Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
*We are what we repeatedly do.
HABIT 1
HABIT 2
• For a full day, listen to your language and to the language of the people around you. How often do you use and hear reactive phrases such as “If only,” “I can’t,” or “I have to”?
HABIT 3
• Take the time to record the impressions you had in the funeral visualization at the beginning of this chapter. You may want to use the chart below to organize your thoughts.
• Identify a Quadrant II activity you know has been neglected in your life—one that, if done well, would have a significant impact
HABIT 4
• Think about an upcoming interaction wherein you will be attempting to reach an agreement or negotiate a solution. Commit to maintain a balance between courage and consideration.
HABIT 5
HABIT 6
• Select a relationship in which you sense the Emotional Bank Account is in the red. Try to understand and write down the situation from the other person’s point of view. In your next interaction, listen for understanding, comparing what you are hearing with what you wrote down. How valid were your assumptions? Did you really understand that individual’s perspective?
• Think about a person who typically sees things differently than you do. Consider ways in which those differences might be used as stepping-stones to third alternative solutions. Perhaps you could seek out his or her views on a current project or problem, valuing the different views you are likely to hear.
• Make a list of activities that would help you keep in good physical shape, that would fit your life-style and that you could enjoy over time.
The way we see the problem is the problem. (View Highlight)
We must not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time. (View Highlight)
“Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny (View Highlight)
Independent thinking alone is not suited to interdependent reality. Independent people who do not have the maturity to think and act interdependently may be good individual producers, but they won’t be good leaders or team players. They’re not coming from the paradigm of interdependence necessary to succeed in marriage, family, or organizational reality. (View Highlight)
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. (View Highlight)
Basically, there are three kinds of assets: physical, financial, and human. (View Highlight)
*I know of no more encouraging fact
Reactive Language
Another excellent way to become more self-aware regarding our own degree of proactivity is to look at where we focus our time and energy. We each have a wide range of concerns—our health, our children, problems at work, the national debt, nuclear war. We could separate those from things in which we have no particular mental or emotional involvement by creating a “Circle of Concern.” (View Highlight)
What lies behind us and what lies before us
Urgent things act on us. (View Highlight)
There can be no friendship without confidence,
An Emotional Bank Account is a metaphor that describes the amount of trust that’s been built up in a relationship. It’s the feeling of safeness you have with another human being. (View Highlight)
Tags: #relationships
Really seeking to understand another person is probably one of the most important deposits you can make, and it is the key to every other deposit. (View Highlight)
The little kindnesses and courtesies are so important. Small discourtesies, little unkindnesses, little forms of disrespect make large withdrawals. In relationships, the little things are the big things. (View Highlight)
Keeping a commitment or a promise is a major deposit; breaking one is a major withdrawal. In fact, there’s probably not a more massive withdrawal than to make a promise that’s important to someone and then not to come through. The next time a promise is made, they won’t believe it. People tend to build their hopes around promises, particularly promises about their basic livelihood. (View Highlight)
Imagine the difficulty you might encounter if you and your boss had different assumptions regarding whose role it was to create your job description. (View Highlight)
Personal Integrity generates trust and is the basis of many different kinds of deposits.
When we make withdrawals from the Emotional Bank Account, we need to apologize and we need to do it sincerely. (View Highlight)
I suggest that in an interdependent situation, every P problem is a PC opportunity—a chance to build the Emotional Bank Accounts that significantly affect interdependent production. (View Highlight)
Win/Win is a frame of mind and heart that constantly seeks mutual benefit in all human interactions. Win/Win means that agreements or solutions are mutually beneficial, mutually satisfying. With a Win/Win solution (View Highlight)