Stephen Covey Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Stephen Covey. Here they are! All 100 of them:

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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.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be and he will become as he can and should be.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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Trust is the glue of life. It's the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It's the foundational principle that holds all relationships.
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Stephen R. Covey
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Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important.
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Stephen R. Covey
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Start with the end in mind.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People)
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To change ourselves effectively, we first had to change our perceptions.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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Seek first to understand, then to be understood.
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Stephen R. Covey
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I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.
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Stephen R. Covey
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We see the world, not as it is, but as we are──or, as we are conditioned to see it.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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Strength lies in differences, not in similarities
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Stephen R. Covey
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When the trust account is high, communication is easy, instant, and effective.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People)
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Two people can see the same thing, disagree, and yet both be right. It's not logical; it's psychological.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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Habit 1: Be Proactive Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind Habit 3: Put First Things First Habit 4: Think Win/Win Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood Habit 6: Synergize Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People)
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It's not what happens to us, but our response to what happens to us that hurts us.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behaviour.
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Stephen M.R. Covey (The Speed of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything)
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If I really want to improve my situation, I can work on the one thing over which I have control - myself.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People)
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We are free to choose our actions, . . . but we are not free to choose the consequences of these actions.
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Stephen R. Covey (First Things First)
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To touch the soul of another human being is to walk on holy ground.
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Stephen R. Covey
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to learn and not to do is really not to learn. To know and not to do is really not to know.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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Happiness, like unhappiness, is a proactive choice.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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Habit is the intersection of knowledge (what to do), skill (how to do), and desire (want to do).
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courageβ€”pleasantly, smilingly, nonapologetically, to say β€œno” to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger β€œyes” burning inside. The enemy of the β€œbest” is often the β€œgood.
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Stephen R. Covey
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The way we see the problem is the problem.
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Stephen R. Covey
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Love is a verb. Love – the feeling – is the fruit of love the verb or our loving actions. So love her. Sacrifice. Listen to her. Empathize. Appreciate. Affirm her.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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At some time in your life, you probably had someone believe in you when you didn't believe in yourself.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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Be a light, not a judge. Be a model, not a critic
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Stephen R. Covey
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The ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of the proactive person.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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Live, love, laugh, leave a legacy.
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Stephen R. Covey
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Courage isn't absenct of fear, it is the awareness that something else is important
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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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.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People)
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You can't talk your way out of a problem you behaved your way into!
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Stephen R. Covey
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Ineffective people live day after day with unused potential.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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Live out of your imagination, not your history.
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Stephen R. Covey
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As you care less about what people think of you, you will care more about what others think of themselves.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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There are three constants in life... Change, Choice and Principles.
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Stephen R. Covey
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Admission of ignorance is often the first step in our education.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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We are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on a human journey.
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Stephen R. Covey
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There's no better way to inform and expand you mind on a regular basis than to get into the habit of reading good literature.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster.
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Stephen R. Covey
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How you treat the one reveals how you regard the many, because everyone is ultimately a one.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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People simply feel better about themselves when they’re good at something.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness (The Covey Habits Series))
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The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.
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Stephen R. Covey
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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.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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People can't live with change if there's not a changeless core inside them.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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I teach people how to treat me by what I will allow.
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Stephen R. Covey
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The biggest communication problem is we do not listen to understand. We listen to reply.
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Stephen R. Covey
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It comes from within.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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My wife and I just don't have the same feelings for each other we used to have. I guess I just don't love her anymore and she doesn't love me. What can i do?" "The feeling isn't there anymore?" I asked. "That's right," he reaffirmed. "And we have three children we're really concerned about. What do you suggest?" "love her," I replied. "I told you, the feeling just isn't there anymore." "Love her." "You don't understand. the feeling of love just isn't there." "Then love her. If the feeling isn't there, that's a good reason to love her." "But how do you love when you don't love?" "My friend , love is a verb. Love - the feeling - is a fruit of love, the verb. So love her. Serve her. Sacrifice. Listen to her. Empathize. Appreciate. Affirm her. Are you willing to do that?
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.
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Stephen R. Covey
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If you want to have a more pleasant,cooperative teenager, be a more understanding, emphatic, consistent, loving parent.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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Without involvement, there is no commitment. Mark it down, asterisk it, circle it, underline it. No involvement, no commitment.
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Stephen R. Covey
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Treat them all the same by treating them differently.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People)
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When air is charged with emotions, an attempt to teach is often perceived as a form of judgment and rejection.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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Words are like eggs dropped from great heights. You could no more call them back then ignore the mess they left when they fell.
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Stephen R. Covey
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Independent will is our capacity to act. It gives us the power to transcend our paradigms, to swim upstream, to rewrite our scripts, to act based on principle rather than reacting based on emotion or circumstance.
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Stephen R. Covey
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The person who doesn’t read is no better off than the person who can’t read.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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The only person I know, is the person I want to be
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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people have character strength but they lack communication skills, and that undoubtedly affects the quality of relationships as well.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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As long as you think the problem is out there, that very thought is the problem
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Stephen R. Covey
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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.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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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.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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Make small commitments and keep them. Be a light, not a judge. Be a model, not a critic. Be part of the solution, not part of the problem.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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The undisciplined are slaves to moods, appetites and passions
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Stephen R. Covey
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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.
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Stephen R. Covey
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The core of any family is what is changeless, what is going to be there──shared vision and values.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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Be patient with yourself. Self-growth is tender; it’s holy ground. There’s no greater investment.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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Attending church does not necessarily mean living the principles taught in those meeting. You can be active in a church but inactive in its gospel.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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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.
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Stephen R. Covey
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leadership is communicating others’ worth and potential so clearly that they are inspired to see it in themselves.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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Each of us guard a gate of change that can only be opened from the inside.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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we're responsible for our own lives.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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Trust is equal parts character and competence... You can look at any leadership failure, and it's always a failure of one or the other.
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Stephen M.R. Covey (The Speed of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything)
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But borrowing strength builds weakness.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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Motivation is a fire from within. If someone else tries to light that fire under you, chances are it will burn very briefly.
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Stephen R. Covey
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Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out
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Stephen R. Covey
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Interdependence is a choice only independent people can make
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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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.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness (The Covey Habits Series))
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The first job of a leaderβ€”at work or at homeβ€”is to inspire trust. It’s to bring out the best in people by entrusting them with meaningful stewardships, and to create an environment in which high-trust interaction inspires creativity and possibility.
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Stephen M.R. Covey (The Speed of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything)
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If we do not teach our children, societ will. And they-and we-will live with the results.
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Stephen R. Covey (7 habits Family Collection)
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Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us.
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Stephen R. Covey
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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.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 3rd Alternative: Solving Life's Most Difficult Problems)
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Albert Einstein observed, β€œThe significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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We can't live without eating, but we don't live to eat.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People)
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To Retain those who are present, be loyal to those who are absent.
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Stephen R. Covey
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Principles are the territory. Values are maps. When we value correct principles, we have truth -- a knowledge of things as they are.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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You can't change the fruit without changing the root.
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Stephen R. Covey
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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.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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Through imagination, we can visualize the uncredited worlds of potential that lie within us.
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Stephen R. Covey
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Where we stand depends on where we sit." 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 areβ€”or, as we are conditioned to see it. When we open our mouths to describe what we see, we in effect describe ourselves, our perceptions, our paradigms. When other people disagree with us, we immediately think something is wrong with them.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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You can buy a person's hand, but you can't buy his heart. His heart is where his enthusiasm, his loyalty is. You can buy his back, but you can't buy his brain. That's where his creativity is, his ingenuity, his resourcefulness.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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Stephen Covey, in his book The 8th Habit, decribes a poll of 23,000 employees drawn from a number of companies and industries. He reports the poll's findings: * Only 37 percent said they have a clear understanding of what their organization is trying to achieve and why * Only one in five was enthusiastic about their team's and their organization's goals * Only one in five said they had a clear "line of sight" between their tasks and their team's and organization's goals * Only 15 percent felt that their organization fully enables them to execute key goals * Only 20 percent fully trusted the organization they work for Then, Covey superimposes a very human metaphor over the statistics. He says, "If, say, a soccer team had these same scores, only 4 of the 11 players on the field would know which goal is theirs. Only 2 of the 11 would care. Only 2 of the 11 would know what position they play and know exactly what they are supposed to do. And all but 2 players would, in some way, be competing against their own team members rather than the opponent.
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Chip Heath (Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die)
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We are not our feelings. We are not our moods. We are not even our thoughts. The very fact that we can think about these things separates us from them and from the animal world. Self-awareness enables us to stand apart and examine even the way we β€œsee” ourselvesβ€”our self-paradigm, the most fundamental paradigm of effectiveness. It affects not only our attitudes and behaviors, but also how we see other people.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
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Above all, success in business requires two things: a winning competitive strategy, and superb organizational execution. Distrust is the enemy of both. I submit that while high trust won't necessarily rescue a poor strategy, low trust will almost always derail a good one.
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Stephen M.R. Covey (The Speed of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything)
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In the space between stimulus (what happens) and how we respond, lies our freedom to choose. Ultimately, this power to choose is what defines us as human beings. We may have limited choices but we can always choose. We can choose our thoughts, emotions, moods, our words, our actions; we can choose our values and live by principles. It is the choice of acting or being acted upon.
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Stephen R. Covey
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[W]isdom is the child of integrityβ€”being integrated around principles. And integrity is the child of humility and courage. In fact, you could say that humility is the mother of all virtues because humility acknowledges that there are natural laws or principles that govern the universe. They are in charge. Pride teaches us that we are in charge. Humility teaches us to understand and live by principles, because they ultimately govern the consequences of our actions. If humility is the mother, courage is the father of wisdom. Because to truly live by these principles when they are contrary to social mores, norms and values takes enormous courage.
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Stephen R. Covey
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Proactive people focus their efforts in the Circle of Influence. They work on the things they can do something about. The nature of their energy is positive, enlarging and magnifying, causing their Circle of Influence to increase. Reactive people, on the other hand, focus their efforts in the Circle of Concern. They focus on the weakness of other people, the problems in the environment, and circumstances over which they have no control. Their focus results in blaming and accusing attitudes, reactive language, and increased feelings of victimization. The negative energy generated by that focus, combined with neglect in areas they could do something about, causes their Circle of Influence to shrink.
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Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)