You will never be able to truly step inside another person, to see the world as he sees it, until you develop the pure desire, the strength of personal character, and the positive Emotional Bank Account, as well as the empathetic listening skills to do it.
Stephen CoveyPeople 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.
Stephen CoveyBe patient with yourself. Self-growth is tender; it's holy ground. There's no greater investment.
Stephen CoveyI find most meetings are a waste of time, because they are so ill-prepared and there's little opportunity for true synergy in producing better solutions than what anyone originally thought of. So I work hard to only attend those meetings that have strategic importance and miss all kinds of other seemingly urgent meetings.
Stephen CoveyIt doesn't really matter how fast you're going if you're heading in the wrong direction.
Stephen CoveyBut until a person can say deeply and honestly, "I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday," that person cannot say, "I choose otherwise.
Stephen CoveyWhat one great idea resonates deeper in the soul than any other...that we are free to choose. Next to life itself, the power to choose is your greatest gift.
Stephen CoveyInterdependent people combine their own efforts with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success.
Stephen CoveyIt's incredibly easy to get caught up in an activity trap, in the busy-ness of life, to work harder and harder at climbing the ladder of success only to discover it's leaning against the wrong wall. It is possible to be busy - very busy - without being very effective.
Stephen CoveyRole modeling is the most basic responsibility of parents. Parents are handing life's scripts to their children, scripts that in all likelihood will be acted out for the rest of the children's lives.
Stephen CoveyLeadership is communicating people's worth and potential so clearly that they come to see it themselves.
Stephen CoveyOne of the best ways to educate our hearts is to look at our interaction with other people, because our relationships with others are fundamentally a reflection of our relationship with ourselves.
Stephen CoveyYou have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage—pleasantly, smilingly, nonapologetically, to say “no” to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger “yes” burning inside. The enemy of the “best” is often the “good.
Stephen CoveyMake specific appointments with yourself to work on goals, and treat an appointment with yourself as you'd treat an appointment with anybody else.
Stephen CoveyPeace of mind comes when your life is in harmony with true principles and values and in no other way.
Stephen Covey..people are working harder than ever, but because they lack clarity and vision, they aren’t getting very far. They, in essence, are pushing a rope...with all of their might.
Stephen CoveyIt's a fact that more people watch television and get their information that way than read books. I find new technology and new ways of communication very exciting and would like to do more in this field.
Stephen CoveyEvery person in the organization must change inside their hearts and minds, so that they themselves become principle centred.
Stephen CoveyEvery 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.
Stephen CoveyThe average family spends 30 hours in front of a television, and they say they don't have the time to have a balanced, integrated life.
Stephen CoveyStart small, make a promise and keep it. Then, make larger promises and keep them. Eventually, your honor will become greater than your moods or your circumstances, which includes your medical condition and other people's stereotypic observations. Once you overcome this comparison based mentality, your confidence will soar.
Stephen CoveyTo receive gratitude with grace is a form of gratitude by itself, and not always an easy art to master.
Stephen CoveyPetty things become unimportant when people are impassioned about a purpose higher than self.
Stephen CoveyFind your voice, and inspire others to find theirs. Don't ignore that longing to make a difference.
Stephen CoveySelf-awareness is our capacity to stand apart from ourselves and examine our thinking, our motives, our history, our scripts, our actions, and our habits and tendencies.
Stephen CoveyA mission statement is not something you write overnight... But fundamentally, your mission statement becomes your constitution, the solid expression of your vision and values. It becomes the criterion by which you measure everything else in your life.
Stephen CoveyThrough imagination, we can visualize the uncredited worlds of potential that lie within us.
Stephen CoveyExecutives need to understand the economic benefits of trust dividend, especially when the behavior is real, not artificially or superficially created as PR to manipulate trust.
Stephen CoveyAnything less than a conscious commitment to the important is an unconscious commitment to the unimportant.
Stephen CoveyWhen we look through the lens of each others' weaknesses, we make others' strengths irrelevant and their weaknesses more evident.
Stephen Covey