see governs how we behave. This led me to a study of expectancy theory and self-fulfilling prophecies or the 'Pygmalion effect,' and to a realization of how deeply embedded our perceptions are. It taught me that we must look at the lens through which we see the world, as well as at the world we see, and that the lens itself shapes how we interpret the world." [Tremendously helpful insights in this paragraph on how to be "meta" with your way of looking at or thinking about your reality, and to pick the way of looking at it (the lens) with an eye to its effectiveness. The "truth" of the lens is secondary, it's perhaps not even relevant.]
4) They realize that they looked at their son through the lens of "he was somehow inadequate" or "behind"--note this was a self-fulfilling prophecy too--they realize they had to change their perceptions of him.
5) On the character ethic: on integrating certain principles and habits deep within one's nature, that there are basic principles of effective living. Comparing the character ethic to the personality ethic (e.g.: public relations techniques, a positive mental attitude--sounds like this is an oblique reference to other "success literature" works predating Covey's book, like Dale Carnegie's book, Zig Ziglar's book etc.)
6) Covey and his wife realize that they were using the personality ethic type methods with their son and were more interested in their motives, and these were not congruent with their son's sense of self worth. "We stopped trying to kindly, positively manipulate him to into an acceptable social mold." They essentially got out of the way and let him develop the way he developed, they chose to see him as fundamentally okay, not needing to be protected, well able to cope with life.
7) "Search your own heart with all diligence for out of it flow the issues of life." Proverbs 4:23
8) "... We have inadvertently become so focused on our own building [he means here personality traits, superficial aspects of our self] that we have forgotten the foundation that holds it up [the actual character ethics underlying everything]."
9) Using personality based techniques as "focusing on technique" rather than actually having the underlying capability or the underlying character trait; this is fundamentally manipulative: the author says it is "like cramming your way through school" as opposed to developing a genuinely educated mind. Can you "cram" on a farm? [!!!] The same concept is true in human behavior and human relationships: note also that in short-lived human interactions you can use personality ethic type techniques to make a favorable impression.
10) On secondary greatness versus primary greatness; on social recognition for a talent or an accomplishment versus goodness in that person's character.
11) [This metaphor of having a map of Chicago when you're in Detroit is extremely useful] On paradigms or maps: imagine if you had a map of Detroit labeled as a map of Chicago, it will not matter how much you tried, or if your attitude was positive: you'd still be lost! Likewise, we have mental paradigms the author says "can be divided into two main categories: maps of the way things are, or realities, and maps of the way things should be, or values. We interpret everything we experience through these mental maps. We seldom question their accuracy; we're usually even unaware that we have them."
12) The old woman/young lady image: [this is a good metaphor for the political divide today (as well as many other types of "divides" in society, see healthcare for example), where everyone sees the "enemy party" through the deforming lens of their own party's media.] "Each of us tends to think that we see things as they are, that we are objective. But this is not the case. We see the world, not as it is, but as we are--or, as we are conditioned to see it... When other people disagree with us, we immediately think something is wrong with them."
13) Maps and paradigms as a form of subjective reality, where the territory itself is objective reality.
14) On honoring the process versus looking for shortcuts; see also how quick fixes are endemic to the personality ethic, whereas to be process-based is endemic to the character ethic. "We know and accept this fact or principle of process in the area of physical things, but to understand it in emotional areas, in human relations, and even in the area of personal character is less common and more difficult. And even if we understand it, to accept it and to live in harmony with it are even less common and more difficult. Consequently, we sometimes look for a shortcut, expecting to be able to skip some of these vital steps in order to save time and effort and still reap the desired result." [In other words, we can identify a heuristic here: avoid shortcuts, they are likely to be "longcuts" in disguise.]
15) "Admission of ignorance is often the first step in our education."
16) "Our level of development is fairly obvious with tennis or piano playing, where it is impossible to pretend. But it is not so obvious in the areas of character and emotional development. We can 'pose' and 'put on' for a stranger or an associate. We can pretend. And for a while we can get by with it--at least in public. We might even deceive ourselves." [I think it's safe to assume most people "pose and put on" in the sense Covey uses here, thus this may be a useful contra-indicator to look for in measuring peoples' actual competence.]
17) "My experience has been that there are times to teach and times not to teach. When relationships are strained in the air charged with emotion, and attempt to teach as often perceived as a form of judgment and rejection." [I should have this tattooed on my forehead!]
18) [Still more on the heuristic I'm scratching at in #14 above, maybe we can strengthen this heuristic even further: In order to avoid using the personality ethic (in favor of the character ethic), avoid all shortcuts and quick fixes at all costs, they are cheat codes that probably involve personality ethic rather than character ethic.]
19) "The way we see the problem is the problem."
20) The author describes his book as an inside out approach to personal and interpersonal effectiveness, "inside out" meaning to start first with self, with your own paradigms, character and motives.
21) Nice quote here from T.S. Eliot's The Four Quartets: "We must not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time."
The Seven Habits--An Overview
22) These habits have a "gravity pull" for good (if you practice them) or for bad (if you don't).
23) On habits defined as "the intersection of knowledge, skill and desire" (see photo below). You have to know what it is, you have to know how, and you have to want to do it.
24) On moving (via the habits) from dependence to independence to interdependence. Note also that the effort to become independent, to throw the shackles off or become liberated is itself an act of interdependency. How also, in contrast, you might make some radical change to your circumstances in order to be "independent" but it's really pseudo-independence, it's really running away. And note also the problem of dependence is a maturity problem "that has little to do with circumstances."
25) "True independence of character empowers us to act rather than be acted upon."
26) On balancing between independence and interdependence: for example if you're an independent thinker you might struggle to be a team player; obviously one wants maximum effectiveness with the right mix of independence and interdependence with others. "If I am physically interdependent, I am self-reliant and capable, but I also realize that you and I working together can accomplish far more than, even at my best, I could accomplish alone... If I am intellectually interdependent, I realize that I need the best thinking of other people to join with my own."
27) "Interdependence is a choice only independent people can make. Dependent people cannot choose to be interdependent." [Another interesting paradox here, also a good example of a necessary but not sufficient condition.] "That's why Habits 1, 2, and 3 in the following chapters deal with self-mastery. They move a person from dependence to independence."
28) "Private victories precede public victories" [People won't be able to "see" your private victories, but this is all the better since it's not good to be huffing extrinsic validation anyway.]
29) Covey's concept of the P/PC balance: using the story of the goose with a golden egg; balancing your Production of desired results with your Production Capability. Thinking about the asset or ability that produces your "golden eggs" and taking care of it, maintaining it, educating it, working on improving its capacity/output, etc. Note also there are three kinds of assets: physical, financial, and human.
30) Not taking care of a lawn mower: we often ruin a prize physical asset in our quest for short-term results. Likewise eating away at your principal rather than living off interest and dividends, these are both examples of cutting open the goose. Likewise you also have to invest in your own "production capacity" of income by building skills, staying economically flexible, taking care of your body and mind, etc.
31) Finally the P/PC balance in human relationships: "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 courtesy so important to a deep relationship." [Ultimately the golden eggs have to "ensue"--it's another paradox: even though that's what you are working for you can't directly work for it.]
32) To maintain the P/PC balance "is the very essence of effectiveness. It balances short-term with long term."
33) Good thoughts here on how to do a better job integrating the ideas and insights from a book into your life and your habits: "I would like to suggest two paradigm shifts that will greatly increase the value you will receive from this material." First, don't read the material as a book and think of it as something to read once and put on a shelf. Second, "shift your paradigm of your own involvement in this material from the role of learner to that of teacher. Take an inside-out approach, and read with a purpose of sharing or discussing what you learn with someone else."
34) Useful insight here, paraphrased: If you knew you'd have to teach this material on the P/PC balance principal to someone within 48 hours, would that have made a difference in your reading experience? [This is a great meta question to get you to read while holding the idea of application of the concepts in your mind, rather than reading passively and returning to mental homeostasis afterwards.]
35) "That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly." --Thomas Paine
Part Two: Private Victory
Habit 1: Be Proactive
Principles of Personal Vision
36) On choosing more metacognition and meta-awareness rather than less, also choosing more "auto-determinism" as opposed to environmental or genetic determinism; on assuming that your awareness and your ability to change is in your hands, not in someone else's hands or because of your genes (genetic determinism) or your environment (environmental determinism).
37) What stands between stimulus and your response? On proactivity versus reactivity (choosing your response vs "just responding" to a stimulus); the freedom to choose stands between stimulus and response and in that space is self-awareness, imagination, conscience and independent will.
38) "Do I have the power to choose my response?" This is a great self-fulfilling meta-question, obviously you select the answer yes because it's the most proactive, the most volitional, it gives you more power.
39) "We have all known individuals in very difficult circumstances, perhaps with a terminal illness or a severe physical handicap, who maintain magnificent emotional strength. How inspired we are by their integrity! Nothing has a greater, longer lasting impression upon another person than the awareness that someone has transcended suffering, as transcended circumstance, and is embodying and expressing a value that inspires and ennobles and lifts life."
40) Covey describes when someone in his own family "takes an irresponsible position and waits for someone else to make things happen or provide a solution, we tell them, 'Use your R and I!' [resourcefulness and initiative]."
41) Also a useful phrase here: "If you wait to be acted upon, you will be acted upon."
42) Listening to our language: are we speaking with reactive language or proactive language? "There's nothing I can do" versus "Let's look at our alternatives" or "He makes me so mad" versus "I control my own feelings" etc. "The language of reactive people absolves them of responsibility." Or literally: I am not able to choose my response. Note also how reactive language becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
43) The circle of concern/circle of influence concept
[This is one of the most centrally important ideas from Covey I think, it's also something I picked up from him indirectly elsewhere.] We each have a wide range of concerns, so the circle of concern is large; we have a smaller circle of influence. The idea is to have these sized relatively to each other in the proper way: nuclear war, or the evils of COVID lockdowns are in our circle of concern, but clearly not in our circle of control. "...there are some things over which we have no real control and others that we can do something about." That's our circle of influence. "By determining which of these two circles is the focus of most of our time and energy, we can discover much about the degree of our proactivity."
44) "Proactive people focus their efforts in the Circle of Influence... Reactive people, on the other hand focus their efforts in the Circle of Concern." Focusing on circumstances over which you have no control produces more negative energy, reactive language, feelings of victimization--and worse of all, it causes your circle of influence to shrink even smaller.
45) Note also an instance of a person with great power or wealth, but whose circle of concern is smaller than their circle of influence: a type of reactive-selfish lifestyle, where they could influence for the good, but don't.
46) Problems fall into three areas:
* Direct control (thus they are solved by working on our habits, which are obviously within our circle of influence),
* Indirect control (these are solved by changing our methods of influence), or
* No control (these are solved by changing our reactions to these problems).
47) "Whether a problem is direct, indirect, or no control, we have in our hands the first steps to the solution. Changing our habits, changing our methods of influence and changing the way we see our no control problems are all within our circle of influence."
48) Expanding the circle of influence: "It is the nature of reactive people to absolve themselves a responsibility."
49) Note also that the circle of concern is filled with "haves" (I'll be happy when I have a house, I'll be happy when I have a million dollars, etc.) while the circle of influence is filled with be's (I can be more patient, I can be more wealthy, etc.). "Anytime we think the problem is 'out there,' that thought is the problem. We empower what's out there to control us. The [faulty] change paradigm is outside-in--what's out there has to change before we can change."
50) On making and keeping commitments: "It is here that we find two ways to put ourselves in control of our lives immediately. We can make a promise--and keep it. Or we can set a goal--and work to achieve it."
51) Thirty day tests: "I would challenge you to test the principle of proactivity for thirty days. Simply try it and see what happens. For thirty days work only in your Circle of Influence." [It's interesting to see how Steve Pavlina obviously borrowed many, many insights from this book.]
52) Again: "If you start to think the problem is 'out there,' stop yourself. That thought is the problem."
53) Habit 1 Application Suggestions:
1) Listen to your language and the language of the people around you. How often do you use or hear reactive phrases such as "if only," "I can't" or "I have to"?
2) Identify an experience you might encounter in the near future where you would probably behave reactively. How could you respond proactively?
3) Select a problem from work or life that is frustrating to you, determine whether it is a direct, indirect, or no control problem. Identify the first step you can take in your circle of influence to solve it.
4) Try the 30-day test of proactivity.
Habit 2: Begin With the End in Mind
Principles of Personal Leadership
54) On imagining your own funeral three years from now, where a family member, a friend, a work colleague and a church colleague each speak about you and your life. "What would you like each of these speakers to say?... What character would you like them to have seen in you? What contributions, what achievements would you want them to remember? Look carefully at the people around you. What difference would you like to have made in their lives?" [In my case that I pushed them forward in a helpful way, that I helped them raise their game, that I taught and offered counsel, and was a good dude.]
55) The idea here "is to begin today with the image, picture, or paradigm of the end of your life as your frame of reference or the criterion by which everything else is examined.... by keeping that end clearly in mind, you can make certain that whatever you do on any particular day does not violate the criteria you have to find a supremely important, and that each day of your life contributes in a meaningful way to the vision you have of your life as a whole." Note that this is in stark contrast to getting caught up in some "activity trap" in the busy-ness of life... It is possible to be busy--very busy--without being very effective."
56) All things are created twice, first by design or mental creation, second by building them. Not all first creations are by conscious design! We can live our own lives without self-awareness and not be responsible for our first creation, we empower others outside our circle of influence to shape our lives by default, or we reactively live scripts handed to us by family or other people's agendas.
57) Another way to think about it is to define Habit 1 as "you are the creator" and define Habit 2 as "this is your first creation." Or, as he will phrase it later in the book:
Habit 1: You are the programmer
Habit 2: Write the program
Habit 3: Run the program
58) On the difference between leadership and management: management is sharpening machetes and hiring people to clear a path through the jungle; leadership is figuring out if it's the right or wrong jungle. Management tasks give instant feedback (you feel like you're really doing something!) and they're typically pressing and urgent matters that are right in front of you. Leadership on the other hand is much more inchoate, there isn't clear feedback, etc., but it is the far more important of the two. On a personal level this would be like being efficient or busy without having clarified our true values.
59) On writing our own script rather than carrying out someone else's script, "rescripting" to appropriate paradigms. The author gives an (unfortunate) example of Anwar Sadat rescripting his hatred of Israel and later being willing to sign a peace treaty (the irony here is that the US probably forced him to do this--or paid him--and of course later he was assassinated for it). An unfortunate example.
60) On developing a personal mission statement of what you want to be (your character) and do (your contribution and achievements), and the values and principles on which these are based. The example given here of the author's friend's personal creed is actually quite good:
Succeed at home first
Seek and merit divine help
Never compromise with honesty
Remember the people involved
Hear both sides before judging
Obtain counsel of others
Defend those who are absent
Be sincere yet decisive
Develop one new proficiency a year
Plan tomorrow's work today
Hustle while you wait
Maintain a positive attitude
Keep a sense of humor
Be orderly in person and in work
Do not fear mistakes--fear only the absence of creative, constructive and corrective responses to those mistakes
Facilitate the success of subordinates
Listen twice as much as you speak
Concentrate all abilities and efforts on the task at hand, not worrying about the next job or promotion.
61) On how this personal mission statement (your "personal Constitution") helps you navigate the changing world much better because you have a stable core inside you. The mission is what adds meaning and direction, and it makes you proactive.
62) On different substandard forms of centeredness, in other words if you have a core that over focuses on being: spouse-centered, family-centered, money-centered, work-centered, possession-, pleasure-, friend/enemy-, church-, self-, etc.
63) If one is over-centered on money one then becomes fragile to anything that affects one's money situation: your security is a function of your money when it doesn't need to be; likewise with being over-centered on your spouse or partner: you become dependent on that person in an unhealthy way.
64) Pascal calling acts of self-gratification "licking the earth." What a wonderful expression!!
65) See also a divorced spouse essentially psychologically still married to the ex because she needs his weakness to justify her rage, etc.
66) On the four interdependent life support factors that emanate from our center: security, guidance, wisdom and power. For example if you're money-centered then your security is a function of your net worth and you are therefore vulnerable to anything that threatens your net worth; likewise your guidance comes from profit making or "getting more money"; your wisdom (such as it would be) emanates through the fact that money-making is lens through which you see and understand life (and this will lead to your judgment being imbalanced), and your power is restricted to only what you can accomplish with money.
67) If you are spouse-centered, then your security is going to be based on how your spouse treats you and you'll be overly sensitive and vulnerable to the moods and feelings of your spouse; your guidance will come from the needs and wants of your spouse; your wisdom will be based on a life perspective that is excessively spouse-centered, and your power to act will be limited by your spouse's wishes or weaknesses, and so forth.
68) "The ideal, of course, is to create one clear center from which you consistently derive a high degree of security, guidance, wisdom, and power, empowering your proactivity and giving congruency and harmony to every part of your life." Thus a life centered on correct, stable and unchanging principles, fundamental truths, etc.
69) Correct principles are bigger than people or circumstances. You might iterate your principles, but not because the principles themselves change, rather our understanding of them does. The wisdom and guidance from principal center of living will come from correct maps (see photo below).
70) Note that you might make the same choice based on a number of different possible "centers" (the author gives an example of having tickets to go to a concert with your wife but getting a call from your boss who says he needs you to stay at the office instead, thus your decision will reflect the relevant "centers" which in this case are your work and your spouse). The idea is to be proactive, wise, to use a correct map/paradigm, and to be principal-centered with your choice in any given situation.
71) On writing and using your personal mission statement; see Victor Frankl's quote that we detect rather than invent our missions in life; how the act of crafting a mission statement is an act of proactivity, of working within our circle of influence. Also framing this in context of the habits: Habit 1 says you are the programmer, Habit 2 says write the program. You have to accept the idea that you are the programmer.
72) The process of writing a mission statement is as important as the product itself. It forces you to think through your priorities deeply and to align your behavior with your beliefs.
73) On doing visualization exercises in rich detail to think about contributions and achievements that you would like to make in the future; it helps you also put things in a different perspective, a more expanded perspective. "When people seriously undertake to identify what really matters most to them in their lives, what they really want to be and to do, they become very reverent. They start to think in larger terms than today and tomorrow." These techniques are used to produce the end that you wish to achieve, to literally write a new script for yourself in the form of a changed behavior, new habits, etc. [What follows next here is a discussion and visualization which is a good summary of the Coué Method, and then a discussion of the work of Charles Garfield, author of the book Peak Performance.)
74) On roles and goals as part of your mission statement; this is to articulate the priority roles in your life: husband, son, christian, student, etc.
75) On family mission statements and organizational mission statements, such that they are run with a long-term strategy rather than on the basis of crises, moods, gratification or quick fixes. "In our home, we put our mission statement up on a wall in the family room so that we can look at it and monitor ourselves daily."
76) The author tells a story here that today sounds quite mournful looking back at it from the Fourth Turning-era USA of the 2020s: it was of a hotel that he stayed at that had a mission statement written by the hotel chain, with a secondary mission statement written collectively by all the employees at that individual hotel. This particular hotel had a tremendous service ethic, Covey was blown away by it. And so am I, because sadly I don't think a hotel like this could exist today.
77) Habit 2 Application Suggestions:
1) Record the impressions you had in the funeral visualization from the beginning of this chapter
2) Organize your thoughts and areas of activity for family, friends, work, church/community service
2) Write down your roles as you see them. Are you satisfied with that image of your life?
Habit 3: Put First Things First
Principles of Personal Management
78) We start out with two questions:
1) What one thing could you do that you aren't doing now that if you did on a regular basis would make a tremendous positive difference in your personal life?
2) What one thing in your business or professional life would bring similar results?
79) A quick review: Habit 1 says "you are the creator, you can write the script; Habit 2 is mental creation, the ability to envision our moral and ethical guidelines and match our values and vision of what we can become; Habit 3, then, is the "second creation" which is the actualization, the fulfillment, of Habits 1 and 2: it's the day-in, day-out moment-by-moment doing of it.
80) Living Habit 3 is practicing effective self management, using our independent will to make decisions and choices and act in accordance with them, putting first things first.
81) Having discipline as an act of purpose or of volition, your discipline is a manifestation of your independent will. [I think this is an important nuance that people often miss; people often will claim that someone "has a lot of discipline" as if it isn't a thing they can build, increase; that it just is or isn't. Obviously whether or not you think this or not it is a self-fulfilling belief and thus will be true.]
82) Covey's one sentence for time management: "organize and execute around priorities."
83) On the "four generations of time management": 1st gen: notes/checklists --> 2nd gen: calendars/appointment books --> 3rd gen: adding in prioritization, clarifying values, setting goals. Note a nuance here that efficient scheduling and control of time are not consistent with developing rich relationships and meeting human needs and enjoying spontaneous moments! --> 4th gen: instead of thinking of it as "time management" the challenge is to manage ourselves (P/PC balance).
84) Quadrant II: See the urgent/not urgent/important/not important matrix where Quadrant II is "important, not urgent"; this is the most important of the quadrants but the one most easily overlooked because it isn't urgent. Note that this is one of the foundational insights of this book: to prioritize your day-to-day life around Quadrant II, and to do this with volition so that it does not get co-opted by the other quadrants. See photo:
85) Urgent matters are visible, they press on us and insist on action, they're right in front of us, and they're often very unimportant, etc. "We react to urgent matters."
86) "Importance" has to do with the results and how it contributes to your mission, your values, your priorities and your goals. "Important matters that are not urgent require more initiative, more proactivity... If we don't practice Habit 2, if we don't have a clear idea of what is important, of the results we desire in our lives, we are easily diverted into responding to the urgent."
87) Examples of what not to do:
* "Some people are literally beaten up by problems all day everyday. The only relief they have is in escaping to the not important, not urgent activities of Quadrant IV."
* Spending a lot of time in Quadrant III thinking they're in Quadrant I, reacting to urgent things assuming they are important when they are not. This is a short-term focus.
88) "Effective people stay out of Quadrants III and IV because, urgent or not, they aren't important. They also shrink Quadrant I down to size by spending more time in Quadrant II. Quadrant II is the heart of effective personal management."
89) Quadrant II "deals with things like building relationships, writing a personal mission statement, long-range planning, exercising, preventive maintenance, preparation--all those things we know we need to do, but somehow sell them get around to doing, because they aren't urgent."
90) On saying no, "smilingly, nonapologetically" to urgent/not important things.
91) Notes and to-do lists (first generation time management) give us sense of accomplishment every time we check something off, but no priority is attached to the items on the list and "there is no correlation between what's on the list and our ultimate values and purposes in life. We simply respond to whatever penetrates are awareness and apparently needs to be done."
92) Suggestions for staying in Quadrant II:
1) have coherence and harmony in your roles and goals,
2) have balance in your life
3) have a deliberate volitional focus on Quadrant II, organizing yourself on a weekly basis rather than daily basis ("the key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.")
4) have a "people" dimension (effectiveness with people, not just efficiency with time: note that sometimes you have to subordinate your schedule to people)
5) have flexibility: your planning tool should be your servant not your master
6) your organizer tool must be portable so you have it with you most of the time
93) Adding a "sharpen the saw" component to your planner/weekly schedule with life domains (physical, mental, spiritual, social/emotional).
94) See sample weekly schedule (see photo below from page 166-7):
95) Habit 1: You are the programmer
Habit 2: Write the program
Habit 3: Run the program
Running the program is a function of our volition, self-discipline, integrity and commitment to correct principles and values.
96) On delegating; how you can have extensive leverage by properly delegating certain tasks to others on your team or in your family; there are two kinds of delegation: gofer delegation and stewardship delegation; stewardship delegation is based on a paradigm of appreciating the self-awareness, imagination and the free will of other people, and giving them a choice of method that makes them responsible for the results. It may take more time in the beginning but it will have much more leverage in the longer run.
97) Cute story here about the author training his son for the "stewardship" of the family yard and how the son struggled with self-management and self-supervision, but finally got it.
98) Habit 3 Application Suggestions:
1) Identify and commit to a Quadrant II domain in your life that you've neglected that would have a significant impact
2) Time log your days in 15 minute intervals and see what quadrant you spend your time in
3) Make a list of responsibilities you could delegate to others
4) Organize your next week starting with roles and goals and then a specific action plan. At the end of the week evaluate how you translated your values and purpose into your daily life
5) Commit to organizing on a weekly basis, setting up a regular time to do it
Part 3: Public Victory
Paradigms of Interdependence
99) "Effective interdependence can only be built on a foundation of true independence. Private Victory precedes Public Victory."
100) "...you can't talk your way out of problems you behave yourself into." On a man who met his second wife at a seminar while married to someone else, and who now endures grillings from his wife every time he goes to a seminar without her!
101) On the idea of having to like yourself, a good quote here: "Some people say that you have to like yourself before you can like others. I think that idea has merit, but if you don't know yourself, if you don't control yourself, if you don't have mastery over yourself, it's very hard to like yourself, except in some short-term, psych-up, superficial way. Real self-respect comes from dominion over self, from true independence."
102) Metaphor of the "emotional bank account" where you make withdrawals or deposits in trust with another. "But your accounts with the people you interact with on a regular basis require more constant investment. There are sometimes automatic withdrawals in your daily interactions are in their perception of you that you don't even know about."
103) Also re the emotional bank accoutn: six major "deposit sources":
* Understanding the individual
* Attending to the little things
* Keeping commitments
* Clarifying expectations
* Showing personal integrity (example: being loyal to those who are not present)
* Apologize sincerely when you make a withdrawal (if you're going to bow, bow low; also, "Sincere apologies make deposits; repeated apologies interpreted as insincere make withdrawals.")
104) "It is more noble to give yourself completely to one individual than to labor diligently for the salvation of the masses." --Dag Hammarskjold
105) Back to the P/PC concept: on how P problems are PC opportunities, especially with interdependent relationships and situations; a shortfall in production is an opportunity to improve or increase your productive capacity, in this example to increase your emotional bank account with another person.
Habit 4: Think Win/Win
Principles of Interpersonal Leadership
106) Covey goes through the various "schelling points" of human interaction:
* win/win
* win/lose
* lose/win (Go ahead step on me again, I'm a loser)
* lose/lose
* win/win or no deal
107) "Who's 'winning' in your marriage?" :) Obviously a ridiculous question, you don't "win" in a relationship.
108) On win/win or no deal: this is where you can be open to no arrangement at all if you can't reach something where both people benefit; see for example before starting a partnership or an enterprise with someone.
109) "Abundance mentality" versus "scarcity mentality": on the belief set/paradigm that there's plenty out there and enough for everybody, or the opposing belief set that everything is zero sum.
110) The author gives an example of a win-win arrangement where his daughter uses the family car, while keeping it clean, maintaining it and even acting as a cab driver for her parents within reason, while the parents paid for the car, gas and insurance.
111) Habit 4 Application Suggestions:
1) Make a list of obstacles that keep you from applying win-win more frequently, determine what could be done within your circle of influence to eliminate some of those obstacles.
2) Think of relationships where you would like to develop win-win arrangements
3) Identify three key relationships in your life and give an indication of where your balance in the emotional bank account is, the right time and ways to make deposits in each account, etc
4) Find a model of win-win thinking to watch and learn from
Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood
Principles of Empathic Communication
112) The author tells the story of a patient who tells his optometrist he can't see, and the optometrist gives his glasses to him. The patient says "These are worse!" Then the optometrist says "Think positively! What's the matter with you? You're not trying! Boy, are you ungrateful after all I've done to help you!" In other words, someone who doesn't properly diagnose, or listen, or put himself in the other person's position before giving advice. "We have such a tendency to rush in, to fix things up with good advice. But we often fail to take the time to diagnose, to really deeply understand the problem first."
113) What little training we have in listening is from the personality ethic (rather than the character ethic), thus they are based on technique and not genuine. "If I sense you're using some technique, I sense duplicity, manipulation. I wonder why you're doing it, what your motives are. And I don't feel safe enough to open myself up to you." "You have to build the skills of empathic listening on a base of character that inspires openness and trust. And you have to build the Emotional Bank Accounts that create a commerce between hearts."
114) A spectrum of communication genuineness:
* Ignoring
* Pretending (yep, uh-huh)
* Selective listening
* Attentive listening
* Empathic listening (listening with intent to understand, to really understand)
115) "Next to physical survival, the greatest need of a human being is psychological survival--to be understood, to be affirmed, to be validated, to be appreciated." "Giving someone psychological air" "...after that vital need is met, you can then focus on influencing or problem solving."
116) On "listening autobiographically" which usually manifests in one of four ways:
* Evaluate (agree, disagree)
* Probe
* Advise
* Interpret
These four ways are deeply scripted in us, but unfortunately they "invade" in the sense that they play twenty questions, they make the person feel evaluated.
117) "Mimicking content" is phony and insulting but at least it causes you to listen to what's being said. (!) You can also rephrase the content and reflect the feeling there.
118) "Instead of interacting on a surface, get-the-job-done level of communication, he has created a situation in which he can now have transforming impact, not only on his son but also on the relationship."
119) Note that skills of empathic listening are important, but they are useless unless they come from a sincere desire to understand. "The technique, the tip of the iceberg, has to come out of the massive base of character underneath."
120) "Then seek to be understood"; it takes courage to seek to be understood; ethos, pathos, logos, as three steps for understanding the other person: showing empathy, and then clearly, logically making yourself understood.
121) On the fact that "seeking first to understand" is completely in your circle of influence whereas many interdependent situations are outside of your circle of influence. "...you can always seek first to understand. That's something that's within your control."
122) "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."
123) Also interesting that the author role-plays potential empathic listening situations with his wife, where one of them takes the role of the parent and the other takes the role of one of their children (!) likewise they'll role play situations where they redo past situations where one of them "blew it"... As in, they use it to get better and improve. This is quite beautiful actually.
124) Habit 5 Application Suggestions:
1) Select a relationship in which you have an emotional bank account in the red, write down the situation from the other person's point of view, then listen for understanding the next time you interact with that person.
2) Share the concept of empathy with someone close to you, tell him or her you want to work on really listening to others and ask for feedback in a week.
3) The next time you catch yourself inappropriately using one of the autobiographical responses--probing, evaluating, advising, or interpreting--turn the situation into a "deposit" by acknowledgment and apology: "I'm sorry, I just realized I'm not really trying to understand. Could we start again?"
Habit 6: Synergize
Principles of Creative Cooperation
125) "...the exercise of all of the other habits prepares us for the habit of synergy."
126) "Family life provides many opportunities to observe synergy and to practice it."
127) Synergistic communication: you're not sure how things will work out or what the end will look like, but you begin with the belief that parties involved will gain more insight and growth.
128) "Many people have not really experienced even a moderate degree of synergy in their family life or in other interactions. They've been trained and scripted into defensive and protective communications or into believing that life or other people can't be trusted. As a result, they are never really open to Habit 6 and to these principles."
129) On how synergistic circumstances hang on the edge of chaos and sometimes send us into it, and how some people who have been burned by such experiences defend against attempting synergy in the future.
130) On "valuing the differences": not expecting people to see things or think the way you do; "sameness is not oneness; uniformity is not unity."
131) "The person who is truly effective has the humility and reverence to recognize his own perceptual limitations and to appreciate the rich resources available through interaction with the hearts and minds of other human beings. That person values the differences because those differences add to his knowledge, to his understanding of reality. When we're left to our own experiences, we constantly suffer from a shortage of data."
132) Sociologist/psychologist Kurt Lewin and his force field analysis model: "describing any current level of performance or being as a state of equilibrium between the driving forces that encourage upward movement and the restraining forces that discourage it." Note that the driving forces are positive, reasonable, logical and conscious, while restraining forces are negative, emotional, illogical and unconscious. "Both sets of forces are very real and must be taking into account in dealing with change. "
133) On how defaulting to the legal system and going to court is a last resort not a first resort, and how it is anti-synergistic and produces fear because of the zero-sum win/lose nature of the legal paradigm.
134) Note also that your own internal synergy is completely within your circle of influence. "You can respect both sides of your own nature--the analytical side and the creative side. You can value the difference between them and use that difference to catalyze creativity." Likewise you can maintain this synergy even in the midst of adversarial environments: you don't have to take insults personally or accept or ingest negative energy, you can do what's necessary to enlarge your perspective, you can exercise courage to be open, express your ideas and your feelings and your experiences "in a way that will encourage other people to be open also."
135) "When someone disagrees with you, you can say, 'Good! You see it differently.'"
136) Habit 6 Application Suggestions:
1) Think about a person who typically sees things differently than you do. Consider ways in which those differences might be used as stepping stones to third alternative solutions. Perhaps you can seek out his or her views on a current project or problem, valuing the different views you are likely to hear.
2) Make a list of people who irritate you. Do they represent different views that could lead to synergy if you had greater intrinsic security and could "value the difference"?
3) The next time you have a disagreement or confrontation with someone, attempt to understand the concerns underlying that person's position. Address those concerns in a creative and mutually beneficial way.
Part 4: Renewal
Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw: Principles of Balanced Self-Renewal
137) Sometimes when I consider what tremendous
consequences come from little things...
I am tempted to think...
there are no little things.
--Bruce Barton
138) "I don't have time to sharpen the saw, I'm too busy sawing!" "Habit 7 is taking time to sharpen the saw. It surrounds the other habits on the Seven Habits paradigm because it is the habit that makes all the others possible."
139) See photo for the "cycle of renewal":
141) Sharpening the saw is a Quadrant II activity: proactive, volitional
142) Physical dimension: e.g.: eating well, getting rest, exercising
143) Spiritual dimension: your core, your center, your commitment to your value system
"I have so much to do today, I'll need to spend another hour on my knees." Martin Luther on how prayer was source of power that multiplied his energies. On why a personal mission statement is so important.
144) Mental dimension: avoiding TV and media, reading/writing/learning (especially after our years of formal education), also finding things that inform or inspire you that are consistent with your values ("good nutriments") "Someday, in the years to come, you will be wrestling with the great temptation, or trembling under the great sorrow of your life. But the real struggle is here, now ... Now it is being decided whether, in the day of your supreme sorrow or temptation, you shall miserably fail or gloriously conquer. Character cannot be made except by a steady, long continued process."--Rev. Phillips Brooks
145) Social/Emotional dimension: "Let me listen to you first" as default mode, as something you say to begin a conversion or an attempt to settle differences.
146) How Habits 4, 5 and 6 are not a matter of intellect, they are a matter of our sense of personal security. Intrinsic security, where does it come from? It can't come from what other people think of us or how others treat us, or from scripts that they've handed us, it also doesn't come from our circumstances or our position, it comes from within, having accurate paradigms and correct principles and having true inside-out congruence.
147) Dr. Hans Selye and his ethic to "earn thy neighbor's love."
148) Also a wonderful quote from George Bernard Shaw on a life ethic (see photo below): "...being a force of nature, instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy."
149) On "scripting" others: showing them our values, our abundance mentality, showing good integrity and being proactive: this offers scripts for others to follow by example. On being "a positive scripter, and affirmer, of other people."
150) "Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat him as he can and should be he will become as he can and should be." --Goethe
151) On the synergies in these four areas of renewal:
* physical health affects your mental health
* your spiritual strength affects your social and emotional strength
* as you improve in one dimension you increase your ability in other dimensions as well, etc
* likewise the habits are synergistic with each other, thus leading to the "Upward Spiral" of "learn, commit, do, learn, commit, do."
152) "He who keeps his garden tidy doesn't reserve a plot for weeds." --Dag Hammarskjold on how you have to stay clean; if you play with falsehood you forfeit your right to truth.
153) Habit 7 Application Suggestions:
1) Put together a list of activities for the four domains of renewing activities that you'd like to improve or bring greater effectiveness
2) Commit to writing down specific "sharpen the saw" activities in all four dimensions each week, do them, and evaluate your performance and results.
Inside-Out Again
154) While on a sabbatical on Oahu the author stumbles on a paragraph in a book about "the gap between stimulus and response" and the idea hits him with "almost unbelievable force." "I began to stand in that gap and to look outside at the stimuli." During this time he engages in tremendous deep communication on a daily basis with his wife, and they choose to continue this communication routine after returning from his sabbatical.
155) Note the dense quote here from Henri-Frédéric Amiel on the superarching goal of unity with others, with family, friends, etc.
156) Finally: "A Quadrant II Day at the Office" where the author walks through a fully-scheduled day and approaches it by using a Quadrant II-centered paradigm: investing in relationships, thinking long-term, beginning (sometimes) very long-term investments in empowering the people around him to do some of the tasks that he might otherwise do, etc., all of which lets you dedicate more and more time to still more "important but not urgent" Quadrant II activities.
To Read:
Thomas Kuhn: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
FG "Buck" Rogers: The IBM Way
Robert Allen: Creating Wealth
Robert Allen: Nothing Down
Malcolm Muggeridge: A Twentieth-Century Testimony, other works.
E.M. Gray: The Common Denominator of Success (essay, link here: http://www.amnesta.net/mba/
Roger Fisher and William Ury: Getting To Yes
Kurt Lewin: Resolving Social Conflicts and Field Theory in Social Science
Bruce Barton: The Man Nobody Knows
***Arthur Gordon: A Touch of Wonder
Phillips Brooks: Addresses by the Right Reverend Phillips Brooks
N. Eldon Tanner: Prayer
Sheri Dew: Ezra Taft Benson: A Biography
Henri-Frédéric Amiel: Amiel's Journal