Stephen Covey Quotes
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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!"
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You may be good, but what are you good for? You've got to be good for something. You've got to be about some project, some task that requires you to be humble and obedient to the universal principles of service. You've got to live a life of complete and total integrity in order to give this kind of service. This integrity enables you to love other people unconditionally, to be courageous and kind at the same time, because you have integratedness inside your own soul.
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Writing distills, crystallizes, and clarifies thought.
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Stop setting goals. Goals are pure fantasy unless you have a specific plan to achieve them.
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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.
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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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If there's one thing that's certain in business, it's uncertainty.
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The commitments we make to ourselves and to others, and our integrity to those commitments, is the essence and clearest manifestation of our proactivity.
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We could not have gotten where we are without coming the way we came.
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The roots of the problems we face in the world, in our national life, and in our family and personal lives are spiritual.
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Remember, technology is a great servant, but a terrible master.
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If you want to get something done, give it to a busy man.
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Feedback often tells you more about the person who is giving it than about you.
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The key to the ability to change is a changeless sense of who you are, what you are about and what you value.
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To achieve goals you've never achieved before, you need to start doing things you've never done before.
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Seek to understand rather than be understood.
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People don't listen to understand. They listen to reply. The collective monologue is everyone talking and no one listening.
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Fundamentally, we are a product of choice, not nature (genes) or nurture (upbringing, environment).
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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.
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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.
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The key to the many is often the one; it is how you regard and talk about the one in that one's absence or presence that communicates to the many how you would regard and talk about them in their presence or absence.
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It's a fact that more people watch television and get their information that way than read books. I find new technology and new ways of communication very exciting and would like to do more in this field.
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Be sure that, as you scramble up the ladder of success, it is leaning against the right building.
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We immediately become more effective when we decide to change ourselves rather than asking things to change for us.