Stephen R. Covey Quotes & Sayings

But borrowing strength builds weakness. — Stephen R. Covey

So in this section I also deal with the attitudes, skills, and strategies for creating and maintaining trustful relationships with other people. In effect, once we become relatively independent, our challenge is to become effectively interdependent with others. To do this we must practice empathy and synergy in our efforts to be proactive and productive. — Stephen R. Covey

The language of reactive people absolves them of responsibility. — Stephen R. Covey

Doing the right things for the right reason in the right way is the key to Quality of Life! — Stephen R. Covey

Motivation is a fire from within. If someone else tries to light that fire under you, chances are it will burn very briefly. — Stephen R. Covey

In the space between stimulus (what happens) and how we respond, lies our freedom to choose. Ultimately, this power to choose is what defines us as human beings. We may have limited choices but we can always choose. We can choose our thoughts, emotions, moods, our words, our actions; we can choose our values and live by principles. It is the choice of acting or being acted upon. — Stephen R. Covey

Dependent people need others to get what they want. Independent people can get what they want through their own effort. Interdependent people combine their own efforts with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success. If I were physically dependent - paralyzed or disabled or limited — Stephen R. Covey

Many families are managed on the basis of crises, moods, quick fixes, and instant gratification - not on sound principles. Symptoms surface whenever stress and pressure mount: people become cynical, critical, or silent or they start yelling and overreacting. Children who observe these kinds of behavior grow up thinking the only way to solve problems is flight or fight. — Stephen R. Covey

If I were emotionally dependent, my sense of worth and security would come from your opinion of me. — Stephen R. Covey

The ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of the proactive person. — Stephen R. Covey

In our quest for short-term returns, or results, we often ruin a prized physical asset - a car, a computer, a washer or dryer, even our body or our environment. Keeping P and PC in balance makes a tremendous difference in the effective use of physical assets. — Stephen R. Covey

The person who doesn't read is no better off than the person who can't read. — Stephen R. Covey

You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage - pleasantly, smilingly, nonapologetically, to say "no" to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger "yes" burning inside. The enemy of the "best" is often the "good. — Stephen R. Covey

We are either the second creation of our own proactive design, or we are the second creation of other people's agendas, of circumstances, or of past habits. — Stephen R. Covey

Make small commitments and keep them. Be a light, not a judge. Be a model, not a critic. Be part of the solution, not part of the problem. — Stephen R. Covey

Statement - and then to bring that sense of mission, of purpose, to your — Stephen R. Covey

The way you spend your time is a result of the way you see your time and the way you really see your priorities. — Stephen R. Covey

Until we see ourselves from the outside objectively, we will automatically project our motives on other people. — Stephen R. Covey

Be a light, not a judge. Be a model, not a critic — Stephen R. Covey

While we are free to choose our actions, we are not free to choose the consequences of our actions. — Stephen R. Covey

There might be exceptions - and if so, you might rethink their employment - but few people really want to be mediocre. Most of your team members want to make a valued contribution - to find purpose in their work. — Stephen R. Covey

Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions. — Stephen R. Covey

Reactive people are driven by feelings, by circumstances, by conditions, by their environment. Proactive people are driven by values - carefully thought about, selected and internalized values. — Stephen R. Covey

When the trust account is high, communication is easy, instant, and effective. — Stephen R. Covey

If I really want to improve my situation, I can work on the one thing over which I have control - myself. — Stephen R. Covey

To Retain those who are present, be loyal to those who are absent. — Stephen R. Covey

Don't compromise, when you can synergize. — Stephen R. Covey

All of us are interested in things outside of our stewardships, and we should be, but the most important way to do anything about them is to magnify our own stewardships. When you focus on your own responsibility, you become relatively unconcerned with other peoples stewardships. — Stephen R. Covey

It simply makes no difference how good the rhetoric is or even how good the intentions are; if there is little or no trust, there is no foundation for permanent success. — Stephen R. Covey

Remember that quick fix is a mirage. Building and repairing relationships takes time. — Stephen R. Covey

Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be and
he will become as he can and should be. — Stephen R. Covey

Two people can see the same thing, disagree, and yet both be right. It's not logical; it's psychological. — Stephen R. Covey

Chasing after the poisonous snake that bites us will only drive the poison through our entire system. It is far better to take measures immediately to get the poison out. — Stephen R. Covey

Or a person endlessly going to school, never producing, living on other people's golden eggs - the eternal student syndrome. — Stephen R. Covey

If you want to have more freedom, more latitude in your job, be a more responsible, a more helpful, a more contributing employee. — Stephen R. Covey

To touch the soul of another human being is to walk on holy ground. — Stephen R. Covey

Interdependence is a far more mature, more advanced concept. If I am physically interdependent, I am self-reliant and capable, but I also realize that you and I working together can accomplish far more than, even at my best, I could accomplish alone. — Stephen R. Covey

You can't be successful with other people if you haven't paid the price of success with yourself. — Stephen R. Covey

It is much more ennobling to the human spirit to let people judge themselves than to judge them. And — Stephen R. Covey

habit as the intersection of knowledge, skill, and desire. — Stephen R. Covey

Coherence suggests that there is harmony, unity, and integrity between your vision and mission, your roles and goals, your priorities and plans, and your desires and discipline. — Stephen R. Covey

Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny. — Stephen R. Covey

Principle-centered leadership is practiced from the inside out on four levels: 1) personal (my relationship with myself); 2) interpersonal (my relationships and interactions with others); 3) managerial (my responsibility to get a job done with others); and 4) organizational (my need to organize people - to recruit them, train them, compensate them, build teams, solve problems, and create aligned structure, strategy, and systems). — Stephen R. Covey

We must look at the lens through we see the world, as well as the world we see, and that the lens itself shapes how we interpret the world. — Stephen R. Covey

Is it logical that two people can disagree and that both can be right? It's not logical: it's psychological. And it's very real. — Stephen R. Covey

Because their identity and sense of self-worth are wrapped up in their work, their security is vulnerable to anything that happens to prevent them from continuing in it. — Stephen R. Covey

Churchgoing is not synonymous with personal spirituality. There are some people who get so busy in church worship and projects that they become insensitive to the pressing human needs that sourround them, contradicting the very precepts they profess to believe deeply. — Stephen R. Covey

The PC principle is to always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers. — Stephen R. Covey

Ironically, you'll find that as you care less about what others think of you, you will care more about what others think of themselves and their worlds, including their relationship with you. You'll no longer build your emotional life on other people's weaknesses. In addition, you'll find it easier and more desirable to change because there is something - some core deep within - that is essentially changeless. — Stephen R. Covey

When I look back on my life nowadays, which I sometimes do, what strikes me most forcibly about it is that what seemed at the time most significant and seductive, seems now most futile and absurd. — Stephen R. Covey

Habits are like a cable. We weave a strand of it every day and soon it cannot be broken. — Stephen R. Covey

When you live out of your memory, you focus on the past. When you live out of your imagination, you focus on the future. — Stephen R. Covey

Becomes obvious that 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. — Stephen R. Covey

The message sent to one is truly sent to all because everyone is a "one," and they know that if you treat one that way, all it takes is a change of circumstances and you'll treat them that way, too. — Stephen R. Covey

One of the most inspirational people I have ever known is Viktor Frankl, — Stephen R. Covey

Today we come across an individual who behaves like an automaton, who does not know or understand himself, and the only person that he knows is the person that he is supposed to be, whose meaningless chatter has replaced communicative speech, whose synthetic smile has replaced genuine laughter, and whose sense of dull despair has taken the place of genuine pain. Two statements may be said concerning this individual. One is that he suffers from defects of spontaneity and individuality which may seem to be incurable. At the same time it may be said of him he does not differ essentially from the millions of the rest of us who walk upon this earth. — Stephen R. Covey

How you treat the one reveals how you
regard the many, because everyone is ultimately a one. — Stephen R. Covey

Proactive people focus their efforts in the Circle of Influence. They work on the things they can do something about. The nature of their energy is positive, enlarging and magnifying, causing their Circle of Influence to increase. — Stephen R. Covey

This is the single most powerful investment we can ever make in life - investment in ourselves, in the only instrument we have with which to deal with life and to contribute. We are the instruments of our own performance, and to be effective, we need to recognize the importance of taking time regularly to sharpen the saw in all four ways. — Stephen R. Covey

[W]isdom is the child of integrity - being integrated around principles. And integrity is the child of humility and courage. In fact, you could say that humility is the mother of all virtues because humility acknowledges that there are natural laws or principles that govern the universe. They are in charge. Pride teaches us that we are in charge. Humility teaches us to understand and live by principles, because they ultimately govern the consequences of our actions. If humility is the mother, courage is the father of wisdom. Because to truly live by these principles when they are contrary to social mores, norms and values takes enormous courage. — Stephen R. Covey

Unless there are good feelings between people, reasoning intelligently is almost impossible. — Stephen R. Covey

man you might like to take her out. If you were — Stephen R. Covey

We have such a tendency to rush in, to fix things up with good advice. But we often fail to take the time to diagnose, to really, deeply understand the problem first. — Stephen R. Covey

right" will have little to do with being found out. Ironically, you'll find that as you care less about what others think of you, you will care more about what others think of themselves and their worlds, including their — Stephen R. Covey

Effectiveness lies in the balance - what I call the P/PC Balance. P stands for production of desired results, the golden eggs. PC stands for production capability, the ability or asset that produces the golden eggs. — Stephen R. Covey

self-initiated and feeds upon itself. You will develop your abilities faster by learning to make and keep promises or commitments. Start by making a small promise to yourself; continue fulfilling that promise until you have a sense that you have a little more control over yourself. Now take the next level of challenge. — Stephen R. Covey

The thing I learned is that you don't invent your mission, you detect it. You uncover it, as it were. — Stephen R. Covey

To judge someone before understanding that person is a form of human rejection and feeds upon itself. It intensifies personal insecurities, necessitating more judgment (prejudice) and less understanding. The processes continue in this vicious cycle. — Stephen R. Covey

Out of his private victories, public victories began to come. — Stephen R. Covey

Independent people can get what they want through — Stephen R. Covey

You cannot change the direction of the wind, but you can adjust your sails to always reach your destination." So it is that when disasters occur in our lives and we go within to discover our inner strength or to seek discernment, we have choices to continue in the same direction the storm of life has paved for us, or adjust our sail and get back on track to what we believe and know to be our path in life. — Stephen R. Covey

He (Anwar Sadat) records that he was almost loathe to leave his prison cell because it was there that he realized that real success is success with self. It's not in having things, but in having mastery, having victory over self. — Stephen R. Covey

Through real-life stories, Kristin Kaufman illustrates the core idea of being present in the moment and opening oneself up to new ideas in order to become an authentic leader in life. — Stephen R. Covey

Only basic goodness gives life to technique. To — Stephen R. Covey

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. — Stephen R. Covey

If you want to have a more pleasant,cooperative teenager, be a more understanding, emphatic, consistent, loving parent. — Stephen R. Covey

Personal leadership is not a singular experience. It doesn't begin and end with the writing of a personal mission statement. It is, rather, the ongoing process of keeping your vision and values before you and aligning your life to be congruent with those most important things. — Stephen R. Covey

We see the world, not as it is, but as we are--or, as we are conditioned to see it. — Stephen R. Covey

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. — Stephen R. Covey

People simply feel better about themselves when they're good at something. — Stephen R. Covey

Self-aware, knowledgeable, proactive individual, unrestricted by the attitudes, behaviors, and actions of others or by many of the circumstances and environmental influences that limit other people. — Stephen R. Covey

It takes an enormous amount of internal security to begin with the spirit of adventure, the spirit of discovery, the spirit of creativity. Without doubt, you have to leave the comfort zone of base camp and confront an entirely new and unknown wilderness. You become a trailblazer, a pathfinder. You open new possibilities, new territories, new continents, so that others can follow. — Stephen R. Covey

To relate effectively with a wife, a husband, children, friends, or working associates, we must learn to listen. And this requires emotional strength. Listening involves patience, openness, and the desire to understand - highly developed qualities of character. It's so much easier to operate from a low emotional level and to give high-level advice. — Stephen R. Covey

No matter how long we've walked life's pathway to mediocrity, we can always choose to switch paths. Always. It's never too late. We can find our voice. — Stephen R. Covey

The way we see the problem is the problem. — Stephen R. Covey

I've learned that once children gain a sense of real possession, they share very naturally, freely, and spontaneously. — Stephen R. Covey

They [Nazi captors]had more liberty, more options to choose from in their environment; but he [Viktor Frankl] had more freedom, more internal power to exercise his options. — Stephen R. Covey

What you are shouts so loudly in my ears I cannot hear what you say.
-Emerson — Stephen R. Covey

When air is charged with emotions, an attempt to teach is often perceived as a form of judgment and rejection. — Stephen R. Covey

If people have not agreed to a common set of principles that guide them and a common purpose, then they get their security from the outside and they tend to freeze the structure, systems, and processes inside and they cease becoming adaptable. They don't change with the changing realities of the new marketplace out there and gradually they become obsolete. — Stephen R. Covey

If you want to achieve your highest aspirations and overcome your greatest challenges, identify and apply the principle or natural law that governs the results you seek. — Stephen R. Covey

When other people disagree with us, we immediately think something is wrong with them. But, as the demonstration shows, sincere, clearheaded people see things differently, each looking through the unique lens of experience. — Stephen R. Covey

Independence is an important, even vital, value and achievement. The problem is, we live in an interdependent reality, and our most important accomplishments require interdependency skills well beyond our present abilities. — Stephen R. Covey

The core of any family is what is changeless, what is going to be there--shared vision and values. — Stephen R. Covey

My behavior is a product of my own conscious choices based on principles, rather than a product of my conditions, based on feelings. — Stephen R. Covey

What one thing could you do in your personal and professional life that, if you did it on a regular basis, would make a tremendous positive difference in your life? — Stephen R. Covey

If you organize your family life to spend even ten or fifteen minutes a morning reading something that connects you with these timeless principles, its almost guaranteed that you will make better choices during the day
in the family, on the job, in every dimension of life. Your thoughts will be higher. Your interactions will be more satisfying. You will have a greater perspective. You will increase that space between what happens to you and your response to it. You will be more connected to what really matters most. — Stephen R. Covey

Involve people in the problem and work out the solution together. — Stephen R. Covey

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. — Stephen R. Covey

My friend, love is a verb. Love - the feeling - is a fruit of love, the verb. So love her. — Stephen R. Covey