Revisiting The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People. Part 1

By Mark Weeks

The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People, by Stephen R. Covey, is classed as the No.1 most influential business book of the Twentieth Century, and I feel it’s more than worthy of a revisit.

A long, long, long time before podcasts I would listen to the CD constantly as I drove. It had such a positive impact on me back in the day, hope you enjoy this short recap.

Over the years my life has been centred upon mindset development. And, as I built my construction company to over 50 sub-contractors I soon realised I needed to understand, motivate and lead others.

Eventually I did improve, nonetheless, I appreciated it would be a never-ending quest of continuous improvement to master human behaviour. And one I’m still passionately following.

Of course, knowledge, expertise, and know-how of your chosen profession is paramount to your success, and there’s little I can share in improving the tasks you implement every day, you know your business.

But, do you truly maintain the correct interpersonal skills with your customers, workforce or family? Is your emotional bank account running in the black or is it deep in the red?

Before Stephen R. Covey reveals the 7 Habits he goes deep into the expectations of implementing the habits, if they are followed diligently.

The key expectations of creating the habits…

• Improved self-confidence.
• Improved relationships.
• Improved capacity to influence others.
• Renew your spirit of adventure.

He makes it very clear, his programme is not a quick-fix, it’s an evolution; that is, if you’re willing to pay the price by learning, teaching and doing.

He would have cringed from the overuse of the term ‘life hack’ these days. There are no shortcuts to self-improvement. There is no quick fix to living your life of purpose.

In much the same tone as Dr. Wayne Dyer’s, ‘If you change the way you look at things the things you look at change’ quote. Covey uses the term of changing ‘your paradigm’, this slight shift in the way you think about things will have a dramatic effect upon your life.

Think of how you are using your emotional bank account – The Bank Of You PLC? There’s been much work on the benefits of psychological contracts, and if it interests you dig deep, there’s plenty of information out there.

But for now, Covey’s definition of an emotional bank account is where we make ’emotional’ deposits and withdrawals day in and day out. Kind of obvious, but have you noticed how many people ignore these principles?

Every interaction you have has an effect on how others treat you. From the perceptions of your customers, employees, spouse, to your children.

Imagine every time you are unkind, insensitive, and dishonest you’ll be making a withdrawal from ‘the bank’ (As if you would:).

And, every time you deliver more than you promise, act kindly and generously you are building up your ’emotional account’. Simple hey?

Okay, there will be times no matter how kind and considerate you are where people will deceive and try to humiliate you. That’s their ‘account’ terminated.

But for you, you must continue to build up your account, there’s no other way than making lasting goodwill deposits.

That’s enough for Part One – I’ll post the rest when I’ve made it up:)

Also, you might like to listen to the audiobook of The 7 Habits on YouTube, here’s the link …

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