Book Review: The 7 habits of highly effective people
The book in 3 sentence
The book that everyone should read. Reading this book gave me so much insight about how I react, feel, and, think in situations was a look in the mirror to see my problems as human being.
How I discovered it
I stumbled upon this book while scrolling the internet and it is also well promoted by influencers.
Who should read it?
This book should be in schools.
How did the book change me?
When I read the title I thought, okay. This is the book that reveals the secret habits of Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Dwayne Johnson, Tim Cook or Jeff Bezos. Boy was I wrong on my assumption. This book tells the story how we should interact with other human beings. How to invest in yourself in terms of social aspect, health, physical and mind. After reading this book I evaluated myself and it did change my thinking and interacting with other humans. Still a work in progress tough.
Top 3 Quotes
“It’s not what happens to us, but our response to what happens to us that hurts us.”
“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.”
“The use of technology strips out the tone of voice and facial expressions that helps us empathize. So anytime you’re dealing with an important, emotional issue, do not email or text. An emoji just isn’t going to cut it.”
My summary, notes, interpretation.
Proactive
Freedom is the power to choose a response to what’s actually happening to you or how those things will affect you. Besides self-awareness, we have imagination. The ability to create anything we want in our minds. We have conscience, an inner awareness of right and wrong. And we have independent will. We can act like we want to. Pro activity is more than just being an initiative taker. Proactive people are value driven. They don’t care about their circumstances there just focused on delivering good quality work. Reactive people are led by their emotions based on the circumstances.We can experience hurt physically, or economically, that can case sorrow. If someone hurts your feelings, it’s not what we have said, but your response to it hurts you. Those difficult circumstances will force our character to develop the inner power to freedom so you can handle the circumstances in the future.Mr. Covey talks about Viktor Frankl, a Jewish prisoner who was halted hostage by the Nazis in horrible circumstance. While imprisoned, he found a way to be free. “He suggests that there are three central values in life — the experiential, the creative, and attitudinal — our response in difficult circumstances such as terminal illness. The attitudinal has the highest value, in a reframing sense.” I agree with this remark if I look at my personal experiences, losing two parents. That loss made me reflect on my life but also forced me to adapt to this change. The feedback I got from my reflection forced me to take initiative and be resourceful. When you sell a solution, you are going to be in better positions in your personal and professional life. Anthony Robbins also touches this matter, “resourcefulness” be creative, think differently. People who are waiting for success never going to achieve the position they desire in life. Be RESOURCEFUL and take INITIATIVE.If you use your self-awareness and look at your language, you can see if you are a reactive person or a proactive person. Some examples in the book are: Reactive — “I can’t, I must, or if only”. Proactive — “I choose, I prefer, or I will. Reactive people feel increasingly victimized and out of control. I was also a reactive 100% and I believed everything that is happening to me is just my faith, destiny, other people, or circumstances.The next paragraph is the circle of concern / circle of influence. In this section, the author shows the difference between the two circles and how you can focus your positive energy on the things you can control/influence like, knowledge, skill, and desire. Okay, let’s move on to habit 2.
Begin with the end in mind.
What does this sentence mean? It means to start with a clear mind of what your end destination looks like. If you have a better understanding about where you need to be. You can better understand where you are now and so that the steps you take are always in the right direction. People often have meaningless victories that have come at the expense of others. Later, and I hope you realize that there were far more valuable elements to you. We’re often blinded by our goals to achieve some kind of degree, recognition, fame, athleticism to earn more income. We are all going to die someday. What would you want your family, friends, neighbors, acquaintances, say about you at your funeral? This might be extreme, but if you ponder this, you will find your definition of success.Everything is created twice. First in your mind (imagination), then physical (reality). When a movie director starts his movie without a scenario and just comes up with the idea’s along the way, when looking back he or she will notice that he didn’t shoot the story he wanted to tell at all. Starting over is going to cost more than originally budgeted. A written plan is the blueprint of your success. The carpenter’s rule is “measure twice, cut once.”” In our personal lives, if we do not develop our own self-awareness and do not become responsible for our first creations, we empower other people and circumstances outside our Circle of Influence to shape much of our lives by default”. What I think this means when reflecting on myself is getting to know your body, your skills, your weaknesses, your qualities. When you know who you are, why you act like you do (good or bad), you can shape yourself to be better by using your own creation instead of the defaults of your surroundings. Stay in control of what you can control! With self-awareness, imagination and conscience, you can examine your first creation and make some adjustments here and there to create a new you.The author thinks that the most effective way to start with the end in mind is to write a “Personal Mission Statement”. This will be your personal constitution. This statement will contain what you want to be (character), your contributions, and your achievements. From here on, the author takes a deep dive into the center. Then you have a variety of other centeredness (alternative) like family, money, work, possessions and so forth. I will not talk about that here. That’s for you to find out in the book.We have a brain. The left side is the more logical/verbal and the right side the more intuitive, creative one. Left deals with words and right with pictures. Everyone has a dominant side. Mine is the logical (the left side). You can exercise your creative part of the brain to unlock some more creativity. Creativity is proactivity. I started to draw by hand and digitally on the computer. Exercising also helps a lot. You don’t have to be the new rocky balboa just walking can even do the trick. Moral of this section is, use your entire brain. Unplanned events like death of a loved one, a severe illness or financial setbacks cause us to stand back and look at our lives and ask some hard questions. I certainly am that guy, just waiting for something to happen before I take action. Proactive people don’t need this they create their own experiences. I needed to change and become more proactive, so I stated that in my personal mission statement. Now, I’m creating my own life, journey, experiences.My mission is to live with integrity and to make a difference in the lives of others.
Put First Things First
This chapter is all about time management. These days, the professional life is obsessed with time management. People intend to throw these words around without even exactly realizing what that even means to them. In “Put First Things First” habit 1 and 2 should be in perfect balance. In the book Stephen talks about Product and Production Capacity Balance (P/PC). There are four quadrants in the time management matrix. Quadrants 1 and 2 are important and divided into urgent and not urgent. Quadrants 3 and 4 are not important and are also divided into urgent and not urgent. In habit 3, the aim is to put time into perspective and open your eyes. Do not prioritize what’s on your schedule, but schedule your priorities.Quadrant 1 you do what’s necessary and you procrastinate on everything else.Quadrant 2 is basically the sweet spot to manage our lives extremely effectively. But, you will need six important criteria one being coherence, balance, focus, people, flexibility and portability. To be effective, the book advises organizing your schedule weekly and not daily, since this brings a clear view of your week. You have also different roles in life. You are an individual, spouse, parent, and your role as an employer or employee. Identifying your role and settings up priorities on each role will bring you harmony and balance. When looking long term, you can add a mission statement to that role and setup goals. On a weekly basis, set goals on roles and make plans. From the plan, you can schedule it or delegate if you can.When dealing with people, you can’t think efficiency but effectiveness. You can put efficiency into things. We all have our frustrations when dealing with all kinds of things. Why is that? Because of our expectations, and our expectations are often a reflection of the social mirror rather than our own values and priorities. Frustration usually comes from things outside our circle of influence, in my opinion. If you can’t control a factor, your expectation is high because you hope for the best. When the factor is in your control and you are true to yourself, your expectation is accordingly and your frustration won’t knock you down. You learn and move on to the next opportunity.The last section is about delegation and that there are two kinds of delegation 1, gofer delegation and 2, stewardship delegation. Now the first one commands you to do this and that. For this kind of delegation, you are responsible for the results, not the person doing as you command. The second one is about giving people choices. This kind of delegation requests clear, up-front mutual understanding and commitment regarding expectations in five areas, which are: desired result, guidelines, resources, accountability and consequences.
Think Win/Win
Why you should think Win/Win. In the paradigm of Win/Win you constantly seek mutual benefit in all human interactions. This mean both parties have mutual satisfaction. Both parties feel good about the decision. Win/Win makes it a cooperation and not a competition. When you seek Win/Win you also have to understand the other parties in front of you. Making sure you truly understand the other parties point of view. This chapter is all about that!There are six paradigms of Human Interaction, Win/Win which I briefly already explained, Win/Lose, Lose/Win, Lose/Lose, and lastly Win/Win or No Deal.Win/Lose, is an authoritarian approach. It says, “If I win, you Lose”. Win/Lose is programed with the most of us from birth. If you give and redraw your love from your child based on comparison, patience and understanding, this will carve the Win/Lose mentality. You basically communicate to your child that the value of love does not lie inside them, but outside. This will mold the young mind, pure heart, highly vulnerable and highly dependent upon support and emotional affirmation of the parent to a Win/Lose thinker. Here is an example of my reality. My son isn’t a great eater. When we are dining, the three of us sit at the table. James, our son, looks at his dish, sees what he doesn’t like, and pushes his dish away and asks for dessert. At that point we say, you can have dessert but, you have to eat your vegetables. He disagrees but eats his vegetables. Parents win, child loses. Lose/Win, I lose you, win. Have your way with me. This is the worst mindset you can think of. It has no demands, no expectations, no vision. Many people swing back and forth between Lose/Win and Win/Lose. “When people can’t stand confusion, lack of structure, direction, expectation and discipline they swing back to Win/Lose until guilt undermines that mindet they get back to Lose/Win.Lose/Lose, determind, stubborn and ego-invested people interact the result will be Lose/Lose. Think it as if it is a fight devorce. The male and female wants to get back at the cheater so one of them wants to get back or get even with the other party. This is make sure that everybody loses and the worst of all the child will lose the most.Win/Win or No Deal, when you can think in that paradigm you will feel liberated because you don’t have to manipulate people to push you own agenda. No deal, means that if we can’t find a solution that benefits us both, we agree to disagree. If you don’t even consider the point of view of the other individual, there will be no basis for any kind of productive relationship in the long run, you both lose. Win/win will make sure for a productive realtionship.After explaining these paradigms, Stephen Covey dives further in character, relationships and agreements and explaining that the system also have to support the Win/Win otherwise you get bad results.
Seek first to understand, then to be understood
I think most of us, I hope, are familiar with the frase, “assumption is the mother of all F!#$%-UP’s”. If you want to interact effectively with your boss, co-worker, child, spouse or neighbour perhaps you need to seek to understand and be genuine. If they sense you apply a technique to manipulate them. They never will open up to you safely.Empathic listening, is so powerfull because it gives you accurate information. You’re listening to understand. You’re focused on receiving deep communication of another human soul.”You will never be able to truly step inside another person, to see the world as he sees it, until you develop the pure desire, the strenght of personal character, and the positive Emotional Bank Account (EBA), as well as the empathic listening skills to do it”. Every interaction can be a deposit to your Emotional Bank Account if your geniune about understanding the point of view of the individual. What does this mean? To keep it simple. If you are kind, empathatic you will first of all think Win/Win therefore also be genuinely interested in the point of view of the person in front of you to understand. This person will feel heard and will have a satisfied reference to this moment (EBA deposit takes place here). You will receive interest from this person in the future, you never know when you need something from someone. Do good and receive good.In this chapter al also a lot of dialog examples and what does really mean in general sense it’s pretty enlightenment.
Synergize
What is synergy? It means the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects. The interaction of elements that when combined produce a total effect that is greater than the sum of the individual elements or contribution. For example, if I designed an animation movie alone it woudn’t be as good as a great team of designers and animators come together or 2 shelfs stick together could carry more load then just one shelf. Imagine who you could be if you synergize all the habits in this book, what kind of human being you could be? This chapter explains that synergy is everywhere and that we as humans don’t even access a moderate level of synergy.
Sharpen the saw
Investing in yourself is the best investment you can make. You are the tool that goes through life and face day to day challenges. There are 4 dimensions physical (exercise), social/emotional (service), spiritual (meditate), mental (reading). Excercising these 4 dimensions regurarly and consistently in a wise and balanced way would be very benefical. I’m going to finish this last chapter with a quote:”The single most powerful investment we can ever make in life—investment in ourselves, in the only instrument we have with which to deal with life and to contribute. We are the instruments of our own performance, and to be effective, we need to recognize the importance of taking time regularly to sharpen the saw in all four ways”.
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