Stephen Covey
Stephen Covey
Stephen Richards Coveywas an American educator, author, businessman, and keynote speaker. His most popular book was The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. His other books include First Things First, Principle-Centered Leadership, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families, The 8th Habit, and The Leader In Me — How Schools and Parents Around the World Are Inspiring Greatness, One Child at a Time. He was a professor at the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University at the...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionSelf-Help Author
Date of Birth24 October 1932
CitySalt Lake City, UT
CountryUnited States of America
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?
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.
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.
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.
If our feelings control our actions, it is because we have abdicated our responsibility and empowered them to do so.
Synergy is better than my way or your way. It's our way.
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.
The greatest thing you can do for your children is love your spouse.
'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.
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.
Common sense is not always common practice.
The only way we can handle change around us is to know what is changeless about ourselves
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.
Through it all I have learned that parenting is basically a life of self sacrifice.