Stephen Covey Quotes
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Someone once inquired of a Far Eastern Zen master, who had a great serenity and peace about him no matter what pressures he faced, "How do you maintain that serenity and peace?" He replied, "I never leave my place of meditation." He meditated early in the morning and for the rest of the day, he carried the peace of those moments with him in his mind and heart.
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A personal mission statement becomes the DNA for every other decision we make.
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Self-awareness involves deep personal honesty. It comes from asking and answering hard questions.
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Employees are given the chance to help shape their company by participating in a company-wide communications program making suggestions on waste reduction, environmental improvement, customer satisfaction, quality improvement, and safety issues.
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A cardinal principle of Total Quality escapes too many managers: you cannot continuously improve interdependent systems and processes until you progressively perfect interdependent, interpersonal relationships.
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Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.
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Historically, the family has played the primary role in educating children for life, with the school providing supplemental scaffolding to the family.
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Perhaps the most important vision of all is develop a sense of self, a sense of your own destiny, a sense of unique mission and role in life.
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Unless people feel that they are accepted and that they have a right to express their feelings without fear of embarrassment or ridicule, all they will do is react and rebel and struggle for their identity.
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An effective goal focuses primarily on results rather than activity. It identifies where you want to be, and, in the process, helps you determine where you are. It gives you important information on how to get there, and it tells you when you have arrived. It unifies your efforts and energy. It gives meaning and purpose to all you do.
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Private Victory precedes Public Victory. Algebra comes before calculus.
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Lose/Win people bury a lot of feelings. And unexpressed feelings come forth later in uglier ways. Psychosomatic illnesses often are the reincarnation of cumulative resentment, deep disappointment and disillusionment repressed by the Lose/Win mentality. Disproportionate rage or anger, overreaction to minor provocation, and cynicism are other embodiments of suppressed emotion. People who are constantly repressing, not transcending feelings toward a higher meaning find that it affects the quality of their relationships with others.
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Satisfied needs do not motivate. It's only the unsatisfied need that motivates. Next to physical survival, the greatest need of a human being is psychological survival - to be understood, to be affirmed, to be validated, to be appreciated.
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All things are created twice. There is a mental (first) creation, and a physical (second) creation. The physical creation follows the mental, just as a building follows a blueprint. If you don't make a conscious effort to visualize who you are and what you want in life, then you empower other people and circumstances to shape you and your life by default.
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You have two ears and one mouth. Use them accordingly.
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The ability to establish, grow, extend, and restore trust is the key professional and personal competency of our time.
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It takes humility to seek feedback. It takes wisdom to understand it, analyze it and appropriately act on it.
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Humility is the mother of all virtues, courage the father, integrity the child and wisdom the grandchild.
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Contrary to what most people believe, trust is not some soft, illusive quality that you either have or you don't; rather, trust is a pragmatic, tangible, actionable asset that you can create.
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Spiritual Intelligence represents our drive for meaning and connection with the infinite.
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Reducing children to a test score is the worst form of identity theft we could commit in schools.
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The key to the 99 is the one. Or, put another way, the key to the group is the one individual. Think about the one, talk to the one, regard the one, serve the one. If you are sincere and constant, you will discover that gradually your influence with the many will be magnified.
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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.
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We can't live without eating, but we don't live to eat.