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The 'inside-out' Approach To Personal And Interpersonal Effectiveness Means To Start First With Self; Even More Fundamentally, To Start With The Most Inside Part Of Self, With Your Paradigms, Your Character, And Your Motives. The Inside-out Approach Says That Private Victories Precede Public Victories, That Making And Keeping Promises To Ourselves Recedes Making And Keeping Promises To Others. It Says It Is Futile To Put Personality Ahead Of Character, To Try To Improve Relationships With Others Before Improving Ourselves.

-Stephen Covey

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The 'inside-out' Approach To

Stephen Covey

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The 'inside-out' Approach To Personal And Interpersonal Effectiveness Means To Start First With Self; Even More Fundamentally, To Start With The Most Inside Part Of Self, With Your Paradigms, Your Character, And Your Motives. The Inside-out Approach Says That Private Victories Precede Public Victories, That Making And Keeping Promises To Ourselves Recedes Making And Keeping Promises To Others. It Says It Is Futile To Put Personality Ahead Of Character, To Try To Improve Relationships With Others Before Improving Ourselves.

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Fulfilling The Four Needs In An Integrated Way Is Like Combining Elements In Chemistry. When We Reach A "critical Mass" Of Integration, We Experience Spontaneous Combustion - An Explosion Of Inner Synergy That Ignites The Fire Within And Gives Vision, Passion, And A Spirit Of Adventure To Life.

We Are Product Of Neither Nature Nor Nurture; We Are A Product Of Choice, Because There Is Always A Space Between Stimulus And Response. As We Wisely Exercise Our Power To Choose Based On Principles, The Space Will Become Larger.

The First Principle Of Ethical Power Is Purpose. By Purpose, I Don't Mean Your Objective Or Intention-something Toward Which You Are Always Striving. Purpose Is Something Bigger. It Is The Picture You Have Of Yourself-the Kind Of Person You Want To Be Or The Kind Of Life You Want To Lead.

As People Enable Themselves To Achieve One Or Two Goals For The Year That Are Most Meaningful, They Will Find Power, Peace Of Mind, And Confidence In Their Abilities Because They Have Achieved What They Set Out To Accomplish. Your Commitment To Achieving What Matters Most Will Become The Foundation For Tremendous Accomplishments And Contributions. You Will Become The Change You Seek To Make.

I Am Not A Product Of My Circumstances. I Am A Product Of My Decisions.

Effective People Are Not Problem-minded; They're Opportunity Minded. They Feed Opportunities And Starve Problems.

The Deepest Hunger Of [a Child's] Human Heart Is To Be Understood, For Understanding Implicitly Affirms, Validates, Recognizes And Appreciates The Intrinsic Worth Of Another.

The Most Important Ingredient We Put Into Any Relationship Is Not What We Say Or What We Do, But What We Are.

The Challenge Of Work-life Balance Is Without Question One Of The Most Significant Struggles Faced By Modern Man.

Be Patient With Yourself. Self-growth Is Tender; It's Holy Ground. There's No Greater Investment.

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

Distinguish Between The Person And The Behavior Or Performance.

The Way We See The Problem Is The Problem.

The Great Apparent Dichotomy Is That The More We Give, The More We Get.

Law Of Attraction

Habit 7 Is Taking The Time To Sharpen The Saw. By Renewing The Four Dimensions Of Your Nature - Physical, Spiritual, Mental And Social/emotional, You Can Work More Quickly And Effortlessly. To Do This, We Must Be Proactive. This Is A Quadrant Ii (important, Not Urgent) Activity That Must Be Acted On. It's At The Center Of Our Circle Of Influence, So We Must Do It For Ourselves.

I Am Convinced That If We As A Society Work Diligently In Every Other Area Of Life And Neglect The Family, It Would Be Analogous To Straightening Deck Chairs On The Titanic.

Strategy Is Important, But Trust Is The Hidden Variable. On Paper You Can Have Clarity Around Your Objectives, But In A Low-trust Environment, Your Strategy Won't Be Executed.

What You Do Has Far Greater Impact Than What You Say.

Most People Do Not Listen With The Intent To Understand; They Listen With The Intent To Reply.

Don't Prioritize Your Schedule, Schedule Those Priorities.

When The Trust Is High, You Get The Trust Dividend. Investors Invest In Brands People Trust. Consumers Buy More From Companies They Trust, They Spend More With Companies They Trust, They Recommend Companies They Trust, And They Give Companies They Trust The Benefit Of The Doubt When Things Go Wrong.

We Can Never Really Change Someone; People Must Change Themselves.

Management Is Formal Authority Given From Above. Leadership Is Moral Authority Given From Below And All Around.

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.

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 Principle Of Fasting Is Taught In Almost All Major World Religions As A Means Of Developing A Higher Level Of Self-mastery And Self-control, And Also A Deeper Awareness Of How Really Dependent We Are.

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.

Be Governed By Your Internal Compass, Not By Some Clock On The Wall.

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

People With A Scarcity Mentality Tend To See Everything In Terms Of Win-lose. There Is Only So Much; And If Someone Else Has It, That Means There Will Be Less For Me. The More Principle-centered We Become, The More We Develop An Abundance Mentality, The More We Are Genuinely Happy For The Successes, Well-being, Achievements, Recognition, And Good Fortune Of Other People. We Believe Their Success Adds To...rather Than Detracts From...our Lives.

The Nature Of Life Is To Be A Study Of Contrasts: Joy/sadness, Full/empty. The Main Thing Is To Keep The Main Thing The Main Thing.

Keep Moving Forward

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.

But Borrowing Strength Builds Weakness.

Personal Development

Trust Is A Function Of Both Character And Competence. Of Course You Can't Trust Someone Who Lacks Integrity, But If Someone Is Honest But They Can't Perform, You're Not Going To Trust Them Either. You Won't Trust Them To Get The Job Done.

Strength Lies In Differences, Not In Similarities

If We Overcome The Pull And "get Up And Get At It," We Will Have Won A Victory. We Have Kept Our Own Resolve. We Can Then Move To Other Things, For By Small Means Great Things Are Accomplished. Thus, Even This One Small Step Is Also In Another Sense A Giant Leap.

Until We Take How We See Ourselves (and How We See Others) Into Account, We Will Be Unable To Understand How Others See And Feel About Themselves And Their World. Unaware, We Will Project Our Intentions On Their Behavior And Call Ourselves Objective.

Always Treat Your Employees Exactly As You Want Them To Treat Your Best Customers. You Can Buy A Person's Hand, But You Can't Buy His Heart; His Heart Is Where His Enthusiasm Is. You Can Buy His Back, But You Can't Buy His Brain. That's Where His Creativity Is. Treat Employees As Volunteers Just As You Treat Customers As Volunteers, Because That's What They Are. They Volunteer The Best Parts - Their Hearts And Minds.

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.

Trust Is A Powerful Accelerator To Performance And When Trust Goes Up, Speed Also Goes Up While Cost Comes Down - Producing What We Call A Trust Dividend.

Writing Distills, Crystallizes, And Clarifies Thought.

Some People Achieve The Top Of The Ladder And Only Then Realise It Was Standing Against The Wrong Wall.

Management Is Efficiency In Climbing The Ladder Of Success

Keeping A Personal Journal A Daily In-depth Analysis And Evaluation Of Your Experiences Is A High-leverage Activity That Increases Self-awareness And Enhances All The Endowments And The Synergy Among Them.

We Not Not Our Feelings. We Are Not Our Moods. We Not Even Our Thoughts.

It Takes Humility To Seek Feedback. It Takes Wisdom To Understand It, Analyze It And Appropriately Act On It.

When You Show Deep Empathy Toward Others, Their Defensive Energy Goes Down, And Positive Energy Replaces It. That's When You Can Get More Creative In Solving Problems.

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.

Inevitably, Anytime We Are Too Vulnerable We Feel The Need To Protect Ourselves From Further Wounds. So We Resort To Sarcasm, Cutting Humor, Criticism - Anything That Will Keep From Exposing The Tenderness Within. Each Partner Tends To Wait On The Initiative Of The Other For Love, Only To Be Disappointed But Also Confirmed As To The Rightness Of The Accusations Made.

Affirm People. Affirm Your Children. Believe In Them, Not In What You See But In What You Don't See - Their Potential.

The Key To The Ability To Change Is A Changeless Sense Of Who You Are, What You Are About And What You Value.

Always Treat Your Employees Exactly As You Want Them To Treat Your Best Customers.

Creating And Integrating An Empowering Personal Mission Statement Is One Of The Most Important Investments We Can Make.

If You Are An Effective Manager Of Your Self, Your Discipline Comes From Within; It Is A Function Of Your Independent Will.

We Think We See The World As It Is, When In Fact We See The World As We Are.

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

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.

A Moment Of Choice Is A Moment Of Truth.

Moment Of Truth

What You See Often Depends On What You Are Looking For.

The Exercise Of True Leadership Is Inversely Proportional To The Exercise Of Power.

The 'inside-out' Approach To Personal And Interpersonal Effectiveness Means To Start First With Self; Even More Fundamentally, To Start With The Most Inside Part Of Self, With Your Paradigms, Your Character, And Your Motives. The Inside-out Approach Says That Private Victories Precede Public Victories, That Making And Keeping Promises To Ourselves Recedes Making And Keeping Promises To Others. It Says It Is Futile To Put Personality Ahead Of Character, To Try To Improve Relationships With Others Before Improving Ourselves.

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.

Leadership Is A Choice, Not A Position

If I Really Want To Improve My Situation, I Can Work On The One Thing Over Which I Have Control-myself. I Can Stop Trying To Shape Up My Wife And Can Work On My Own Weaknesses. I Can Focus An Being A Great Marriage Partner, A Source Of Unconditional Love And Support. Hopefully, My Wife Will Feel The Power Of Proactive Example And Respond In Kind. But, Whether She Does Or Doesn't, The Most Positive Way I Can Influence My Situation Is To Work On Myself, On My Being.

Unconditional Love

Your Systems Are Perfectly Designed To Get The Results That You Are Getting.

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

All Things Are Created Twice. There's A Mental Or First Creation, And A Physical Or Second Creation To All Things

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.

A Moment Of Choice Is A Moment Of Truth. It's The Testing Point Of Our Character And Competence.

Independent Thinking Alone Is Not Suited To Interdependent Reality.

When You Have A Challenge And The Response Is Equal To The Challenge, That's Called 'success'. But Once You Have A New Challenge, The Old, Once-successful Response No Longer Works. That's Why It Is Called A 'failure'.

Principles Are Guidelines For Human Conduct That Are Proven To Have Enduring, Permanent Value.

I Know It Is Possible Not Only To Restore Trust But To Actually Enhance It. The Difficult Things That We Got Through With The Important People In Our Lives Can Become Fertile Ground For The Growth Of Enduring Trust - Trust That Is Actually Stronger Because It's Been Tested And Proved Through Challenge.

As You Live Your Values, Your Sense Of Identity, Integrity, Control, And Inner-directedness Will Infuse You With Both Exhilaration And Peace. You Will Define Yourself From Within, Rather Than By People's Opinions Or By Comparisons To Others.

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

Historically, The Family Has Played The Primary Role In Educating Children For Life, With The School Providing Supplemental Scaffolding To The Family.

True Independence Of Character Empowers Us To Act Rather Than Be Acted Upon.

I Believe That A Life Of Integrity I The Most Fundamental Source Of Personal Worth. I Do Not Agree With The Popular Success Literature That Says That Self-esteem Is Primarily A Matter Of Mind Set, Of Attitude-that You Can Psych Yourself Into Peace Of Mind. Peace Of Mind Comes When Your Life Is In Harmony With True Principles And Values And In No Other Way.

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.

The Essence Of The Best Thinking In The Area Of Time Management (practice Planning) Can Be Captured In A Single Phrase: Organize And Execute Around Priorities

If We Know How To Listen To Our Own Heart, We Can Listen To The Hearts Of Others.

Trust Is The Glue That Holds Everything Together. It Creates The Environment In Which All Of The Other Elements Win-win Stewardship Agreements, Self-directing Individuals And Teams, Aligned Structures And Systems, And Accountability Can Flourish.

In This Knowledge-worker Age, It's Now Increasingly Tied To Doing Well In School So You Can Get Into Better Grad Schools So You Can Get Better Jobs - So The Pressure To Do Well Is Really High.

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.

When One Side Benefits More Than The Other, That's A Win-lose Situation. To The Winner It Might Look Like Success For A While, But In The Long Run, It Breeds Resentment And Distrust.

Time Management Is A Misnomer, The Challenge Is To Manage Ourselves.

Time Management

Live The Law Of Love. We Encourage Obedience To The Laws Of Life When We Live The Laws Of Love.

To Maintain The P/pc Balance, The Balance Between The Golden Egg (production) And The Health And Welfare Of The Goose (production Capability) Is Often A Difficult Judgment Call. But I Suggest It Is The Very Essence Of Effectiveness.

In The Long Run, You Can Never Accomplish A Worthy End With An Unworthy Means.

Proactive People Carry Their Own Weather With Them.

The Need To Leave A Legacy Is Our Spiritual Need To Have A Sense Of Meaning, Purpose, Personal Congruence, And Contribution.

Trust Is The Highest Form Of Human Motivation.

Most People Are Basically A Victim Of The Circumstances Of Their Life. They Have Things Like 9/11, They Have Terrorism Threats, They Have New War Threats, They Have Economy Problems, And They Think, 'what Can I Do? I'm Basically A Victim.'

One 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.

You Are Dependent If You Allow The Weaknesses Of Other People To Ruin Your Emotional Life!

The Struggle Comes When We Sense A Gap Between The Clock And The Compass - When What We Do Doesn't Contribute To What Is Most Important In Our Lives.

As We Make And Keep Commitments, Even Small Commitments, We Begin To Establish An Inner Integrity That Gives Us The Awareness Of Self-control And The Courage And Strength To Accept More Of The Responsibility For Our Own Lives. By Making And Keeping Promises To Ourselves And Others, Little By Little, Our Honor Becomes Greater Than Our Moods.

Wisdom Is Your Perspective On Life, Your Sense Of Balance, Your Understanding Of How The Various Parts And Principles Apply And Relate To Each Other.

We All Go Through Stages. Concerns About Appearances, Making Good Impressions, Being Popular, Comparing Yourself To Others, Having Unbridled Ambition, Wanting To Make Money, Striving To Be Recognized And Noticed And Trying To Establish Yourself, All Fade As Your Responsibilities And Character Grow.

There's Strong Data That, Within Companies, The No. 1 Reason For Ethical Violations Is The Pressure To Meet Expectations, Sometimes Unrealistic Expectations.

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.

Principles Don't Die. They Aren't Here One Day And Gone The Next. They Can't Be Destroyed By Fire, Earthquake Or Theft. Principles Are Deep, Fundamental Truths, Classic Truths.

I See Myself Living By Correct Principles And Accomplishing Worthy Purposes. One Of My Favorite Quotes Is, "the Greatest Battles Of Life Are Fought Out Every Day In The Silent Chambers Of One's Own Soul." (david O. Mckay).

Remember, Technology Is A Great Servant, But A Terrible Master.

If There Is No Gardener There Is No Garden.

Communication Is The Most Important Single Activity Of Man.

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

..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.

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."

What 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.

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

When Parents See Their Children's Problems As Opportunities To Build The Relationship Instead Of As Negative, Burdensome Irritations, It Totally Changes The Nature Of Parent-child Interaction. Parents Become More Willing, Even Excited, About Deeply Understanding And Helping Their Children. . . . This Paradigm Is Powerful In Business As Well.

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.

Visualising Something Organises One's Ability To Accomplish It.

An Effective Goal Focuses Primarily On Results Rather Than Activity. It Identifies Where You Want To Be, And, In The Process, Helps You Determine Where You Are. It Gives You Important Information On How To Get There, And It Tells You When You Have Arrived. It Unifies Your Efforts And Energy. It Gives Meaning And Purpose To All You Do.

Make Time For Planning: Wars Are Won In The General's Tent.

Time Management

In Order To Have Influence, You Have To Be Influenced.

Self Improvement

To Receive Gratitude With Grace Is A Form Of Gratitude By Itself, And Not Always An Easy Art To Master.

To Touch The Soul Of Another Human Being Is To Walk On Holy Ground.

To Change Ourselves Effectively, We First Had To Change Our Perceptions.

Anything Less Than A Conscious Commitment To The Important Is An Unconscious Commitment To The Unimportant.

Without Trust, The Best We Can Do Is Compromise.

By Centering Our Lives On Correct Principles And Creating A Balanced Focus Between Doing And Increasing Our Ability To Do, We Become Empowered To The Task Of Creating Effective Useful And Peaceful Lives.

True Effectiveness Is A Function Of Two Things: What Is Produced (the Golden Eggs) And The Producing Asset (the Goose).

We Must Look At The Lens Through We See The World, As Well As The World We See, And That The Lens Itself Shapes How We Interpret The World.

I Think That [respect For People] Is Of Profound Importance Because It Means You Are Caring And You Trust Them To Do The Right Thing.

How You Treat The One Reveals How You Regard The Many, Because Everyone Is Ultimately A One.

Interpersonal Skills

If You Want To Achieve Your Highest Aspirations And Overcome Your Greatest Challenges, Identify And Apply The Principle Or Natural Law That Governs The Results You Seek. How We Apply A Principle Will Vary Greatly And Will Be Determined By Our Unique Strengths, Talents, And Creativity, But, Ultimately, Success In Any Endeavor Is Always Derived From Acting In Harmony With The Principles To Which The Success Is Tied.

Building And Repairing Relationships Are Long-term Investments.

If You Don't Have Confidence In The Diagnosis, You Won't Have Confidence In The Prescription.

Have Confidence

In Effective Personal Leadership, Visualization And Affirmation Techniques Emerge Naturally Out Of A Foundation Of Well Thought Through Purposes And Principles That Become The Center Of A Person's Life.

Balance Isn't Either/or; It's 'and'.

Happiness, Like Unhappiness, Is A Proactive Choice.

The Environment You Fashion Out Of Your Thoughts, Your Beliefs, Your Ideals, Your Philosophy Is The Only Climate You Will Ever Live In. The Key Is In Not Spending Time, But In Investing It.

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.

It Doesn't Really Matter How Fast You're Going If You're Heading In The Wrong Direction.

Inspirational Life

Through It All I Have Learned That Parenting Is Basically A Life Of Self Sacrifice.

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.

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

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.

The Power Of Transcendent Vision Is Greater Than The Power Of The Scripting Deep Inside The Human Personality And It Subordinates It [the Scripting], Submerges It, Until The Whole Personality Is Reorganized In The Accomplishment Of That Vision.

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.

The Key Is Taking Responsibility And Initiative, Deciding What Your Life Is About And Prioritizing Your Life Around The Most Important Things.

Nothing Tastes As Good As Thin Feels.

We Immediately Become More Effective When We Decide To Change Ourselves Rather Than Asking Things To Change For Us.

Change For The Better

When You Make A Commitment To Yourself, Do So With The Clear Understanding That You're Pledging Your Integrity.

If There's One Thing That's Certain In Business, It's Uncertainty.

Don't Cheat People Of Their Growth. Empower Them To Solve Problems And Generate Ideas. Watch Them Grow!

Each Of Us Guard A Gate Of Change That Can Only Be Opened From The Inside.

Emotional Appeal

When We Pick Up One End Of The Stick, We Pick Up The Other.

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

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

Impulse Control

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.

Vital To Quality Of Life Is The Ability To Work Together, Learn From Each Other, And Help Each Other Grow.

Working Together

What Difference Would A Clear Vision Of My Principles, Values, And Ultimate Objectives Make In The Way I Spend My Time?

Trust Is A Competency. It's Something You Can Get Good At. It's A Strength You Personally, And Your Team And Your Company Can Master. Being Good At It Will Elevate Every Other Strength You Have.

When We Look Through The Lens Of Each Others' Weaknesses, We Make Others' Strengths Irrelevant And Their Weaknesses More Evident.

Management Is Efficiency In Climbing The Ladder Of Success; Leadership Determines Whether The Ladder Is Leaning Against The Right Wall.

The 8th Habit, Then, Is Not About Adding One More Habit To The 7 - One That Somehow Got Forgotten. It's About Seeing And Harnessing The Power Of A Third Dimension To The 7 Habits That Meets The Central Challenge Of The New Knowledge Worker Age. The 8th Habit Is To Find Your Voice And Inspire Others To Find Theirs.

Each Of Us Tends To Think We See Things As They Are, That We Are Objective. But This Is Not The Case. We See The World, Not As It Is, But As We Are - Or As We Are Conditioned To See It.

Despite All Our Gains In Technology, Product Innovation And World Markets, Most People Are Not Thriving In The Organizations They Work For.

If You Don't Set Your Goals Based Upon Your Mission Statement, You May Be Climbing The Ladder Of Success Only To Realize, When You Get To The Top, You're On The Wrong Building.

As You Care Less About What People Think Of You, You Will Care More About What Others Think Of Themselves.

Link Yourself To Your Potential, Not To Your Past.

The Fire Inside People Is Like A Match; The Way To Ignite That Flame Is Initially Through Friction, Then Other Matches Are Lit Through Warmth.

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

It'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.

The More People Rationalize Cheating, The More It Becomes A Culture Of Dishonesty. And That Can Become A Vicious, Downward Cycle. Because Suddenly, If Everyone Else Is Cheating, You Feel A Need To Cheat, Too.

The Worldly Fountain Does Not Breed Spiritual Depth.

You Have To Water The Flowers You Want To Grow.

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.

Suppose You Were To Come Upon Someone In The Woods Working Feverishly To Saw Down A Tree. "what Are You Doing?" You Ask. "can't You See?" Comes The Impatient Reply. "i'm Sawing Down This Tree." "you Look Exhausted!" You Exclaim. "how Long Have You Been At It?" "over Five Hours," He Returns, "and I'm Beat! This Is Hard Work." 'well, Why Don't You Take A Break For A Few Minutes And Sharpen That Saw?" You Inquire. "i'm Sure It Would Go A Lot Faster." "i Don't Have Time To Sharpen The Saw," The Man Says Emphatically. "i'm Too Busy Sawing!"

While You Can Think In Terms Of Efficiency In Dealing With Time, A Principle-centered Person Thinks In Terms Of Effectiveness In Dealing With People.

Seek To Understand Before You Seek To Be Understood.

Trust Is The Glue That Holds Everything Together.

But 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.

If You Want To Be Trusted, Be Trustworthy.

Interdependence Is A Higher Value Than Independence

There Are Three Constants In Life... Change, Choice And Principles.

You Can't Live Principals You Can't Understand.

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

Taking Initiative Is A Form Of Self-empowerment.

When You Engage In A Work That Taps Your Talent And Fuels Your Passion-that Rises Out Of A Great Need In The World That You Feel Drawn By Conscience To Meet-therein Lies Your Voice, Your Calling, Your Soul's Code.

The Place To Begin Building Any Relationship Is Inside Ourselves, Inside Our Circle Of Influence, Our Own Character.

Most Leaders Would Agree That They’d Be Better Off Having An Average Strategy With Superb Execution Than A Superb Strategy With Poor Execution. Those Who Execute Always Have The Upper Hand.

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

Time Management

Self-awareness Involves Deep Personal Honesty. It Comes From Asking And Answering Hard Questions.

We Hear A Lot About Identity Theft When Someone Takes Your Wallet And Pretends To Be You And Uses Your Credit Cards. But The More Serious Identity Theft Is To Get Swallowed Up In Other People's Definition Of You.

Unless People Feel That They Are Accepted And That They Have A Right To Express Their Feelings Without Fear Of Embarrassment Or Ridicule, All They Will Do Is React And Rebel And Struggle For Their Identity.

I'm Convinced That We Can Write And Live Our Own Scripts More Than Most People Will Acknowledge. I Also Know The Price That Must Be Paid. It's A Real Struggle To Do It. It Requires Visualization And Affirmation. It Involves Living A Life Of Integrity, Starting With Making And Keeping Promises, Until The Whole Human Personality The Senses, The Thinking, The Feeling, And The Intuition Are Ultimately Integrated And Harmonized.

If My Sense Of Security Lies In My Reputation Or In The Things I Have, My Life Will Be In A Constant State Of Threat And Jeopardy-a Fear That These Possessions May Be Lost, Stolen, Or Devalued. If I'm In The Presence Of Someone Of Greater Net Worth, Fame, Or Status, I Feel Inferior. If I'm In The Presence Of Someone Of Lesser Net Worth, Fame Or Status, I Feel Superior. My Sense Of Self-worth Constantly Fluctu-ates. I Don't Have Any Sense Of Constancy, Anchorage, Or Persistent Selfhood. I Am Constantly Trying To Protect And Insure My Assets, Properties, Securities, Position, Or Reputation.

You Basically Get What You Reward. If You Want To Achieve The Goals And Reflect The Values In Your Mission Statement, Then You Need To Align The Reward System With These Goals And Values.

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

Management Is Clearly Different From Leadership. Leadership Is Primarily A High-powered, Right-brain Activity. It's More Of An Art It's Based On A Philosophy. You Have To Ask The Ultimate Questions Of Life When You're Dealing With Personal Leadership Issues.

We Are Free To Choose Our Response In Any Situation, But In Doing So We Chose The Attendant Consequence. If We Pick Up One End Of The Stick, We Pick Up The Other.

Seek First To Understand, Then To Be Understood.

I Believe That The Habit Of Constant Reading Of Good Books And Scholarly Periodicals And Magazines In Many Disciplines Is Vital To Give A Larger Perspective And To Constantly Sense The Interdependent Nature Of Life.

People Who End Up With The Good Jobs Are The Proactive Ones Who Are Solutions To Problems, Not Problems Themselves, Who Seize The Initiative To Do Whatever Is Necessary To Get The Job Done.

It Is One Thing To Make A Mistake, And Quite Another Thing Not To Admit It. People Will Forgive Mistakes, Because Mistakes Are Usually Of The Mind, Mistakes Of Judgment. But People Will Not Easily Forgive The Mistakes Of The Heart, The Ill Intention, The Bad Motives, The Prideful Justifying Cover-up Of The First Mistake.

Creating A Warm, Caring, Supportive, Encouraging Environment Is Probably The Most Important Thing You Can Do For Your Family.

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Iain Duncan Smith

Pliny The Elder

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