Release year: 1990

Publisher: Fireside

My review

If you take the title of this self-help classic at face value, you might expect a simple checklist: seven habits to guarantee effectiveness. But Covey’s “habits” are less about daily routines and more about fundamental shifts in mindset and behavior.

The Seven Habits:

Private victories
- 1. Be proactive
- 1. Begin with the end in mind
- 1. Put first things first
Public victories
- 1. Think Win/Win
- 1. Seek first to understand, then to be understood
- 1. Synergize
Renewal
- 1. Sharpen the saw

These aren’t your typical “go to the gym” or “brush your teeth” habits. In fact, I’m not sure “habit” is even the right word for what Covey describes. But who am I to argue with one of the most successful books of the 20th century?

I’ll admit, the individual habits themselves didn’t grab me as much as I expected. What stood out was Covey’s point that the real power lies in how these habits interconnect. It reminds me of the Three Ways of DevOps: the value is in the system, not just the parts. Seven is a lot to remember, and I refuse to feel bad for not memorizing them all—there’s no test at the end.

What stuck with me:

Private victories always precede public victories.
“Win/Win or No Deal” is a powerful negotiation mindset.
Proactive people “carry their own weather” with them.
Before climbing any ladder, make sure it is leaning against the wall you want to climb.
Problems are opportunities to invest in relationships.
The best way to influence someone is to let yourself be influenced by them first.
Our perception shapes our reality.
Between stimulus and response, there’s a gap where we can choose—growth and happiness depend on how we use that space.
Don’t prioritize your schedule; schedule your priorities. Each week, define your roles and set objectives that move you forward.
I tend to be pleasure-centered, but I’m working toward being more principles-centered—that’s why I read!
When good times come, give back to the system that made them possible, or they won’t last.

Covey’s book is a classic because it casts a wide net. Many self-help books echo these ideas, but rarely are they so comprehensively organized. It’s like seven books in one. I especially appreciated the parenting stories and the exercise of writing my own eulogy—a powerful way to “begin with the end in mind.”

If I have one criticism, it’s that the book’s breadth can be overwhelming. Even with notes, it’s hard to wrap your head around everything. But don’t feel bad if you can’t recite all seven habits. What matters is the essence:

You’re in the driver’s seat of your life.
You’ll achieve what you can truly visualize.
To prioritize what’s important (but not urgent), you’ll have to say no to what’s urgent but not important.
There’s always a way for both parties to win.
You can only influence others if you let them influence you.
Learn from those who disagree with you.
Lasting success means continually proving to yourself that you believe in these ideas.

If you keep these principles in mind, you’ve captured the spirit of Covey’s Seven Habits.

Félix rating:
👍

📚 Vocabulary

(p. 17) The Pygmalion Effect: Expectancy theory and self-fulfilling prophecies
(p. 22) Secondary greatness: Social recognition for talent.
- Many people with secondary greatness lack primary greatness or goodness in their character.
(p. 30) Rambunctious: exuberant, boisterous
(p. 201) Steeling oneself: To make oneself ready for something difficult or unpleasant: to fill oneself with determination and courage.

💡 New ideas

Private victories always precede public victories

⭐ Star Quotes

Part One: Paradigms & Principles

Inside-Out

(p. 21) It simply makes no difference how good the rhetoric is or even how good the intentions are; if there is little or no trust, there is no foundation for permanent success.
(p. 22) Human behavior and human relationships are natural systems based on the law of harvest. […] You always reap what you sow; there is no shortcut.
(p. 27) Two people can see the same thing, disagree, and yet both be right. It’s not logical; it’s psychological.
(p. 28) Where we stand depends on where we sit.
(p. 28) When we open our mouths to describe what we see, we in effect describe ourselves, our perceptions, our paradigms.
(p. 31) “For every thousand hacking at the leaves of evil, there is one striking at the root.” –Thoreau
- The leaves are attitudes and behaviors.
- The root is our paradigms from which our attitudes and behavior flow.
(p. 35) While practices are situationally specific, principles are deep, fundamental truths that have universal application.
(p. 37) ⭐ If you don’t let a teacher know at what level you are—by asking a question, or revealing your ignorance— you will not learn or grow.
(p. 37) Admission of ignorance is often the first step in our education.
(p. 40) There are times to teach and times not to teach. When relationships are strained and the air charged with emotion, an attempt to teach is often perceived as a form of judgment and rejection. But to take the [person] alone, quietly, when the relationship is good and to discuss the teaching or the value seems to have much greater impact.
(p. 40) The way we see the problem is the problem.
(p. 43) If you want the secondary greatness of recognized talent, focus first on primary greatness of character.
(p. 43) ⭐ Private victories precede public victories.
(p. 43) Making and keeping promises to ourselves precedes making and keeping promises to others.
(p. 44) ⭐ “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.” –T.S. Eliot.

The Seven Habits — An Overview

(p. 46) “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” –Aristotle
(p. 46) Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.
(p. 46) “Habits are like a cable. We weave a strand of it every day and soon it cannot be broken.” –Horace Mann
(p. 47) A habit is the intersection of knowledge [(what to do)], skill [(how to do)], and desire [(want to do)].
(p. 48) ⭐ Happiness can be defined, in part at least, as the fruit of the desire and ability to sacrifice what we want now for what we want eventually.
(p. 58) Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers.
(p. 58) You can buy a person’s hand, but you can’t buy his heart.
(p. 62) That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly. […] Heaven knows how to put a proper price on its goods.

Part II: Private Victory

Habit 1: Be Proactive

Principles of Personal Vision

(p. 70, 310) “Between stimulus and response, there is a gap or a space where man has the freedom to choose. The key to both our growth and happiness is how we use that space.” – Rollo May, paraphrased by Covey (source)
(p. 71) Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions. We can subordinate feelings to values.
(p. 71) Responsibility [is] “response-ability”—the ability to choose your response.
(p. 71) ⭐ Reactive people are often affected by their physical environment. […] Proactive people can carry their own weather with them.
(p. 72) “No one can hurt you without your consent.” –Eleanor Roosevelt
(p. 72) Until a person can say deeply and honestly “I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday,” that person cannot say, “I choose otherwise.”
(p. 73) It’s not what happens to us, but our response to what happens to us that hurts us.
(p. 73) Nothing has a greater, longer lasting impression upon another person than the awareness that someone has transcended suffering, has transcended circumstance, and is embodying and expressing a value that inspires and ennobles and lifts life.
(p. 76) Holding people to [be] responsible […] is not demeaning; it is affirming.
(p. 80) ⭐ If our feelings control our actions, it is because we have abdicated our responsibility and empowered them to do so.
(p. 80) Proactive people subordinate feelings to values.
(p. 85) Proactive people have a Circle of Concern that is at least as big as their Circle of Influence, accepting the responsibility to use their influence effectively.
(p. 86) “Lord, give me the courage to change the things which can and ought to be changed, the serenity to accept the things which cannot be changed, and the wisdom to know the difference.” –Alcoholics Anonymous prayer
(p. 90) Sometimes the most proactive thing we can do is to be happy, just to genuinely smile. Happiness, like unhappiness, is a proactive choice.
(p. 91) When we pick up one end of the stick, we pick up the other.
- [We must accept the consequences of our actions.]
(p. 93) ⭐ Look at the weaknesses of others with compassion, not accusation. It’s not what they’re not doing or should be doing that’s the issue. The issue is your own chosen response to the situation and what you should be doing. If you start to think the problem is “out there,” stop yourself. That thought is the problem.

Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind

(p. 98) ⭐ It’s incredibly easy to […] work harder and harder at climbing the ladder of success only to discover it’s leaning against the wrong wall.
(p. 98) Leadership first, management second. […] Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.
(p. 106)
- Succeed at home first
- Hear both sides before judging
- Defend those who are absent
(p. 108) People can’t live with change if there’s not a changeless core inside them. The key to the ability to change is a changeless sense of who you are, what you are about and what you value.
(p. 123) Principles don’t change; our understanding of them does.
(p. 134) Visualization is very important. If you visualize the wrong thing, you’ll produce the wrong thing.
(p. 143) ⭐ Without involvement, there is no commitment.

Habit 3: Put First Things First

Principles of Personal Management

(p. 157) You are always saying “no” to something. If it isn’t to the apparent, urgent things in your life, it is probably to the more fundamental, highly important things.
(p. 157) ⭐ The essence of effective time and life management is to organize and execute around balanced priorities.
(p. 158) Form follows function. Likewise, management follows leadership.
(p. 169) ⭐ You simply can’t think efficiency with people. You think effectiveness with people and efficiency with things.
(p. 174) If you know the failure paths of the job, identify them. […] Point out the potential failure paths, what not to do, but don’t tell [people] what to do. Keep the responsibility for results with them.
(p. 178) Trust is the highest form of human motivation.

Part III: Public Victory

Paradigms of Interdependence

(p. 185) “There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity.” –Samuel Johnson
(p. 186) Real self-respect comes from dominion over self, from true independence.
(p. 188, 190) An Emotional Bank Account is a metaphor that describes the amount of trust that’s been built up in a relationship. […] You simply don’t know what constitutes a deposit to another person until you understand that individual. It might even be perceived as a withdrawal, if it doesn’t touch the person’e deep interests or needs.
(p. 194) The cause of almost all relationship difficulties is rooted in conflicting or ambiguous expectations around roles and goals.
(p. 195) Integrity includes but goes beyond honesty.
- Honesty is telling the truth—in other words, conforming our words to reality.
- Integrity is conforming reality to our words—in other words, keeping promises and fulfilling expectations.
(p. 196) One of the most important ways to manifest integrity is to be loyal to those who are not present. In doing so, we build the trust of those who are present. When you defend those who are absent, you retain the trust of those present.
(p. 197) ⭐ It’s how you treat the one that reveals how you regard the ninety-nine, because everyone is ultimately a one.
(p. 197) “It is the weak who are cruel. Gentleness can only be expected from the strong.” –Leo Roskin
(p. 203) ⭐ When [someone] comes [to you] with a problem, instead of thinking, “Oh no! Not another problem!” [use this paradigm,] “Here is a great opportunity for me to really help [them] and to invest in our relationship.”

Habit 4: Think Win/Win

Principles of Interpersonal Leadership

(p. 209) Unexpressed feelings never die: they’re buried alive and come forth later in uglier ways.
(p. 210) When ywo Win/Lose people get together—that is, when two determined, stubborn, ego-invested individuals interact—the result will be Lose/Lose. Both will become vindictive and want to “get back” or “get even,” blind to the fact that murder is suicide, that revenge is a two-edged sword.
(p. 213) When you have No Deal as an option in your mind [during negotiations], you feel liberated because you have no need to manipulate people, to push your own agenda, to drive for what you want. You can be open.
(p. 217) ⭐ “Maturity is the balance between courage and consideration. Emotional maturity is the ability to express one’s own feelings and convictions balanced with consideration for the thoughts and feelings of others.” – Hrand Saxenian, professor at Harvard Business School
(p. 221) Without trust, the best we can do is compromise.
(p. 232) So often the problem is in the system, not in the people. If you put good people in bad systems, you get bad results.

Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood

Principles of Empathic Communication

(p. 239) ⭐ “Unless you’re influenced by my uniqueness, I’m not going to be unfluenced by your advice.”
(p. 241) When you listen with empathy to another person, you give that person psychological air. And after that vital need is met, you can then focus on influencing or problem solving.
(p. 255) ⭐ Maturity is the balance between courage and consideration. Seeking to understand requires consideration; seeking to be understood takes courage.
(p. 257) Being influenceable is the key to influencing others.

Habit 6: Synergize

Principles of Creatives Cooperation

(p. 270) “If a person of your intelligence and competence and commitment disagrees with me, then there must be something to your disagreement that I don’t understand, and I need to understand it. You have a perspective, a frame of reference I need to look at.”
(p. 274) The very strength of [a] relationship is in having another point of view. Sameness is not oneness; uniformity is not unity. Unity, or oneness, is complementariness, not sameness. Sameness is uncreative… and boring.
(p. 278) ⭐ If two people have the same opinion, one is unnecessary.

Part IV: Renewal

Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw — Principles of Balanced Self-Renewal

(p. 291) ⭐ Even if it’s raining on the morning you’ve scheduled to job, do it anyway. “Oh good! It’s raining! I get to develop my willpower as well as my body!”
(p. 296) ⭐ 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.
(p. 296) ⭐ The person who doesnt read is no better off than the person who can’t read.
(p. 298) Peace of mind comes when your life is in harmony with true principles and values and in no other way.
(p. 299) “[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. Earn thy neighbor’s love.]” –Dr. Hans Selye
(p. 301) ⭐ Apparent learner disability [is] nothing more or less than teacher inflexibility.
(p. 302) We can’t effectively thrive without making money, but that’s not sufficient reason for organizational existence. We can’t live without eating, but we don’t live to eat.
(p. 304) ⭐ Your economic security does not lie in your job; it lies in your own power to produce—to think, to learn, to create, to adapt. That’s true financial independence. It’s not having wealth; it’s having to power to produce wealth. It’s intrinsic.
(p. 305) ⭐ ⭐ “He who wants to keep his garden tidy doesn’t reserve a plot for weeks.” –Dag Hammarskjöld

Inside-Out Again

(p. 317) ⭐ “He who cannot change the very fabric of his thought will never be able to change reality, and will never, therefore, make any progress.” –Anwar Sadat
(p. 318) “That which we persist in doing becomes easier—not that the nature of the task has changed, but our ability to do has increased.” –Emerson
(p. 319) “We must not cease from exploration. And at the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time.” –T.S. Eliot

(Read 119) The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

My review

Félix rating:👍

📚 Vocabulary

💡 New ideas

⭐ Star Quotes

Félix rating:
👍