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MJ Nicholls's Reviews > The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
by
by
One of the most-highlighted books on Kindle, proving that human beings thrive on snappy buzz-quotes written by middle managers like David Brent who partake of the music of M People and Steely Dan Kool & The Gang, and whose souls were long ago vacuumed out in a boardroom somewhere during a PowerPoint presentation. Regard:
What you are shouts so loudly in my ears I cannot hear what you say.
This incoherent drivel has the most highlights. Regard the faux-profound self-importance of the “cannot” in this sentence, as though securing the attention of Jim Phelps CEO of E-Z-Clix Online Supplies is the pinnacle of human achievement.
Between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose.
You can say this imbecilic utterance in any accent, or at any speed you like, and it still would be a piece of drivelling cack. It would still linger on the brain for a second as a semi-intelligent observation, before pooling slowly to the floor like the incoherent dog-drool it really is when given two seconds thought.
Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.
Die now. Die now, you patronising ill-bred country-club smug-face slab of nothing. See how that semicolon WINKS at you, as if to say: “Just listen to my me and everything will be all right. Just quote this vacuous frog-plop at the next AGM and sit back as the room erupts into spontaneous applause. Told you so!”
The ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of the proactive person. 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.
Translation: proactive people are greedy loveless cash-licking pus-heads.
It’s not what happens to us, but our response to what happens to us that hurts us.
Are you sure it’s not our response to our response to what happens to us that hurts us? Or our response to our response to our response to what happens to us that hurts us is what hurts us and us and us and them?
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.
P = how many eggs stakeholders want chickens to shit out, vs. PC = how many eggs the chickens are capable of shitting out if kept in airless cages and fed reheated bull droppings. “Squeeze ‘em harder, Mr Pancks!”
The PC principle is to always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers.
Condescending fake-friendliness masking resentment and loathing.
For our purposes, we will define a habit as the intersection of knowledge, skill, and desire. Knowledge is the theoretical paradigm, the what to do and the why. Skill is the how to do. And desire is the motivation, the want to do. In order to make something a habit in our lives, we have to have all three.
OH MOMMY MAKE IT STOP!
What you are shouts so loudly in my ears I cannot hear what you say.
This incoherent drivel has the most highlights. Regard the faux-profound self-importance of the “cannot” in this sentence, as though securing the attention of Jim Phelps CEO of E-Z-Clix Online Supplies is the pinnacle of human achievement.
Between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose.
You can say this imbecilic utterance in any accent, or at any speed you like, and it still would be a piece of drivelling cack. It would still linger on the brain for a second as a semi-intelligent observation, before pooling slowly to the floor like the incoherent dog-drool it really is when given two seconds thought.
Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.
Die now. Die now, you patronising ill-bred country-club smug-face slab of nothing. See how that semicolon WINKS at you, as if to say: “Just listen to my me and everything will be all right. Just quote this vacuous frog-plop at the next AGM and sit back as the room erupts into spontaneous applause. Told you so!”
The ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of the proactive person. 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.
Translation: proactive people are greedy loveless cash-licking pus-heads.
It’s not what happens to us, but our response to what happens to us that hurts us.
Are you sure it’s not our response to our response to what happens to us that hurts us? Or our response to our response to our response to what happens to us that hurts us is what hurts us and us and us and them?
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.
P = how many eggs stakeholders want chickens to shit out, vs. PC = how many eggs the chickens are capable of shitting out if kept in airless cages and fed reheated bull droppings. “Squeeze ‘em harder, Mr Pancks!”
The PC principle is to always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers.
Condescending fake-friendliness masking resentment and loathing.
For our purposes, we will define a habit as the intersection of knowledge, skill, and desire. Knowledge is the theoretical paradigm, the what to do and the why. Skill is the how to do. And desire is the motivation, the want to do. In order to make something a habit in our lives, we have to have all three.
OH MOMMY MAKE IT STOP!
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Reading Progress
April 14, 2013
– Shelved
February 27, 2016
– Shelved as:
getting-even
Comments Showing 1-49 of 49 (49 new)
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MJ wrote: "Condescending fake-friendliness masking resentment and loathing."I liked this review, even though it's very long.
I have a good habit: every morning I punch a businessman. Gets the endorphins flowing. Ian: tsk, be a team player!
MJ wrote: "Ian: tsk, be a team player!"Phooey, it's much more fun pissing from outside the tent.
Well, I've already suggested one explanation for this book in my review. But having just read a de Ségur fairy tale, here's a second possibility: Stephen R. Covey was a kind, noble philosopher who foolishly offended a powerful witch. She put a curse on him that made everything he said come out as a cross between managerspeak and psychobabble. Then the good fairy came by shortly after (for some reason, she's always late), and said that she couldn't change what her sister had done, but it would still make him very rich.Actually, I like this one better. Go Madame de Ségur!
Some people are born rich and others have richness thrust upon them, and then there is us.
Ian wrote: "Some people are born rich and others have richness thrust upon them, and then there is us."
Some people are just mean to be ineffectual. It is a sub-tenet of the Laws of Perpetual Misery.
Some people are just mean to be ineffectual. It is a sub-tenet of the Laws of Perpetual Misery.
I never mean to be ineffectual. It just happens that way.
Ian wrote: "I never mean to be ineffectual. It just happens that way."
Happiness is a tangible source of energy. It has to be distributed evenly in the world, but never fairly.
Happiness is a tangible source of energy. It has to be distributed evenly in the world, but never fairly.
I think this gibberish is beyond the reach of most witches. They have a very creative vocabulary compared to. Anyway, who wants to change? I am who I am today through long years of self-loathing, isolation and disgust for the human race. I worked hard for my status!
MJ wrote: "Anyway, who wants to change? I am who I am today through long years of self-loathing, isolation and disgust for the human race. I worked hard for my status! "
Ditto.
Ditto.
MJ wrote: "I think this gibberish is beyond the reach of most witches. They have a very creative vocabulary compared to.."Witches have their own highly effective ways:
http://www.potw.org/archive/potw283.html
Still my favourite quote of Macbeth: "Double, double, toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble!" It's catchy.
MJ wrote: "Stephen R. Covey wrote: "What you are shouts so loudly in my ears I cannot hear what you say."."You're being too harsh here, MJ. Give the guy a break. He was just revealing his hipster cool paraphrasing Pink Floyd.
Rule of effective persons #1: "Like reviews after doing a quick scan of them, and if you're going to comment, make it snappy".
If you can't say it in nine syllables----
So you don't like Steely Dan because they never were a calandar-worthy boy band, huh?
Mike wrote: "So you don't like Steely Dan because they never were a calandar-worthy boy band, huh?"I wonder how many people know where the name Steely Dan came from?
Mike wrote: "You, me, a couple others."It's not on MJ's shelf.
He gets around--smart money's on his knowing.
Haha, he will by the time we hear from him.
(I always kinda liked Steely Dan--the band)
Mike wrote: "(I always kinda liked Steely Dan--the band)"Me too. Much underestimated as (and possibly, by) intellectuals. I still love the guitars in "Reelin' in the Years".
I saw them a couple years ago. Quite good, but def not easy to look at.
Mike wrote: "I saw them a couple years ago. Quite good, but def not easy to look at."People say the same about us/me.
I always associated that band with snoozy mediocrity, but maybe I was wrong! And I don't know whence their origins. I'm sure it's all rather fascinating.
It's a matter of opinion only. And yet it is.
In the British music press when I was a teenager, Steely Dan were a byword for the dullest of dadrock. And though these days I find quite a lot of the other contents of (dadrock bible)
Mojo
interesting (!), I kind of still see them in that context, as I've never heard of them attracting younger fans.
NME:"The band's music is characterized by complex jazz-influenced structures and harmonies played by Becker and Fagen along with a revolving cast of rock and pop studio musicians. Steely Dan's "cerebral, wry and eccentric" lyrics, often filled with sharp sarcasm, touch upon such themes as drugs, love affairs, and crime. The pair are well known for their near-obsessive perfectionism in the recording studio, the most extreme example being that Becker and Fagen used at least 42 different studio musicians, 11 engineers, and took over a year to record the tracks that resulted in 1980's Gaucho--an album that contains only seven songs."
In other words, they are the MJ of rock.
Ian wrote: "In other words, they are the MJ of rock. "Pfft. My brother (near twice my age) and father (thrice my age) are Steely Dan fans so I must have attached the "dadrock" label to them for that reason. They sound brilliant in theory. It's interesting how the "near-obsessive perfectionism" of bands makes absolutely no difference to how the audience receive an album. My Bloody Valentine's Loveless is beautiful but reeks of the gaslamp as Kingsley said about Martin.
It's interesting how the "near-obsessive perfectionism" of bands makes absolutely no difference to how the audience receive an album.It simply seems to gain them more respect from other musicians and aspiring musicians. Whereas the casual radio listener can't really tell the difference.
In other words, they are the MJ of rock.
And perhaps it's other writer-types who most appreciate writing like yours.
Especially those bits where so much meaning is distilled into far fewer words than I would generally take to say the same thing. Having tried, I know it's quite difficult. < /sycophant>
Wikipedia says the album 'Loveless' took nearly two years to make and they nearly bankrupted their record label! Woohoo! I love alternative rock bands, I am definitely checking them out. I am always in search of new (to me) music.
MJ, how many copies of Loveless do you have? If two or more, then haven't you disproved your argument?Fathers are never to be trusted in their asssessment of their sons' creative or romantic ventures.
Thanks, Anto. The only reason I condense is I set myself about ten minutes to write most reviews, with exceptions. Yolande: Loveless is a brilliant chill-out album, except it is louder than anything in history. I wrote lots of Belch to it.
Ian: I had a copy but I sold it. Still have it on my (now) dead hard drive, with all my other music. Sob!
There is a skill to well-written brevity though. It requires the best choice of words and that takes more time for some than for others.This Blaise Pascal quote is something which I could apply to more and more of my emails, especially in the last year or so: “I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter."
Steely Dan has soul! "White Soul"! i read somewhere that that exists and so i am willing to suspend disbelief. for teh children. the white children.
oh and Loveless. happy sigh. what a wonderful album!
The review is beyond me. Its full of loathing and unfounded criticism. Appears to be more like an image of emotions formed in MJ's mind than a serious attempt to analyze the worth of this work
Mohit wrote: "The review is beyond me. Its full of loathing and unfounded criticism. Appears to be more like an image of emotions formed in MJ's mind than a serious attempt to analyze the worth of this work"This comment is beyond me. Its[sic] full of loving and unfrowned critter schism. A pears Toby moah! Like am I mage of emoticons terraformed in a Maister Joe mind the step seriously a temptation anal & Isis wrath of work.
You are clearly not ready to understand this book. Refer to Principle 1: response-ability. Move on veeery slowly from there.
Wikipedia says the album 'Loveless' took nearly two years to make and they nearly bankrupted their record label! Woohoo! I love alternative rock bands, I am definitely checking them out. I am always in search of new (to me) music.
Loveless is one of the most blissful aural experiences you can have while conscious. Savour the virgin listen.
I want to read your book of Highly effective habits.