American Speaker, Trainer, Author of ''The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People''
Accountability breeds response-ability.
Stephen R. Covey – [Responsibility]
As a principle-centered person you try to stand apart from the emotion of the situation and from other factors that would act on you, and evaluate the options. Looking at the balanced whole–the work needs, the family needs, the other needs that may be involved, and the possible implications of the various alternatives — you'll try to come up with the best solution taking all factors into consideration. We are limited but we can push back the borders of our limitations.
Stephen R. Covey – [Limitation]
Don't argue for other people's weaknesses. Don't argue for your own. When you make a mistake, admit it, correct it, and learn from it — immediately.
Stephen R. Covey – [Mistakes]
If you're proactive, you don't have to wait for circumstances or other people to create perspective expanding experiences. You can consciously create your own.
Stephen R. Covey – [Circumstance]
In addition to self-awareness, imagination and conscience, it is the fourth human endowment-independent will-that really makes effective self-management possible. It is the ability to make decisions and choices and to act in accordance with them. It is the ability to act rather than to be acted upon, to proactively carry out the program we have developed through the other three endowments. Empowerment comes from learning how to use this great endowment in the decisions we make every day.
Stephen R. Covey – [Decisions]
Ineffective people live day after day with unused potential. They experience synergy only in small, peripheral ways in their lives. But creative experiences can be produced regularly, consistently, almost daily in people's lives. It requires enormous personal security and openness and a spirit of adventure.
Stephen R. Covey – [Potential]
Interdependency follows independence.
Stephen R. Covey – [Dependence]
It takes a great deal of character strength to apologize quickly out of one's heart rather than out of pity. A person must possess himself and have a deep sense of security in fundamental principles and values in order to genuinely apologize.
Stephen R. Covey – [Character]
It's easy to say ''no!'' when there's a deeper ''yes!'' burning inside.
Stephen R. Covey – [Vision]
Live out of your imagination, not your history.
Stephen R. Covey – [Imagination]
Lose/Win people bury a lot of feelings. And unexpressed feelings come forth later in uglier ways. Psychosomatic illnesses often are the reincarnation of cumulative resentment, deep disappointment and disillusionment repressed by the Lose/Win mentality. Disproportionate rage or anger, overreaction to minor provocation, and cynicism are other embodiments of suppressed emotion. People who are constantly repressing, not transcending feelings toward a higher meaning find that it affects the quality of their relationships with others.
Stephen R. Covey – [Feelings]
Love – THE FEELING – is a fruit of love, the verb.
Stephen R. Covey – [Love]
Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.
Stephen R. Covey – [Management]
Management works in the system; Leadership works on the system.
Stephen R. Covey – [Time and Time Management]
Our character is basically a composite of our habits. Because they are consistent, often unconcious patterns, they constantly, daily, express our character
Stephen R. Covey – [Character]
Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us.
Stephen R. Covey – [Freedom]
People can't live with change if there's not a changeless core inside them. The key to the ability to change is a changeless sense of who you are, what you are about and what you value.
Stephen R. Covey – [Change]
People who exercise their embryonic freedom day after day, little by little, expand that freedom. People who do not will find that it withers until they are literally ''being lived.'' They are acting out scripts written by parents, associates and society.
Stephen R. Covey – [Freedom]
Power is the faculty or capacity to act, the strength and potency to accomplish something. It is the vital energy to make choices and decisions. It also includes the capacity to overcome deeply embedded habits and to cultivate higher, more effective ones.
Stephen R. Covey – [Power]
Priority is a function of context.
Stephen R. Covey – [Priorities]