Stephen Covey Quotes

Other parts of the personality approach were clearly manipulative, even deceptive, encouraging people to use techniques to get other people to like them, or to fake interest in the hobbies of others to get out of them what they wanted, or to use the “power look,” or to intimidate their way through life.

Change happens at the speed of trust. (cf. The SPEED of Trust, 2008)

لكي تكون سباقاً يجب أن تعمل على تغيير الظروف بما يخدم أهدافك ، لا أن تغير أهدافك وفقاً لما تمليه الظروف

And to change ourselves effectively, we first had to change our perceptions.

بعضنا يشعر بفقدان الاتجاه ، والبلبلة . هؤلاء لا يوجد لديهم تقدير حقيقي للأمور التي تعد الاهم في حياتهم . فهم ينتقلون من نشاط إلى آخر بتلقائية وعفوية ، وبطريقة ميكانيكية بحتة . وبين الحين والآخر يتساءل هؤلاء : هل هناك معنى لما نقوم به من عمل ؟
وبدلا من أن ننظر إلى الأسباب الحقيقية في عدم رؤيتنا للأهم فإنا نتحايل على ذلك بالمسكنات والحلول السريعة لنتجاهل المشكلة ، محصنين بالراحة المؤقتة اللتي تحققها تلك الحلول المؤقتة ، فنصبح مشغولين أكثر وأكثر .

Search your own heart with all diligence for out of it flow the issues of life.

It's incredibly easy to get caught up in the thick of thin things.

If two people have the same opinion, one is unnecessary. It’s not going to do me any good at all to communicate with someone else who sees only the old woman also. 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.

Most people see effectiveness from the golden egg paradigm: the more you produce, the more you do, the more effective you are. But as the story shows, true effectiveness is a function of two things: what is produced (the golden eggs) and the producing asset or capacity to produce (the goose). If you adopt a pattern of life that focuses on golden eggs and neglects the goose, you will soon be without the asset that produces golden eggs. On the other hand, if you only take care of the goose with no aim toward the golden eggs, you soon won’t have the wherewithal to feed yourself or the goose.

Reactive people are also affected by their social environment, by the “social weather.” When people treat them well, they feel well; when people don’t, they become defensive or protective. Reactive people build their emotional lives around the behavior of others, empowering the weaknesses of other people to control them.

We can't live without eating, but we don't live to eat.

Basing our happiness on our ability to control everything is futile. While we do control our choice of action, we cannot control the consequences of our choices.

My friend, love is a verb. Love — the feeling — is a fruit of love, the verb. So love her. Serve her. Sacrifice. Listen to her. Empathize. Appreciate. Affirm her. Are you willing to do that?

All the well-meaning advice in the world won't amount to a hill of beans if we're not even addressing the real problem.

While we are free to choose our actions, we are not free to choose the consequences of our actions.