Quotes from Stephen R. Covey

The proactive approach to a mistake is to acknowledge it instantly, correct and learn from it. This literally turns a failure into a success.

we must learn to listen. And this requires emotional strength. Listening involves patience, openness, and the desire to understand—highly developed qualities of character. It's so much easier to operate from a low emotional level and to give high-level advice.

Anything less than Win/Win in an interdependent reality is a poor second best that will have impact in the long-term relationship. The cost of that impact needs to be carefully considered. If you can't reach a true Win/Win, you're very often better off to go for No Deal.

if you are an effective manager of yourself, your discipline comes from within; it is a function of your independent will. You are a disciple, a follower, of your own deep values and their source. And you have the will, the integrity, to subordinate your feelings, your impulses, your moods to those values.

True effectiveness is a function of two things: that which is produced (the golden eggs), and the producing asset or capacity to produce (the goose).

My duplicity will breed distrust, and everything I do—even using so-called good human relations techniques—will be perceived as manipulative.

Peter Drucker recommends the use of a "manager's letter" to capture the essence of performance agreements between managers and their employees. Following a deep and thorough discussion of expectations, guidelines and resources to make sure they are in harmony with organizational goals, the employee writes a letter to the manager that summarizes the discussion and indicates when the next performance plan or review discussion will take place.

Borrowing strength builds weakness

It means that as human beings, we are responsible for our own lives. Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions.

words, that man got hold of our best missionary

you have to like yourself before you can like others.

And what happens when the source of borrowed strength—be it superior size or physical strength, position, authority, credentials, status symbols, appearance, or past achievements—changes or is no longer there?

2: Begin with the End in Mind).

Character Ethic as the foundation of success—things like integrity, humility, fidelity, temperance, courage, justice, patience, industry, simplicity, modesty, and the Golden Rule. Benjamin Franklin's autobiography is representative of that literature. It is, basically, the story of one man's effort to integrate certain principles and habits deep within his nature.

The more people are into quick fixes and focus on the acute problems and pain, the more that very approach contributes to the underlying chronic condition.

To value oneself and, at the same time, subordinate oneself to higher purposes and principles is the paradoxical essence of highest humanity and the foundation of effective leadership.

almost naturally flow from a truly independent character. So the place to begin building any relationship is inside ourselves, inside our Circle of Influence, our own character.

When we are dependent on the person with whom we are in conflict, both need and conflict are compounded. Love-hate over-reactions, fight-or-flight tendencies, withdrawal, aggressiveness, bitterness, resentment, and cold competition are some of the usual results. When these occur, we tend to fall even further back on background tendencies and habits in an effort to justify and defend our own behavior and we attack our spouse's. Inevitably, anytime we are too vulnerable we feel the need

3: Put First Things First).

Rebellion is a knot of the heart, not of the mind.

It says if you want to have a happy marriage, be the kind of person who generates positive energy and sidesteps negative energy rather than empowering it.

The way we see things is the source of the way we think and the way we act.

Many people who give mechanically or refuse to give and share in their marriages and families may never have experienced what it means to possess themselves, their own sense of identity and self-worth. Really helping our children grow may involve being patient enough to allow them the sense of possession as well as being wise enough to teach them the value of giving and providing the example ourselves.

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.