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Did you ever consider how ridiculous it would be to try to cram on a farm—to forget to plant in the spring, play all summer and then cram in the fall to bring in the harvest? The farm is a natural system. The price must be paid and the process followed. You always reap what you sow; there is no shortcut.
You might work on your behavior—you could try harder, be more diligent, double your speed. But your efforts would only succeed in getting you to the wrong place faster.
“A thousand-mile journey begins with the first step” and can only be taken one step at a time.
ourselves precedes making and keeping promises to others.
“Lift off” takes a tremendous effort, but once we break out of the gravity pull, our freedom takes on a whole new dimension.
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.
Our most important financial asset is our own capacity to earn. If we don’t continually invest in improving our own PC, we severely limit our options. We’re locked into our present situation, running scared of our corporation or our boss’s opinion of us, economically dependent and defensive. Again, it simply isn’t effective.
There are organizations that talk a lot about the customer and then completely neglect the people that deal with the customer—the employees. The PC principle is to always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers.
experiential, or that which happens to us; the creative, or that which we bring into existence; and the attitudinal, or our response in difficult circumstances such as terminal illness.
It does mean recognizing our responsibility to make things happen.
But not to acknowledge a mistake, not to correct it and learn from it, is a mistake of a different order. It usually puts a person on a self-deceiving, self-justifying path, often involving rationalization (rational lies) to self and to others. This second mistake, this cover-up, empowers the first, giving it disproportionate importance, and causes far deeper injury to self.
we make and keep commitments, even small commitments, we begin to establish an inner integrity that gives us the awareness of self-control and the courage and strength to accept more of the responsibility for our own lives.
It’s incredibly easy to get caught up in an activity trap, in the busyness of life, to work harder and harder at climbing the ladder of success only to discover it’s leaning against the wrong wall. It is possible to be busy—very busy—without being very effective.
“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.
their need to be popular with their children may override the importance of a long-term investment in their children’s growth and development.
All it takes to show the limitations of a money center is a crisis in my life or in the life of a loved one.
Acceptance and belonging to a peer group can become almost supremely important. The distorted and ever-changing social mirror becomes the source for the four life-support factors, creating a high degree of dependence on the fluctuating moods, feelings, attitudes, and behavior of others.
We are free to choose our actions, based on our knowledge of correct principles, but we are not free to choose the consequences of those actions.
As a principle-centered person, you see things differently. And because you see things differently, you think differently, you act differently. Because you have a high degree of security, guidance, wisdom, and power that flows from a solid, unchanging core, you have the foundation of a highly proactive and highly effective life.
Until you accept the idea that you are responsible, that you are the programmer, you won’t really invest in writing the program.
almost all of the world-class athletes and other peak performers are visualizers. They see it; they feel it; they experience it before they actually do it. They begin with the end in mind.
“The successful person has the habit of doing the things failures don’t like to do,” he observed. “They don’t like doing them either necessarily. But their disliking is subordinated to the strength of their purpose.”
The first wave or generation could be characterized by notes and checklists, an effort to give some semblance of recognition and inclusiveness to the many demands placed on our time and energy.
The second generation could be characterized by calendars and appointment books. This wave reflects an attempt to look ahead, to schedule events and activities in the future.
it focuses on setting goals—specific long-, intermediate-, and short-term targets toward which time and energy would be directed in harmony with values.
“time management” is really a misnomer—the challenge is not to manage time, but to manage ourselves.
fourth generation expectations focus on preserving and enhancing relationships and on accomplishing results—in short, on maintaining the P/PC Balance.
If something is important, it contributes to your mission, your values, your high priority goals.
Pareto Principle—80 percent of the results flow out of 20 percent of the activities.
To say “yes” to important Quadrant II priorities, you have to learn to say “no” to other activities, sometimes apparently urgent things.
The enemy of the “best” is often the “good.”
Remember, frustration is a function of our expectations, and our expectations are often a reflection of the social mirror rather than our own values and priorities.
Many people refuse to delegate to other people because they feel it takes too much time and effort and they could do the job better themselves. But effectively delegating to others is perhaps the single most powerful high-leverage activity there is.
There are basically two kinds of delegation: “gofer delegation” and “stewardship delegation.” Gofer delegation means “Go for this, go for that, do this, do that, and tell me when it’s done.”
Stewardship delegation is focused on results instead of methods. It gives people a choice of method and makes them responsible for results. It takes more time in the beginning, but it’s time well invested. You can move the fulcrum over, you can increase your leverage, through stewardship delegation.
Trust is the highest form of human motivation. It brings out the very best in people. But it takes time and patience, and it doesn’t preclude the necessity to train and develop people so that their competency can rise to the level of that trust.
Private Victory precedes Public Victory.
Win/Win is a belief in the Third Alternative. It’s not your way or my way; it’s a better way, a higher way.
So I recommend reading literature, such as the inspiring biography of Anwar Sadat, In Search of Identity, and seeing movies like Chariots of Fire or plays like Les Misérables that expose you to models of Win/Win.
So we changed one system—the compensation system—and the
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.
Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.
Satisfied needs do not motivate. It’s only the unsatisfied need that motivates.
The amateur salesman sells products; the professional sells solutions to needs and problems.
We evaluate—we either agree or disagree; we probe—we ask questions from our own frame of reference; we advise—we give counsel based on our own experience; or we interpret—we try to figure people out, to explain their motives, their behavior, based on our own motives and behavior.
Children desperately want to open up, even more to their parents than to their peers. And they will, if they feel their parents will love them unconditionally and will be faithful to them afterwards and not judge or ridicule them.
Ethos is your personal credibility,
is the empathic side—it’s
Logos is the logic,
Don’t push; be patient; be respectful. People don’t have to open up verbally before you can empathize. You can empathize all the time with their behavior. You can be discerning, sensitive, and aware and you can live outside your autobiography when that is needed.
