Effective people are not problem-minded; they’re opportunity-minded.
—Stephen Covey
Topics: Mind, People, Habit
To ignore the unexpected (even if it were possible) would be to live without opportunity, spontaneity, and the rich moments of which “life” is made.
—Stephen Covey
Topics: Live, Opportunity, Life, Rich
We simply assume that the way we see things is the way they really are or the way they should be. And our attitudes and behaviors grow out of these assumptions.
—Stephen Covey
Topics: Assumptions, Time
The ability to manage well doesn’t make much difference if you’re not even in the right jungle.
—Stephen Covey
Topics: Management
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.
—Stephen Covey
People who exercise their embryonic freedom day after day, little by little, expand that freedom. People who do not will find that it withers until they are literally “being lived.” They are acting out scripts written by parents, associates and society.
—Stephen Covey
Topics: Freedom
The commitments we make to ourselves and to others, and our integrity to those commitments, is the essence and clearest manifestation of our proactivity.
—Stephen Covey
Topics: Integrity, Act, Rest, Commitment
Anything less than a conscious commitment to the important is an unconscious commitment to the unimportant.
—Stephen Covey
If you’re proactive, you don’t have to wait for circumstances or other people to create perspective expanding experiences. You can consciously create your own.
—Stephen Covey
Topics: Chance, Circumstance
Private Victory precedes Public Victory. Algebra comes before calculus.
—Stephen Covey
Topics: Habit, Victory
It takes a great deal of character strength to apologize quickly out of one’s heart rather than out of pity. A person must possess himself and have a deep sense of security in fundamental principles and values in order to genuinely apologize.
—Stephen Covey
Topics: Character
Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers.
—Stephen Covey
Topics: Entrepreneurs
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!”
—Stephen Covey
Topics: Action, Win
In effective personal leadership, visualization and affirmation techniques emerge naturally out of a foundation of well thought through purposes and principles that become the center of a person’s life.
—Stephen Covey
Topics: Leadership, Life, Principles, Persona, Purpose
Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.
—Stephen Covey
Topics: Leadership, Management, Success
It is in the ordinary events of every day that we develop the proactive capacity to handle the extraordinary pressures of life. It
—Stephen Covey
Topics: Problems
To focus on technique is like cramming your way through school. You sometimes get by, perhaps even get good grades, but if you don’t pay the price day in and day out, you’ll never achieve true mastery of the subjects you study or develop an educated mind.
—Stephen Covey
Topics: Talent
Every human has four endowments- self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom… The power to choose, to respond, to change.
—Stephen Covey
Topics: Awareness, Conscience, Independence
Our character is basically a composite of our habits. Because they are consistent, often unconscious patterns, they constantly, daily, express our character.
—Stephen Covey
Topics: Fortune, Character
People can’t live with change if there’s not a changeless core inside them. The key to the ability to change is a changeless sense of who you are, what you are about and what you value.
—Stephen Covey
Topics: Change
The key is in not spending time, but in investing it.
—Stephen Covey
Topics: Time Management, Spending time wisely
Opposition is a natural part of life. Just as we develop our physical muscles through overcoming opposition – such as lifting weights – we develop our character muscles by overcoming challenges and adversity
—Stephen Covey
Topics: Challenges
The key is not to prioritize your schedule, but to schedule your priorities. Do the important things first – because where you are headed is more important than how fast you are going.
—Stephen Covey
Topics: Habit
As a principle-centered person you try to stand apart from the emotion of the situation and from other factors that would act on you, and evaluate the options. Looking at the balanced whole—the work needs, the family needs, the other needs that may be involved, and the possible implications of the various alternatives—you’ll try to come up with the best solution taking all factors into consideration. We are limited but we can push back the borders of our limitations.
—Stephen Covey
Topics: Control
Security represents your sense of worth, your identity, your emotional anchorage, your self-esteem, your basic personal strength or lack of it.
—Stephen Covey
Topics: Security
We may be very busy, we may be very efficient, but we will also be truly effective only when we begin with the end in mind.
—Stephen Covey
Topics: Busy, Beginning, Goals, Create, Mind
To touch the soul of another human being is to walk on holy ground.
—Stephen Covey
Between stimulus and response is our greatest power – the freedom to choose
—Stephen Covey
Topics: Power
A long, healthy, and happy life is the result of making contributions, of having meaningful projects that are personally exciting and contribute to and bless the lives of others.
—Stephen Covey
Topics: Happy, Health, Habit, Life, Persona, Live
Ineffective people live day after day with unused potential. They experience synergy only in small, peripheral ways in their lives. But creative experiences can be produced regularly, consistently, almost daily in people’s lives. It requires enormous personal security and openness and a spirit of adventure.
—Stephen Covey
Topics: Potential
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Tom Peters American Management Consultant
- Orson Scott Card American Author
- Peter Senge American Management Consultant
- Robin Sharma Canadian Writer, Motivational Speaker
- Margaret J. Wheatley American Management Consultant
- Peter Drucker Austrian-born Management Consultant
- Thomas S. Monson American Religious Leader
- Gordon B. Hinckley American Mormon Religious Leader
- Sheryl Sandberg American Executive, Author
- Marvin J. Ashton American Religious Leader
Leave a Reply