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The Most Important Ingredient We Put Into Any Relationship Is Not What We Say Or What We Do, But What We Are. And If Our Words And Our Actions Come From Superficial Human Relations Techniques (the Personality Ethic) Rather Than From Our Own Inner Core (the Character Ethic), Others Will Sense That Duplicity. We Simply Won't Be Able To Create And Sustain The Foundation Necessary For Effective Interdependence.

-Stephen Covey

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The Most Important Ingredient

Stephen Covey

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The Most Important Ingredient We Put Into Any Relationship Is Not What We Say Or What We Do, But What We Are. And If Our Words And Our Actions Come From Superficial Human Relations Techniques (the Personality Ethic) Rather Than From Our Own Inner Core (the Character Ethic), Others Will Sense That Duplicity. We Simply Won't Be Able To Create And Sustain The Foundation Necessary For Effective Interdependence.

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It's Not What People Do To Us That Hurts Us. In The Most Fundamental Sense, It Is Our Chosen Response To What They Do To Us That Hurts Us.

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

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Frustration Is A Function Of Our Expectations, And Our Expectations Are Often A Reflection Of The Social Mirror Rather Than Our Own Values And Priorities.

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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

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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.

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A Personal Mission Statement Becomes The Dna For Every Other Decision We Make.

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Motivational Sports

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Peace Of Mind Comes When Your Life Is In Harmony With True Principles And Values And In No Other Way.

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'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'.

Our Lives Are The Results Of Our Choices. To Blame And Accuse Other People, The Environment, Or Other Extrinsic Factors Is To Choose To Empower Those Things To Control Us.

When We Say That Leadership Is A Choice, It Basically Means You Can Choose The Level Of Initiative You Want To Exercise In Response To The Question, ‘what Is The Best I Can Do Under The Given Circumstances?’

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.

I Believe That God Is The Source Of All The Universal, Timeless Principles. And To Him, I Give All The Credit And The Glory. However, To A Person Who Is Not Religious, I Believe They Can Live To The Highest Level Of Their Conscience And Develop Spiritual Intelligence That Surpasses Most People, Including Many Religious People, Who Profess But Do Not Practice.

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.

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!'

Basing Our Happiness On Our Ability To Control Everything Is Futile.

Pursuit Of Happiness

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.

We Accomplish All That We Do Through Delegation - Either To Time Or To Other People.

A 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.

Reactive People... Are Often Affected By Their Physical Environment. They Find External Sources To Blame For Their Behavior.

Nothing Is As Fast As The Speed Of Trust. Nothing Is As Fulfilling As A Relationship Of Trust. Nothing Is As Inspiring As An Offering Of Trust. Nothing Is As Profitable As The Economics Of Trust. Nothing Has More Influence Than A Reputation Of Trust.

To Focus On Technique Is Like Cramming Your Way Through School. You Sometimes Get By, Perhaps Even Get Good Grades, But If You Don't Pay The Price Day In And Day Out, You'll Never Achieve True Mastery Of The Subjects You Study Or Develop An Educated Mind.

Those Who Get The Most Out Of Life And Those Who Give The Most Are Those Who Make The Choice To Act.

Courage Isn't Absenct Of Fear, It Is The Awareness That Something Else Is Important

Be Part Of The Solution, Not Part Of The Problem.

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.

In Our Own Lives, Having A Mind-set Of Expecting To Win Increases Our Odds Of Winning. It Helps Us Get Better Results. And Better Results Help Us Increase Our Credibility And Self-confidence, Which Leads To More Positive Self-expectancy, And More Winning - And The Upward Cycle Continues. It Becomes A Self-fulfilling Prophecy.

Self Confidence

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

Improve Relationships With Others By Assuming That They Can Hear Everything You Say About Them

Relationships With Others

There Are Principles That Govern Human Effectiveness - Natural Laws In The Human Dimension That Are Just As Real, Just As Unchanging And Unarguably There As Laws Such As Gravity Are In The Physical Dimension.

In A Very Real Sense, There Are Only Two Roles In Organisations: Customers And Suppliers. Everybody Functions Simultaneously In Both Roles, Whether Inside Or Outside The Organisation The Essence Of Good Business, Therefore, Is The Quality Of The Relationship Between Customer And Supplier.

Start 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.

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.

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.

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.

Through Imagination, We Can Visualize The Uncredited Worlds Of Potential That Lie Within Us.

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 Must Seek To Understand The Intent Of Communication Without Prejudging Or Rejecting The Content... Communication, After All, Is Not So Much A Matter Of Intellect As It Is Of Trust And Acceptance Of Others, Of Their Ideas And Feelings, Acceptance Of The Fact That They're Different, And That From Their Point Of View, They Are Right.

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.

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

Emotional Appeal

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.

Perhaps The Greatest Role Of Parenting, More Than Directing And Telling Children What To Do, [is] Helping [children] Connect With Their Own Gifts, Particularly Conscience.

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.

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

If You Want To Get Something Done, Give It To A Busy Man.

Trust Is Clearly A Key Competency. A Competency Or Skill That Can Be Learned, Taught, And Improved And One That Talent Can Be Screened For.

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.

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

Interpersonal Skills

Quality Relationships Are Built On Principles, Especially The Principle Of Trust.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

If The Big Rocks Don't Go In First, They Aren't Going To Fit In Later.

All Broken Relationships Can Be Traced Back To Broken Agreements

Broken Relationship

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

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.

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

Always Surround Yourself With People Who Are Even More Talented And Competent Than You.

Surround Yourself

The Reflection Of The Current Social Paradigm Tells Us We Are Largely Determined By Conditioning And Conditions.

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

Little Kindness And Courtesies Are So Important. In Relationships, The Little Things Are The Big Things.

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

When People Seriously Undertake To Identify What Really Matters Most To Them In Their Lives, What They Really Want To Be And Do, They Become Very Reverent. They Start To Think In Larger Terms Than Today And Tomorrow.

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.

Self Confidence

Decisions We Make

Inspire (from The Latin Inspirare) Means To Breathe Life Into Another.

The Power To Distinguish Between Person And Performance And To Communicate Intrinsic Worth Flows Naturally Out Of Our Own Sense Of Intrinsic Worth.

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

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.

To Judge Someone Before Understanding That Person Is A Form Of Human Rejection And Feeds Upon Itself. It Intensifies Personal Insecurities, Necessitating More Judgment (prejudice) And Less Understanding. The Processes Continue In This Vicious Cycle.

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

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.

Vision Is Seeing A Future State With The Mind's Eye. Vision Is Applied Imagination.

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

Time Management

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

I Believe That There Are Parts To Human Nature That Cannot Be Reached By Either Legislation Or Education, But Require The Power Of God To Deal With.

More Essential Than Working On Attitudes And Behaviors Is Examining The Paradigms Out Of Which Those Attitudes And Behaviors Flow.

It Is In The Ordinary Events Of Every Day That We Develop The Proactive Capacity To Handle The Extraordinary Pressures Of Life. It's How We Make And Keep Commitments, How We Handle A Traffic Jam, How We Respond To An Irate Customer Or A Disobedient Child. It's How We View Our Problems And Where We Focus Our Energies. It's The Language We Use.

The Best Way To Develop Courage Is To Set A Goal And Achieve It, Make A Promise And Keep It.

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

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

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

Belief Is Another Word For Paradigm. It's A Synonymous. Your Belief Of The Way Things Are. Values Are The Way Things Should Be, It's A Paradigm Of The Way Things Should Be. Beliefs Are The Paradigms Of The Way Things Are.

Before You Wonder "am I Doing Things Right?" Wonder "am I Doing The Right Things?"

Doing The Right Thing

If We Can't Make And Keep Commitments To Ourselves As Well As To Others, Our Commitments Become Meaningless.

It's Sometimes A Painful Process. It's A Change That Has To Be Motivated By A Higher Purpose, By The Willingness To Subordinate What You Think You Want Now For What You Want Later.

Unless You’re Continually Improving Your Skills, You’re Quickly Becoming Irrelevant.

If You Don't Let A Teacher Know What Level You Are -- By Asking A Question, Or Revealing Your Ignorance -- You Will Not Learn Or Grow

Employers And Business Leaders Need People Who Can Think For Themselves - Who Can Take Initiative And Be The Solution To Problems.

Leadership Is Communicating People's Worth And Potential So Clearly That They Come To See It Themselves.

You Have To Water The Flowers You Want To Grow.

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.

Highly Effective People Tend To Be Proactive. They Decide To Find A Better Job Or To Have Better Health, Rather Than Of Responding To Whatever Curves Life Throws At Them.

Trust Is The Glue Of Life. It's The Most Essential Ingredient In Effective Communication. It's The Foundational Principle That Holds All Relationships.

To Blame And Accuse Other People, Is To Choose To Empower Them, To Control Us.

Principle-centered People Are Constantly Educated By Their Experiences.

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.

The Key Is Not To Prioritize What's On Your Schedule, But To Schedule Your Priorities.

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).

Trust Is Central To An Economy That Works.

Trust Is The One Thing That Affects Everything Else You're Doing. It's A Performance Multiplier Which Takes Your Trajectory Upwards, For Every Activity You Engage In, From Strategy To Execution.

If Our Feelings Control Our Actions, It Is Because We Have Abdicated Our Responsibility And Empowered Them To Do So.

Visualising Something Organises One's Ability To Accomplish It.

You Don't See The World As It Is, You See It According To Who You Are.

Writing Is Another Powerful Way To Sharpen The Mental Saw. Keeping A Journal Of Our Thoughts, Experiences, Insights, And Learnings Promotes Mental Clarity, Exactness, And Context.

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.

Humility Is The Mother Of All Virtues: The Humble In Spirit Progress And Are Blessed Because They Willingly Submit To Higher Powers And Try To Live In Harmony With Natural Laws And Universal Principles. Courage Is The Father Of All Virtues; We Need Great Courage To Lead Our Lives By Correct Principles And To Have Integrity In The Moment Of Choice.

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

Moral Authority Comes From Following Universal And Timeless Principles Like Honesty, Integrity, Treating People With Respect.

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.'

Petty Things Become Unimportant When People Are Impassioned About A Purpose Higher Than Self.

Involve People In The Problem And Work Out The Solution Together.

What Is Important To Another Person Must Be As Important To You As The Other Person Is To You

You 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.

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

People And Organizations Don't Grow Much Without Delegation And Completed Staff Work Because They Are Confined To The Capacities Of The Boss And Reflect Both Personal Strengths And Weaknesses

You Can't Be Successful With Other People If You Haven't Paid The Price Of Success With Yourself.

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.

Too Many Vacations That Last Too Long, Too Many Movies, Too Much Tv, Too Much Video Game Playing - Too Much Undisciplined Leisure Time In Which A Person Continually Takes The Course Of Least Resistance Gradually Wastes A Life. It Ensures That A Person's Capacities Stay Dormant, That Talents Remain Undeveloped, That The Mind And Spirit Become Lethargic And That The Heart Remains Unfulfilled.

Paradigms Are Powerful Because They Create The Lens Through Which We See The World.

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

Effective Communication Is Built On The Cement Of Trust. And Trust Is Based On Trustworthiness, Not Politics.

Trustworthiness

Principles Always Have Natural Consequences Attached To Them. There Are Positive Consequences When We Live In Harmony With The Principles. There Are Negative Consequences When We Ignore Them. But Because These Principles Apply To Everyone, Whether Or Not They Are Aware, This Limitation Is Universal. And The More We Know Of Correct Principles, The Greater Is Our Personal Freedom To Act Wisely.

Your Economic Security Does Not Lie In Your Job; It Lies In Your Own Power To Produce - To Think, To Learn, To Create, To Adapt. That's True Financial Independence. It's Not Having Wealth; It's Having The Power To Produce Wealth.

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