Covey Quotes

We must look at the lens through we see the world, as well as the world we see, and that the lens itself shapes how we interpret the world. ~ Stephen R. Covey

But borrowing strength builds weakness. ~ Stephen R. Covey

To ignore the unexpected (even if it were possible) would be to live without opportunity, spontaneity, and the rich moments of which "life" is made. ~ Stephen Covey

A cardinal principle of Total Quality escapes too many managers: you cannot continuously improve interdependent systems and processes until you progressively perfect interdependent, interpersonal relationships. ~ Stephen Covey

Nevertheless, the only way we can move from where we are now to where we would like to be is to accept where we are now. ~ Stephen Covey

You may be good, but what are you good for? You've got to be good for something. You've got to be about some project, some task that requires you to be humble and obedient to the universal principles of service. You've got to live a life of complete and total integrity in order to give this kind of service. This integrity enables you to love other people unconditionally, to be courageous and kind at the same time, because you have integratedness inside your own soul. ~ Stephen Covey

Frustration is a function of our expectations, and our expectations are often a reflection of the social mirror rather than our own values & priorities ~ Stephen R. Covey

The heart and soul of loving yourself is integrity and the peace of conscience it inspires. ~ Stephen Covey

Our confidence needs to come from within, not without. From the quality of our hearts, not the quantity of things we own. After all, he who dies with the most toys ... still dies. ~ Sean Covey

Character grows in the soil of experience with the fertilization of example, the moisture of ambition, and the sunshine of satisfaction. Character cannot be purchased, bargained for, inherited, rented or imported from afar. It must be home-grown. Purely intellectual development without commensurate internal character development makes as much sense as putting a high-powered sports car in the hands of a teenager who is high on drugs. Yet all too often in the academic world, that's exactly what we do by not focusing on the character development of young people. ~ Stephen Covey

I love interaction with audiences. If were my choice, I would spend most of my time interacting with audiences. Walking around and asking them to challenge me. ~ Stephen Covey

When you really listen to another person from their point of view, and reflect back to them that understanding, it's like giving them emotional oxygen. ~ Stephen Covey

All things are created twice; first mentally; then physically. The key to creativity is to begin with the end in mind, with a vision and a blue print of the desired result. ~ Stephen Covey

One of the most inspirational people I have ever known is Viktor Frankl, ~ Stephen R. Covey

Interdependence is a choice only independent people can make ~ Stephen R. Covey

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 strength of personal character, and the positive Emotional Bank Account, as well as the empathetic listening skills to do it. ~ Stephen Covey

Life is not accumulation, it is about contribution. ~ Stephen Covey

I've got a bunch of books ... I rely on funny books and movies to cheer me up. Oh, but I must say, I do have the world's most perfect husband, so a cuddle from him always cheers me up. He's a good guy. ~ Wendi McLendon-Covey

Trust is the highest form of human motivation. ~ Stephen Covey

Every exaggeration of the truth once detected by others destroys our credibility and makes all that we do and say suspect. ~ Stephen Covey

The role of the leader is to foster mutual respect and build a complementary team where each strength is made productive and each weakness irrelevant. ~ Stephen Covey

Prepare your mind and heart before you prepare your speech . What we say may be less important than how we say it. ~ Stephen Covey

Only 20 percent of employees working in large organizations surveyed feel their strengths are in play every day. Thus, eight our of ten employees surveyed feel somewhat miscast in their role. ~ Stephen Covey

Admission of ignorance is often the first step in our education. ~ Stephen R. Covey

Unfortunately, too many executives believe the myths about trust. Myths like how trust is soft and is merely a social virtue. The reality is that trust is hard-edged and is an economic driver. ~ Stephen Covey

What is important to another person must be as important to you as the other person is to you ~ Stephen Covey

Principles are deep fundamental truths ... lightly interwoven threads running with exactness, consistency, beauty and strength through the fabric of life. ~ Stephen Covey

If you were to fault yourself in one of three areas, which would it be: (1) the inability to prioritize; (2) the inability or desire to organize around those priorities; or (3) the lack of discipline to execute around them? ... Most people say their main fault is a lack of discipline. On deeper thought, I believe that is not the case. The basic problem is that their priorities have not become deeply planted in their hearts and minds. They haven't really internalized Habit 2 [Begin with the end in mind]. ~ Stephen Covey

If you base your identity on having friends, being accepted, and being popular, you may find yourself compromising your standards or changing them every weekend to accommodate your friends. ~ Sean Covey

If you have a family mission statement that clarifies what your purpose is, then you use that as the criterion by which you make the decisions. ~ Stephen Covey

If you want to have a more pleasant,cooperative teenager, be a more understanding, emphatic, consistent, loving parent. ~ Stephen R. Covey

A commit gives hope. Following through that commitment builds trust ~ Stephen M.R. Covey

Honesty is always the best policy, even when it's not the trend. ~ Sean Covey

These problems are real, and you can't turn off real life. So I won't try. Instead, I'll give you a set of tools to help you deal with real life. ~ Sean Covey

What one great idea resonates deeper in the soul than any other ... that we are free to choose. Next to life itself, the power to choose is your greatest gift. ~ Stephen Covey

Honesty is a principle. Service is a principle. Love is a principle. Hard work is a principle. Respect, gratitude, moderation, fairness, integrity, loyalty, and responsibility are principles. There are dozens and dozens more. They are not hard to identify. Just as a compass always points to true north, your heart will recognize true principles ... ~ Sean Covey

Success is when you realize obstacles you face are challenges to help you become better - and your response equals the challenge. ~ Stephen Covey

Compliance does not foster innovation, trust does. You can't sustain long-term innovation, for example, in a climate of distrust. ~ Stephen Covey

To Retain those who are present, be loyal to those who are absent. ~ Stephen R. Covey

Remember, it isn't the snake bite that does the serious damage; it's chasing the snake that drives the poison to the heart. ~ Stephen R. Covey

My friend, love is a verb. Love - the feeling - is a fruit of love, the verb. So love her. ~ Stephen R. Covey

When I started teaching I realized that I had never had such a level of satisfaction and such a feeling of fulfillment and sense of contribution. Just like that. But, usually it's more cumulative, slow, evolutionary and less revolutionary. ~ Stephen Covey

Nothing tastes as good as thin feels. ~ Stephen Covey

I didn't know much about the Mexican gray wolf before January 2011, when we contributed a flight in our Pilatus PC12 to the effort to re-establish the wolf in the forests of Arizona and New Mexico. ~ Joy Covey

Becomes obvious that if we want to make relatively minor changes in our lives, we can perhaps appropriately focus on our attitudes and behaviors. But if we want to make significant, quantum change, we need to work on our basic paradigms. ~ Stephen R. Covey

All things are created twice. All things. Vision is the first creation. For a house it's called the blueprint. For a life it's called a mission. For a day it's called a goal and a plan. For a parent it's called a belief in the unseen potential of a child. For all, it is the mental creation which always precedes the physical, or second, creation. ~ Stephen Covey

People with a scarcity mentality think there is only so much in the world to go around. It's as if they see life as a pie. When another person gets a big piece, then they get less. Such people are always trying to get even, to pull others down to their level so they can get an equal or even bigger piece of the pie. ~ Stephen Covey

Satisfied needs do not motivate. It's only the unsatisfied need that motivates. Next to physical survival, the greatest need of a human being is psychological survival - to be understood, to be affirmed, to be validated, to be appreciated. ~ Stephen Covey

When I see Peter at the bus the next morning, he's standing around with all this lacrosse friends, and at first I feel shy and nervous, but then he sees me, and his face breaks into a grin. "C'mere, Covey," he says, so I go to him and he throws my tote over his shoulder. In my ear he says, "You're sitting with me, right?"
I nod.
As we make our way onto the bus, somebody wolf whistles. It seems like people are staring at us, and at first I think it's just my imagination, but then I see Genevieve look right at me and whisper to Emily Nussbaum. It sends a chill down my spine.
"Genevieve keeps staring at me," I whisper to Peter.
"It's because you're so adorably quirky," he says, and he rests his hands on my shoulders and gives me a kiss on the cheek, and I forget all about Genevieve. ~ Jenny Han

For a moment, imagine the person you hope to marry. What do they look like? Are they funny, intelligent, kind? How do you hope they are living their life right now? Would it bother you if you knew they were hooking up each weekend or had five, ten, or fifteen different partners over the past several years? Or would it make you smile if you knew they were holding out for you? Why not live your life as you would want them to live theirs? Wait for the relationship. ~ Sean Covey

Family itself is a "we" experience, a "we" mentality. And admittedly, the movement from "me" to "we" - from independence to interdependence - is perhaps one of the most challenging and difficult aspects of family life. ~ Stephen R. Covey

Independent people who do not have the maturity to think and actinterdependently may be good individual producers, but they won't be good leaders or team players ~ Stephen R. Covey

Trust is clearly a key competency. A competency or skill that can be learned, taught, and improved and one that talent can be screened for. ~ Stephen Covey

Ironically, you'll find that as you care less about what others think of you, you will care more about what others think of themselves and their worlds, including their relationship with you. You'll no longer build your emotional life on other people's weaknesses. In addition, you'll find it easier and more desirable to change because there is something - some core deep within - that is essentially changeless. ~ Stephen R. Covey

The spirit of America has nurtured responsibility and community unlike any other country. ~ Stephen Covey

Actually I did not invent the seven habits, they are universal principles and most of what I wrote about is just common sense. I am embarrassed when people talk about the Covey Habits, and dislike the idea of being some sort of guru. ~ Stephen Covey

I wanna see the dance!"
"Forget about it," I tell him. We're in the living room; each of us has our own couch or armchair. I poured us iced teas and put out a bowl of potato chips, which we've already finished.
"Come on," he pouts. "Show me the dance. Please, please show me the dance."
"That's not going to work on me, Peter."
"What's not going to work?"
I wave my hand in his Handsome Boy face. "That. I'm immune to your charms, remember?"
Peter lifts his eyebrows like I've dared him. "Is that a challenge? 'Cause I'm warning you, you do not want to step into the ring with me. I'll crush you, Covey." He doesn't take his eyes off mine for several long seconds, and I can feel my smile fade and my cheeks heat up.
"Come on, Lara Jean!"
I blink. Kitty. I'd forgotten she was still in the room. ~ Jenny Han

If we know how to listen to our own heart, we can listen to the hearts of others. ~ Stephen Covey

Integrity is conforming reality to our words - in other words, keeping promises and fulfilling expectations. ~ Stephen Covey

Through imagination, we can visualize the uncredited worlds of potential that lie within us. ~ Stephen R. Covey

Or a person endlessly going to school, never producing, living on other people's golden eggs - the eternal student syndrome. ~ Stephen R. Covey

Proactive people make love a verb. Love is something you do: the sacrifices you make, the giving of self, like a mother bringing a newborn into the world... Love is a value that is actualized through loving actions. Proactive people subordinate feeling to values. Love, the feeling, can be recaptured. ~ Stephen R. Covey

Studies have identified a significant 'skills gap' between what students are currently being taught and the skills employers are seeking in today's global economy. Our children must be better prepared than they are now to meet the future challenges of our ever-changing world. ~ Stephen Covey

Remember that quick fix is a mirage. Building and repairing relationships takes time. ~ Stephen R. Covey

The universal elements are integrity, vision, discipline, passion, governed by conscience. Conscience has been educated through studying and pondering the universal, timeless principles of all six major world religions. ~ Stephen Covey

Common sense is not always common practice. ~ Stephen Covey

If you're proactive, you don't have to wait for circumstances or other people to create perspective expanding experiences. You can consciously create your own. ~ Stephen Covey

If people have not agreed to a common set of principles that guide them and a common purpose, then they get their security from the outside and they tend to freeze the structure, systems, and processes inside and they cease becoming adaptable. They don't change with the changing realities of the new marketplace out there and gradually they become obsolete. ~ Stephen R. Covey

To change ourselves effectively, we first had to change our perceptions. ~ Stephen R. Covey

Music makes everything more romantic, doesn't it? One second you're walking your dog in the suburbs, and then you put on Adele, and it's like you're in a movie and you've just had your heart brutally broken. ~ Jenny Han

A mission statement is not something you write overnight ... But fundamentally, your mission statement becomes your constitution, the solid expression of your vision and values. It becomes the criterion by which you measure everything else in your life. ~ Stephen Covey

If we overcome the pull and "get up and get at it," we will have won a victory. We have kept our own resolve. We can then move to other things, for by small means great things are accomplished. Thus, even this one small step is also in another sense a giant leap. ~ Stephen Covey

Abraham Lincoln was often criticized for trying to make friends with his enemies instead of trying to get rid of them. He replied, Isn't that what I'm doing when I make an enemy a friend? ~ Sean Covey

Ithrowmyarmsaroundhimandliftmychinexpectantly,waitingformygood-night kiss.Henuzzleshisfaceagainstmine,andIfeelgladnessforthefactthathehassmooth cheeksandbarelyevenneedstoshave.Iclosemyeyes,breathehimin,waitformykiss. Andheplantsachastepeckonmyforehead."Goodnight,Covey."

Myeyesflyopen."That'sallIget?"

Smuglyhesays,"YousaidearlierthatI'mnotthatgoodatkissing,remember?"

"Iwaskidding!"

Hewinksatmeashehopsinhiscar.Iwatchhimdriveaway.Evenafterawholeyearof beingtogether,itcanstillfeelsonew.Toloveaboy,tohavehimloveyouback.Itfeels miraculous.

Idon'tgoinsiderightaway.Justincasehecomesback.Handsonmyhips,Iwaitafull twentysecondsbeforeIturntowardthefrontsteps,whichiswhenhiscarcomespeeling backdownourstreetandstopsrightinfrontofourhouse.Peterstickshisheadoutthe window."Allrightthen,"hecallsout."Let'spractice."

Irunbacktohiscar,Ipullhimtowardmebyhisshirt,andanglemyfaceagainsthis - andthenIpushhimawayandrunbackward,laughing,myhairwhippingaroundmyface.

"Covey!"heyells.

"That'swhatyouget!"Icallbackgleefully."Seeyouonthebustomorrow! ~ Jenny Han

The undisciplined are slaves to moods, appetites and passions ~ Stephen R. Covey

We are product of neither nature nor nurture; we are a product of choice, because there is always a space between stimulus and response. As we wisely exercise our power to choose based on principles, the space will become larger. ~ Stephen Covey

Your systems are perfectly designed to get the results that you are getting. ~ Stephen Covey

Proactive people focus their efforts in the Circle of Influence. They work on the things they can do something about. The nature of their energy is positive, enlarging and magnifying, causing their Circle of Influence to increase. ~ Stephen R. Covey

Everyone chooses one of two roads in life - the old and the young, the rich and the poor, men and women alike. One is the broad, well-traveled road to mediocrity, the other road to greatness and meaning. ~ Stephen Covey

The worldly fountain does not breed spiritual depth. ~ Stephen Covey

The great contributors in life are those who, though afraid of the knock at the door, still answer it. ~ Stephen Covey

The following is a list of statements made many years ago by experts in their fields. At the time they were said they sounded intelligent. With the passing of time, they sound idiotic. ~ Sean Covey

Sow a thought, reap an action; ~ Stephen R. Covey

Most people struggle with life balance simply because they haven't paid the price to decide what is really important to them. ~ Stephen Covey

Effective interdependence can only be built on true independence. ~ Stephen Covey

Quality relationships are built on principles, especially the principle of trust. ~ Stephen Covey

In school, many of us procrastinate and then successfully cram for tests. We get the grades and degrees we need to get the jobs we want, even if we fail to get a good general education. ~ Stephen Covey

Independent thinking alone is not suited to interdependent reality. ~ Stephen Covey

With the dizzying rate of change in technology and increasing competition driven by the globalization of markets and technology, we must not only be educated, we must constantly re-educate and reinvent ourselves. We must develop our minds and continually sharpen and invest in the development of our competencies to avoid becoming obsolete. ~ Stephen R. Covey

Whenever you experience stress of any kind, look into yourself and ask, In what way am I compromising my innermost values in this situation? ~ Stephen Covey

You can't talk your way out of problems you behave yourself into. ~ Stephen Covey

Passion is the fire, enthusiasm and courage that an individual feels when she is doing something she loves while accomplishing worthy ends, something that satisfies her deepest needs. ~ Stephen Covey

There's strong data that, within companies, the No. 1 reason for ethical violations is the pressure to meet expectations, sometimes unrealistic expectations. ~ Stephen Covey

We often think of change and improvement coming from the outside in rather than from the inside out. Even if we recognize the need for change within, we usually think in terms of learning new skills, rather than showing more integrity to basic principles. But significant breakthroughs often represent internal breaks with traditional ways of thinking. I refer to these as paradigm ~ Stephen R. Covey

All of us are interested in things outside of our stewardships, and we should be, but the most important way to do anything about them is to magnify our own stewardships. When you focus on your own responsibility, you become relatively unconcerned with other peoples stewardships. ~ Stephen R. Covey

Vision is about more than just getting things done, accomplishing some task, achieving something; it is about discovering and expanding our view of others, affirming them, believing in them, and helping them discover and realize the potential within them-helping them find their own voice. ~ Stephen Covey

Over time, I have come to this simple definition of leadership: Leadership is getting results in a way that inspires trust. ~ Stephen Covey

You can buy a person's hands but you can't buy his heart. His heart is where his enthusiasm, his loyalty is. ~ Stephen Covey

Unless you're influenced by my uniqueness, I'm not going to be influenced by your advice. ~ Stephen R. Covey

We hear a lot about identity theft when someone takes your wallet and pretends to be you and uses your credit cards. But the more serious identity theft is to get swallowed up in other people's definition of you. ~ Stephen R. Covey