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September 2 - September 24, 2023
Like the body, television is a good servant but a poor master. We need to practice Habit 3and manage ourselves effectively to maximize the use of any resource in accomplishing our missions.
Education—continuing education, continually honing and expanding the mind—is vital mental renewal.
There’s no better way to inform and expand your mind on a regular basis than to get into the habit of reading good literature. That’s another high leverage Quadrant II activity.
world. I highly recommend starting with a goal of a book a month, then a book every two weeks, then a book a week. “The person who doesn’t read is no better off than the person who can’t read.”
Quality literature, such as the Great Books, the Harvard Classics, autobiographies, National Geographic and other publications that expand our cultural awareness, and current literature in various fiel...
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Writing is another powerful way to sharpen the mental saw. Keeping a journal of our thoughts, experiences, insights, and learnings promotes mental clarity, exactness, and context.
It is said that wars are won in the general’s tent. Sharpening the saw in the first three dimensions—the physical, the spiritual, and the mental—is a practice I call the “Daily Private Victory.”
The Social/Emotional Dimension
the social/emotional dimension focuses on Habits 4, 5, and 6—centered on the principles of interpersonal leadership, empathic communication, and creative cooperation.
Peace of mind comes when your life is in harmony with true principles and values and in no other way.
Victor Frankl focused on the need for meaning and purpose in our lives, something that transcends our own lives and taps the best energies within us.
The late Dr. Hans Selye, in his monumental research on stress, basically says that a long, healthy, and happy life is the result of making contributions, of having meaningful projects that are personally exciting and contribute to and bless the lives of others. His ethic was “earn thy neighbor’s love.”
In the words of George Bernard Shaw, This is the true joy in life—that being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one. That being a force of nature, instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances compl...
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Most people are a function of the social mirror, scripted by the opinions, the perceptions, the paradigms of the people around them. As interdependent people, you and I come from a paradigm which includes the realization that we are a part of that social mirror.
We can choose to reflect back to others a clear, undistorted vision of themselves. We can affirm their proactive nature and treat them as responsible people. We can help script them as principle-centered, value-based, independent, worthwhile individuals.
At some time in your life, you probably had someone believe in you when you didn’t believe in yourself. They scripted you. Did that make a difference in your life?
What do we reflect to others about themselves? And how much does that reflection influence their lives? We have so much we can invest in the Emotional Bank Accounts of other people.
Goethe taught, “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.”
In an organization, the physical dimension is expressed in economic terms. The mental or psychological dimension deals with the recognition, development, and use of talent.
The social/emotional dimension has to do with human relations, with how people are treated. And the spiritual dimension deals with finding meaning through purpose or contribution and through organizational integrity.
Organizations and individuals that give recognition to each of these four dimensions in their mission statement provide a powerful framework for balanced renewal.
The things you do to sharpen the saw in any one dimension have positive impact in other dimensions because they are so highly interrelated. Your physical health affects your mental health; your spiritual strength affects your social/emotional strength.
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People create optimum synergy among these dimensions. Renewal in any dimension increases your ability to live at least one of the Seven Habits. And although the habits are sequential, improvement in one habit synergetically increases your ability to live the rest.
The more proactive you are (Habit 1), the more effectively you can exercise personal leadership (Habit 2) and management (Habit 3) in your life.
The more effectively you manage your life (Habit 3), the more Quadrant II renewing activities you can do (Habit 7). The more you seek first to understand (Habit 5), the more effectively you can ...
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The more you improve in any of the habits that lead to independence (Habits 1, 2, and 3), the more effective you will be in interdependent situations (Habits 4, 5, and 6). And renewal (...
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The Daily Private Victory—a minimum of one hour a day in renewal of the physical, spiritual, and mental dimensions—is the key to the development of the Seven Habits and it’s completely within your Circle of Influence.
Just as the education of nerve and sinew is vital to the excellent athlete and education of the mind is vital to the scholar, education of the conscience is vital to the truly proactive, highly effective person.
Just as junk food and lack of exercise can ruin an athlete’s condition, those things that are obscene, crude, or pornographic can breed an inner darkness that numbs our higher sensibilities and substitutes the social conscience of “Will I be found out?” for the natural or divine conscience of “What is right and wrong?”
He who wants to keep his garden tidy doesn’t reserve a plot for weeds.
Once we are self-aware, we must choose purposes and principles to live by; otherwise the vacuum will be filled, and we will lose our self-awareness and become like groveling animals who live primarily for survival and propagation. People who exist on that level aren’t living; they are “being lived.”
Moving along the upward spiral requires us to learn, commit, and do on increasingly higher planes. We deceive ourselves if we think that any one of these is sufficient. To keep progressing, we must learn, commit, and do—learn, commit, and do—and learn, commit, and do again.
Inside-Out Again
I came across a book that drew my interest. As I opened it, my eyes fell upon a single paragraph that powerfully influenced the rest of my life.
I read the paragraph over and over again. It basically contained the simple idea that there is a gap or a space between stimulus and response, and that the key to both our growth and happiness is how we use that space.
