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
If we want to make relatively minor changes in our lives, we can perhaps appropriately focus on our attitudes and behaviors. But if we want to make significant, quantum change, we need to work on our basic paradigms.
Will we act upon life, or will we merely be acted upon?
Synergy: The combined effect of individuals in collaboration that exceeds the sum of their individual effects.
When we listen with the intent to understand others, rather than with the intent to reply, we begin true communication and relationship building. Opportunities to then speak openly and to be understood come much more naturally and easily.
Once you've found your own voice, the choice to expand your influence, to increase your contribution, is the choice to inspire others to find their voice.
People behave more on the basis of how they feel than how they think; unless there are good feelings between people, it is almost impossible to reason intelligently.
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.
If I were to summarize in one sentence the single most important principle I have learned in the field of interpersonal relations, it would be this: Seek first to understand, then to be understood. This principle is the key to effective interpersonal communication.
Only as we keep an open communication with our deep inner life will we have the wisdom to make effective choices.
Quality relationships are built on principles, especially the principle of trust.
People and their managers are working so hard to be sure things are done right, that they have hardly have time to decide if they are doing the right things.
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.
Your power to choose your direction of your life allows you to reinvent yourself, to change your future, and to powerfully influence the rest of creation.
Ineffective people live day after day with unused potential.