Quotes from Stephen R. Covey

Interdependence is the paradigm of we—we can do it; we can cooperate; we can combine our talents and abilities and create something greater together.

Once you have that sense of mission, you have the essence of your own proactivity. You have the vision and the values which direct your life. You have the basic direction from which you set your long- and short-term goals. You have the power of a written constitution based on correct principles, against which every decision concerning the most effective use of your time, your talents, and your energies can be effectively measured.

When you have No Deal as an option in your mind, you feel liberated because you have no need to manipulate people, to push your own agenda, to drive for what you want. You can be open. You can really try to understand the deeper issues underlying the positions.

Maturity is the balance between courage and consideration. I

In our quest for short-term returns, or results, we often ruin a prized physical asset -- a car, a computer, a washer or dryer, even our body or our environment.

Proactive people aren't pushy. They're smart, they're value driven, they read reality, and they know what's needed.

Begin with the end in mind" is based on the principle that all things are created twice. There's a mental or first creation, and a physical or second creation, to all things.

He looked into his own head and thought he saw the world

That's right. So you have to weigh that consequence against the other consequence and make a choice. I know if it were me, I'd choose to go on the tennis trip. But never say you have to do anything.

Most of us approach situations with the win-lose mentality. "Winning" means somebody else loses. We're scripted with a scarcity mentality by win-lose athletics, academic distribution curves, and forced ranking systems. We look at life through the glasses of win-lose, and if we fail to develop self-awareness, we spend our lives competing for "dimes" instead of cooperating for "dollars.

three central values in life—the experiential, or that which happens to us; the creative, or that which we bring into existence; and the attitudinal, or our response in difficult circumstances

The carpenter's rule is "measure twice, cut once.

We're constantly making choices about the way we spend our time, from major seasons to the individual moments in our lives. We're also living with the consequences of those choices

We are the instrument of our own performance

Did you ever consider how ridiculous it would be to try to cram on a farm—to forget to plant in the spring, play all summer and then cram in the fall to bring in the harvest? The farm is a natural system. The price must be paid and the process followed. You always reap what you sow; there is no shortcut. This principle is also true, ultimately, in human behavior, in human relationships.

My own experience with people confirms the point Frankl makes—that the highest of the three values is attitudinal, in the paradigm or reframing sense. In other words, what matters most is how we respond to what we experience in life.

The attitude was "If a person of your intelligence and competence and commitment disagrees with me, then there must be something to your disagreement that I don't understand, and I need to understand it. You have a perspective, a frame of reference I need to look

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. When we open our mouths to describe what we see, we in effect describe ourselves, our perceptions, our paradigms.

La gente reactiva suele verse afectada por el medio ambiente. Si el clima es agradable, se sienten bien. Si no lo es, su actitud y desempeño se modifican. La gente proactiva lleva el buen clima consigo. Si afuera llueve o sale el sol, para ellos no hay diferencia alguna.7

but they don't really want to listen; they want to manipulate. And synergy can't thrive in that

In making such a choice, we become reactive. Reactive people are often affected by their physical environment. If the weather is good, they feel good. If it isn't, it affects their attitude and their performance. Proactive people can carry their own weather with them. Whether it rains or shines makes no difference to them.

You can buy a person's hand, but you can't buy his heart.

Sempre que achamos que o problema está "lá fora"; este pensamento em si é o problema.

Communication is the most important skill in life.