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Our Struggle To Put First Things First Can Be Characterized By The Contrast Between Two Powerful Tools That Direct Us: The Clock And The Compass. The Clock Represents Our Commitments, Appointments, Schedules, Goals, Activities - What We Do With, And How We Manage Our Time. The Compass Represents Our Vision, Values, Principles, Mission, Conscience, Direction - What We Feel Is Important And How We Lead Our Lives. In An Effort To Close The Gap Between The Clock And The Compass In Our Lives, Many Of Us Turn To The Field Of "time Management."

-Stephen Covey

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Our Struggle To Put

Stephen Covey

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Our Struggle To Put First Things First Can Be Characterized By The Contrast Between Two Powerful Tools That Direct Us: The Clock And The Compass. The Clock Represents Our Commitments, Appointments, Schedules, Goals, Activities - What We Do With, And How We Manage Our Time. The Compass Represents Our Vision, Values, Principles, Mission, Conscience, Direction - What We Feel Is Important And How We Lead Our Lives. In An Effort To Close The Gap Between The Clock And The Compass In Our Lives, Many Of Us Turn To The Field Of "time Management."

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The Way We See The Problem Is The Problem.

The Deepest Desire Of The Human Spirit Is To Be Acknowledged.

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Would You Not Agree That Relationships Are Built On Trust? Would You Not Also Agree That Most Individuals Think More In Terms Of "me-my Wants, My Needs, My Rights? What Would Wisdom Dictate - Would It Not Direct Us To Focus On Trust-building Principles And Sacrificing 'me' For 'we'?"

We Are Limited But We Can Push Back The Borders Of Our Limitations

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Synergy Is The Highest Activity Of Life; It Creates New Untapped Alternatives; It Values And Exploits The Mental, Emotional, And Psychological Differences Between People.

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Inspirational Life

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Personal Development

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Time Management

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Have Confidence

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The Undisciplined Are Slaves To Moods, Appetites And Passions

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Surround Yourself

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Nevertheless, The Only Way We Can Move From Where We Are Now To Where We Would Like To Be Is To Accept Where We Are Now.

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We Value The Clock For Its Speed And Efficiency. The Clock Has Its Place, Efficiency Has Its Place, After Effectiveness. The Symbol Of Effectiveness Is The Compass A Sense Of Direction, Purpose, Vision, Perspective, And Balance. But The Empowerment Process Itself Is Not Efficient.

My Behavior Is A Product Of My Own Conscious Choices Based On Principles, Rather Than A Product Of My Conditions, Based On Feelings.

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Actually I Did Not Invent The Seven Habits, They Are Universal Principles And Most Of What I Wrote About Is Just Common Sense. I Am Embarrassed When People Talk About The Covey Habits, And Dislike The Idea Of Being Some Sort Of Guru.

While I Believe In The Power Of Positive Thought, I Do Not Believe That You Or I Can Simply Psyche Ourselves Into Success Or Peace Of Mind.

Positive Thoughts

Seek To Understand Rather Than Be Understood.

The Key To Success Is Dedication To Life-long Learning.

As Long As You Think The Problem Is Out There, That Very Thought Is The Problem

Positive Thinking

The Greatest Risk Is The Risk Of Riskless Living.

Peace Of Counscious Is Greater Than Peace Of Mind. Peace Of Mind Is More Externally Oriented. Peace Of Consciousness Is When You Know You Have Been Honest In All Your Business Dealings.

One Thing About Trust Is That Everyone's For It.

The Way We See Things Is The Source Of The Way We Think Or The Way We Act

But With The Steady Disintegration Of The Family In Modern Society Over The Last Century, The Role Of The School In Bridging The Gap Has Become Vital!

It Takes Courage To Realize That You Are Greater Than Your Moods, Greater Than Your Thoughts, And That You Can Control Your Moods And Thoughts.

When You Study The Lives Of All Great Achievers-those Who Have Had The Greatest Influence On Others, Those Who Have Made Things Happen-you Will Find A Pattern. Through Their Persistent Efforts And Inner Struggle, They Have Greatly Expanded Their Four Native Human Intelligences Or Capacities. The Highest Manifestations Of These Four Intelligences Are: For Mental, Vision; For The Physical, Discipline; For The Emotional, Passion; For The Spiritual, Conscience. These Manifestations Also Represent Our Highest Means Of Expressing Our Voice.

Unfortunately, Too Many Executives Believe The Myths About Trust. Myths Like How Trust Is Soft And Is Merely A Social Virtue. The Reality Is That Trust Is Hard-edged And Is An Economic Driver.

A Good Affirmation Has Five Basic Ingredients: It's Personal, It's Positive, It's Present Tense, It's Visual, And It's Emotional.

The Key To The 99 Is The One. Or, Put Another Way, The Key To The Group Is The One Individual. Think About The One, Talk To The One, Regard The One, Serve The One. If You Are Sincere And Constant, You Will Discover That Gradually Your Influence With The Many Will Be Magnified.

As You Begin To Think More In Terms Of Importance, You Begin To See Time Differently.

Time Management

Just As The Education Of Nerve And Sinew Is Vital To The Excellent Athlete And Education Of The Mind Is Vital To The Scholar, Education Of The Conscience Is Vital To The Truly Proactive, Highly Effective Person. Training And Educating The Conscience, However, Requires Even Greater Concentration, More Balanced Discipline, More Consistently Honest Living. It Requires Regular Feasting On Inspiring Literature, Thinking Noble Thoughts And, Above All, Living In Harmony With Its Still Small Voice.

The Heart And Soul Of Loving Yourself Is Integrity And The Peace Of Conscience It Inspires.

Loving Yourself

Whenever You Experience Stress Of Any Kind, Look Into Yourself And Ask, In What Way Am I Compromising My Innermost Values In This Situation?

Begin With The End In Mind.

A Cardinal Principle Of Total Quality Escapes Too Many Managers: You Cannot Continuously Improve Interdependent Systems And Processes Until You Progressively Perfect Interdependent, Interpersonal Relationships.

When The Trust Account Is High, Communication Is Easy, Instant, And Effective.

I Won't Take Time To Repeat All The Obvious Benefits Of Physical Exercise But Will Only Underscore The Well-attested Fact That A Program Of Regular Exercise Increases One's Efficiency In Every Facet Of Life, Including The Depth And Restfulness Of Sleep. And The Time Taken Can Be Minimal; Just A Few Minutes Of Calisthenics And Running In Place In One's Room Or Jogging Around The Yard Or Block Is Often Sufficient. Exercising Doesn't Take Time. It Saves Time. Still, Few Consistently Do It.

In The End, Life Teaches Us What Is Important, And That Is Family.

Only As We Keep An Open Communication With Our Deep Inner Life Will We Have The Wisdom To Make Effective Choices.

My Temptation Is Emotional, And Resisting Will Further My Needed Weight Loss And Strengthen My Character. Furthermore, Nothing Tastes As Good As Thin Feels.

You May Be Good, But What Are You Good For? You've Got To Be Good For Something. You've Got To Be About Some Project, Some Task That Requires You To Be Humble And Obedient To The Universal Principles Of Service. You've Got To Live A Life Of Complete And Total Integrity In Order To Give This Kind Of Service. This Integrity Enables You To Love Other People Unconditionally, To Be Courageous And Kind At The Same Time, Because You Have Integratedness Inside Your Own Soul.

The Only Thing That Endures Over Time Is The 'law Of The Farm.' You Must Prepare The Ground, Plant The Seed, Cultivate, And Water If You Expect To Reap The Harvest.

If You Say To One Flower, 'grow,' But You Water Another, The First One Won't Grow.

Life Is A Mission, Not A Career.

It's Better To Be Trusted Than To Be Liked.

Executives 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.

If You Want To Be Trusted, Be Trustworthy.

What Does It Matter How Much We Do If What We're Doing Isn't What Matters Most?

Interdependent People Combine Their Own Efforts With The Efforts Of Others To Achieve Their Greatest Success.

'in Empathic Listening You Listen With Your Ears, But You Also, And More Importantly, Listen With You Eyes And With Your Heart. You Listen For Feeling, For Meaning. You Listen For Behaviour. You Use Your Right Brain As Well As Your Left. You Sense, You Intuit, You Feel.' ... 'you Have To Open Yourself Up To Be Influenced'.

While Values Drive Behaviors, Principles Govern Consequences.

Many People Seem To Think That Success In One Area Can Compensate For Failure In Other Areas. But Can It Really?... True Effectiveness Requires Balance.

The Human Will Is An Amazing Thing. Time After Time, It Has Triumphed Against Unbelievable Odds.

It Is Possible To Be Busy-very Busy-without Being Very Effective.

Climbing The Ladder

Ladder Of Success

Two People Can See The Same Thing, Disagree, And Yet Both Be Right. It's Not Logical; It's Psychological.

Compliance Does Not Foster Innovation, Trust Does. You Can't Sustain Long-term Innovation, For Example, In A Climate Of Distrust.

If You Don't Choose To Do It In Leadership Time Up Front, You Do It In Crisis Management Time Down The Road.

Vision Is About More Than Just Getting Things Done, Accomplishing Some Task, Achieving Something; It Is About Discovering And Expanding Our View Of Others, Affirming Them, Believing In Them, And Helping Them Discover And Realize The Potential Within Them-helping Them Find Their Own Voice.

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.

The Process Of Building Trust Is An Interesting One, But It Begins With Yourself, With What I Call Self Trust, And With Your Own Credibility, Your Own Trustworthiness. If You Think About It, It's Hard To Establish Trust With Others If You Can't Trust Yourself.

We're Constantly Making Choices About The Way We Spend Our Time. The Issue Is Not Between The Good And The Bad, But Between The Good And The Best. So Often, The Enemy Of The Best Is The Good.

Most Of Us Think We Don't Have Enough Time To Exercise. What A Distorted Paradigm! We Don't Have Time Not To. We're Talking About Three To Six Hours A Week - Or A Minimum Of Thirty Minutes A Day, Every Other Day. That Hardly Seems An Inordinate Amount Of Time Considering The Tremendous Benefits In Terms Of The Impact On The Other 162 - 165 Hours Of The Week.

You Can't Talk Your Way Out Of A Problem You Behaved Your Way Into!

Interpersonal Skills

It's Better To Be Humbled By The Word Than By The Force Of Circumstances.

People Are Your Most Valuable Asset. Only People Can Be Made To Appreciate In Value.

Our Character Is Basically A Composite Of Our Habits.

How Different Our Lives Are When We Really Know What Is Deeply Important To Us, And Keeping That Picture In Mind, We Manage Ourselves Each Day To Be And To Do What Really Matters Most.

Anyone Can Count The Seeds Of An Apple. Who Can Count The Apples In A Seed?

When People Have A Real Sense Of Legacy, A Sense Of Mattering, A Sense Of Contribution, It Seems To Tap Into The Deepest Part Of Their Heart And Soul. It Brings Out The Best And Subordinates The Rest.

We Can't Live Without Eating, But We Don't Live To Eat.

Be Sure That, As You Scramble Up The Ladder Of Success, It Is Leaning Against The Right Building.

The Great Contributors In Life Are Those Who, Though Afraid Of The Knock At The Door, Still Answer It.

Public Behavior Is Merely Private Character Writ Large.

Personal Development

The Challenge Is Not To Manage Time, But To Manage Ourselves.

Time Management

The Main Thing Is To Keep The Main Thing The Main Thing.

Without Exception, Empathy Is Always Appropriate.

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.

The Leader Is The One Who Climbs The Tallest Tree, Surveys The Entire Situation, And Yells, 'wrong Jungle!' ... Busy, Efficient Producers And Managers Often Respond ... 'shut Up! We're Making Progress!'

Synergy Is What Happens When One Plus One Equals Ten Or A Hundred Or Even A Thousand! It's The Profound Result When Two Or More Respectful Human Beings Determine To Go Beyond Their Preconceived Ideas To Meet A Great Challenge.

Synergy Is Everywhere In Nature. If You Plant Two Plants Close Together, The Roots Commingle And Improve The Quality Of The Soil So That Both Plants Will Grow Better Than If They Were Separated. If You Put Two Pieces Of Wood Together, They Will Hold Much More Than The Total Weight Held By Each Separately. The Whole Is Greater Than The Sum Of Its Parts. One Plus One Equals Three Or More.

We're Often So Busy Cutting Through The Undergrowth We Don't Even Realise We're In The Wrong Jungle.

The Ability To Subordinate An Impulse To A Value Is The Essence Of The Proactive Person.

Impulse Control

Your Most Important Work Is Always Ahead Of You, Never Behind You.

It's Not Enough To Have Values Without Vision ; You Want To Be Good, But You Want To Be Good For Something. On The Other Hand, Vision Without Values Can Create A Hitler . An Empowering Mission Statement Deals With Both Character And Competence; What You Want To Be And What You Want To Do In Your Life.

Innocent Pleasures In Moderation Can Provide Relaxation For The Body And Mind And Can Foster Family And Other Relationships. But Pleasure, Per Se, Offers No Deep, Lasting Satisfaction Or Sense Of Fulfillment. The Pleasure-centered Person, Too Soon Bored With Each Succeeding Level Of "fun," Constantly Cries For More And More. So The Next New Pleasure Has To Be Bigger And Better, More Exciting, With A Bigger "high." A Person In This State Becomes Almost Entirely Narcissistic, Interpreting All Of Life In Terms Of The Pleasure It Provides To The Self Here And Now.

Pursuit Of Happiness

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.

Admission Of Ignorance Is Often The First Step In Our Education.

You Can Retire From A Job, But Don't Ever Retire From Making Extremely Meaningful Contributions In Life.

To Set And Work Toward Any Goal Is An Act Of Courage.

Acts Of Courage

The Key To Motivation Is Motive. It's The Why. It's The Deeper Yes! Burning Inside That Makes It Easier To Say No To The Less Important.

Our Ultimate Freedom Is The Right And Power To Decide How Anybody Or Anything Outside Ourselves Will Affect Us.

In Many Situations Involving Service Recovery - The Problem Itself Became The Catalyst For The Creation Of Even Greater Trust As The Companies Took The Issues Head-on And Worked Through The Difficult Problem In A Way That Restored Confidence.

When You Listen With Empathy To Another Person, You Give That Person Psychological Air.

Everyone Chooses One Of Two Roads In Life - The Old And The Young, The Rich And The Poor, Men And Women Alike. One Is The Broad, Well-traveled Road To Mediocrity, The Other Road To Greatness And Meaning.

When You Have Too Many Top Priorities, You Effectively Have No Top Priorities.

Passion Is The Fire, Enthusiasm And Courage That An Individual Feels When She Is Doing Something She Loves While Accomplishing Worthy Ends, Something That Satisfies Her Deepest Needs.

I Am Senting Many Books For Endorsement Purposes, Which Enables Me To Stay Relevant In My Own Field, And I Have People That Help Me Decide Which Ones I Should Read And Endorse.

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 To Shape Our Lives By Default.

We Must Never Be Too Busy To Take Time To Sharpen The Saw.

Without Involvement, There Is No Commitment. Mark It Down, Asterisk It, Circle It, Underline It. No Involvement, No Commitment.

If You Want To Have A More Pleasant, Cooperative Teenager, Be A More Understanding, Empathic, Consistent, Loving Parent. If You Want To Have More Freedom, More Latitude In Your Job, Be A More Responsible, A More Helpful, A More Contributing Employee.

Whether Or Not We Belong To A Church Or Service Organization Or Have A Job That Provides Meaningful Service Opportunities, Not A Day Goes By That We Can't At Least Serve One Other Human Being By Making Deposits Of Unconditional Love.

Unconditional Love

Habit Is The Intersection Of Knowledge (what To Do), Skill (how To Do), And Desire (want To Do).

Satisfied Needs Do Not Motivate. It's Only The Unsatisfied Need That Motivates. 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.

The More People Train Their Counsciousness, The More Sensitivie They Are To It. It's Like You Had Your Own Voice Coming To You.

I Think The Most Significant Work We'll Do In Our Whole Life, In Our Whole World Is Done Within The Four Walls Of Our Home.

Love - The Feeling - Is A Fruit Of Love, The Verb.

Every Time I See High-trust Cultures, I See A Lessening Of Adversarialism.

Studies Have Identified A Significant 'skills Gap' Between What Students Are Currently Being Taught And The Skills Employers Are Seeking In Today's Global Economy. Our Children Must Be Better Prepared Than They Are Now To Meet The Future Challenges Of Our Ever-changing World.

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