Stephen Covey Quotes
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We can't live without eating, but we don't live to eat.
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When we look through the lens of each others' weaknesses, we make others' strengths irrelevant and their weaknesses more evident.
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Communication is the most important skill in life. We spend most of our waking hours communicating. But consider this: You've spent years learning how to read and write, years learning how to speak. But what about listening?
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Effective communication is built on the cement of trust. And trust is based on trustworthiness, not politics.
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We must not let the actions or words of others determine our responses. Magnanimous people make the choice to respond to the indignities of others based upon their own principles and their own value system rather than their moods or anger.
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Your systems are perfectly designed to get the results that you are getting.
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Sacrifice really means giving up something good for something better.
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I am personally convinced that one person can be a change catalyst, a 'transformer' in any situation, any organization. Such an individual is yeast that can leaven an entire loaf. It requires vision, initiative, patience, respect, persistence, courage, and faith to be a transforming leader.
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We exhaust ourselves more from the tension and the consequences of internal disharmony than from hard, unremitting work.
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When your happiness comes primarily from the happiness of others, you know you have moved from a 'me' experience to a 'we' experience. And the whole problem-solving and opportunity-seizing process changes.
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Interdependency follows independence.
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The only thing that endures over time is the 'Law of the Farm.' You must prepare the ground, plant the seed, cultivate, and water if you expect to reap the harvest.
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Fulfilling the four needs in an integrated way is like combining elements in chemistry. When we reach a "critical mass" of integration, we experience spontaneous combustion - an explosion of inner synergy that ignites the fire within and gives vision, passion, and a spirit of adventure to life.
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The problems in life come when we're sowing one thing and expecting to reap something entirely different.
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Trust is the glue that holds everything together. It creates the environment in which all of the other elements win-win stewardship agreements, self-directing individuals and teams, aligned structures and systems, and accountability can flourish.
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The first job of a leader-at work or at home-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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Live out of your imagination, not your history.
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Treat them all the same by treating them differently.
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Spiritual Intelligence represents our drive for meaning and connection with the infinite.
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Many people seem to think that success in one area can compensate for failure in other areas. But can it really?... True effectiveness requires balance.
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Wisdom is your perspective on life, your sense of balance, your understanding of how the various parts and principles apply and relate to each other.
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Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers. You can buy a person's hand, but you can't buy his heart; his heart is where his enthusiasm is. You can buy his back, but you can't buy his brain. That's where his creativity is. Treat employees as volunteers just as you treat customers as volunteers, because that's what they are. They volunteer the best parts - their hearts and minds.
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The creative process is also the most terrifying part because you don't know exactly what's going to happen or where it is going to lead. You don't know what new dangers and challenges you'll find. It takes an enormous amount of internal security to begin with the spirit of adventure, discovery, and creativity. Without doubt, you have to leave the comfort zone of base camp and confront an entirely new and unknown wilderness.
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People who end up with the good jobs are the proactive ones who are solutions to problems, not problems themselves, who seize the initiative to do whatever is necessary to get the job done.