Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
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.
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.
We may find it convenient to live with the illusion that circumstances or other people are responsible for the quality of our lives, but the reality is that we are responsible-response-able-for our choices.
When we say that leadership is a choice, it basically means you can choose the level of initiative you want to exercise in response to the question, ‘What is the best I can do under the given circumstances?’
Putting first things first means organizing and executing around your most important priorities. It is living and being driven by the principles you value most, not by the agendas and forces surrounding you.
There are principles that govern human effectiveness - natural laws in the human dimension that are just as real, just as unchanging and unarguably there as laws such as gravity are in the physical dimension.
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.
The more people rationalize cheating, the more it becomes a culture of dishonesty. And that can become a vicious, downward cycle. Because suddenly, if everyone else is cheating, you feel a need to cheat, too.
You can't have the fruits without the roots. It's the principle of sequencing: Private Victories proceed Public Victories. Self-mastery and self-discipline are the foundation of good relationships with others.
Most people say their main fault is a lack of discipline. On deeper thought, I believe this is not the case. The basic problem is that their priorities have not become deeply planted in their hearts and minds.
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.
Perform anonymous service. Whenever we do good for others anonymously, our sense of intrinsic worth and self-respect increases. ... Selfless service has always been one of the most powerful methods of influence.
We hear a lot about identity theft when someone takes your wallet and pretends to be you and uses your credit cards. But the more serious identity theft is to get swallowed up in other people's definition of you.
Habit 1: Be Proactive Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind Habit 3: Put First Things First Habit 4: Think Win/Win Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood Habit 6: Synergize Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw
When you engage in a work that taps your talent and fuels your passion-that rises out of a great need in the world that you feel drawn by conscience to meet-therein lies your voice, your calling, your soul's code.
Independent will is our capacity to act. It gives us the power to transcend our paradigms, to swim upstream, to rewrite our scripts, to act based on principle rather than reacting based on emotion or circumstance.
The reality is that everybody makes mistakes. The issue isn't whether you will make them, it's what you will do about them. It's whether you will choose the path of humility and courage or the path of ego and pride.
I believe that the habit of constant reading of good books and scholarly periodicals and magazines in many disciplines is vital to give a larger perspective and to constantly sense the interdependent nature of life.
My parents were just constantly affirming me in everything that I did. Late at night, I'd wake up and hear my mother talking over my bed, saying, 'You're going to do great on this test. You can do anything you want.'
When people seriously undertake to identify what really matters most to them in their lives, what they really want to be and do, they become very reverent. They start to think in larger terms than today and tomorrow.
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.
If we want to make relatively minor changes in our lives, we can perhaps appropriately focus on our attitudes and behaviors. But if we want to make significant, quantum change, we need to work on our basic paradigms.
When you have a challenge and the response is equal to the challenge, that's called 'success'. But once you have a new challenge, the old, once-successful response no longer works. That's why it is called a 'failure'.
If two people have the same opinion, one is unnecessary. ... I don't want to talk, to communicate, with someone who agrees with me; I want to communicate with you because you see it differently. I value that difference.
The universal elements are integrity, vision, discipline, passion, governed by conscience. Conscience has been educated through studying and pondering the universal, timeless principles of all six major world religions.
Belief is another word for paradigm. It's a synonymous. Your belief of the way things are. Values are the way things should be, it's a paradigm of the way things should be. Beliefs are the paradigms of the way things are.
Principles are natural laws that are external to us and that ultimately control the consequences of our actions. Values are internal and subjective and represent that which we feel strongest about in guiding our behavior.
There is a heavy emphasis in Mormonism on initiative, on responsibility, on a work ethic, and on education. If you take those elements together with a free-enterprise system, you've got the chemistry for a lot of industry.
I see myself living by correct principles and accomplishing worthy purposes. One of my favorite quotes is, "The greatest battles of life are fought out every day in the silent chambers of one's own soul." (David O. McKay).
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?
Whatever your present situation, I assure you that you are not your habits. You can replace old patterns of self-defeating behavior with new patterns, new habits of the effectiveness, happiness and trust-based relationships.
The person who is truly effective has the humility and reverence to recognize his own perceptual limitations and to appreciate the rich resources available through interaction with the hearts and minds of other human beings.
Synergy is what happens when one plus one equals ten or a hundred or even a thousand! It's the profound result when two or more respectful human beings determine to go beyond their preconceived ideas to meet a great challenge.
Trust is a function of two things: character and competence. Character includes your integrity, your motive and your intent with people. Competence includes your capabilities, your skills, and your track record. Both are vital.
Your economic security does not lie in your job; it lies in your own power to produce - to think, to learn, to create, to adapt. That's true financial independence. It's not having wealth; it's having the power to produce wealth.
Our problems and pain are universal and increasing, and the solutions to the problems are and always will be based upon universal, timeless, self-evident principles common to every enduring, prospering society throughout history.
We are product of neither nature nor nurture; we are a product of choice, because there is always a space between stimulus and response. As we wisely exercise our power to choose based on principles, the space will become larger.
To maintain the P/PC Balance, the balance between the golden egg (production) and the health and welfare of the goose (production capability) is often a difficult judgment call. But I suggest it is the very essence of effectiveness.
Whether or not we belong to a church or service organization or have a job that provides meaningful service opportunities, not a day goes by that we can't at least serve one other human being by making deposits of unconditional love.
Actually I did not invent the seven habits, they are universal principles and most of what I wrote about is just common sense. I am embarrassed when people talk about the Covey Habits, and dislike the idea of being some sort of guru.
"You can buy a person's hand, but you can't buy their heart. His heart is where his enthusiasm, his loyalty is. You can buy his back, but you can't buy his brain. That's where his creativity is, his ingenuity, his his resourcefulness."
Effective people stay out of Quadrants III and IV because, urgent or not, they aren't important. They also shrink Quadrant I down to size by spending more time in Quadrant II...Quadrant II is the heart of effective personal management.
Retire from your job but never from meaningful projects. If you want to live a long life, you need eustress, that is, a deep sense of meaning and of contribution to worthy projects and causes, particularly, your intergenerational family.
Trust is a function of both character and competence. Of course you can't trust someone who lacks integrity, but if someone is honest but they can't perform, you're not going to trust them either. You won't trust them to get the job done.
When we listen with the intent to understand others, rather than with the intent to reply, we begin true communication and relationship building. Opportunities to then speak openly and to be understood come much more naturally and easily.
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.
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.
When I started teaching I realized that I had never had such a level of satisfaction and such a feeling of fulfillment and sense of contribution. Just like that. But, usually it's more cumulative, slow, evolutionary and less revolutionary.
Most people are basically a victim of the circumstances of their life. They have things like 9/11, they have terrorism threats, they have new war threats, they have economy problems, and they think, 'What can I do? I'm basically a victim.'
If we spend most of our time concerned about things we cannot truly directly influence, what we can influence will be reduced. If we spend our energies on those things over which we can expect positive results, we will expand our influence.