The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Summary)
Imagine you're on a subway, and a man gets on with his children, who are yelling, throwing things, and grabbing people's newspapers. The man just sits there, eyes closed, doing nothing. You're annoyed, right? You finally say, 'Sir, your children are really disturbing a lot of people. I wonder if you couldn't control them a little more?' The man opens his eyes and says softly, 'Oh, you're right. I guess I should do something about it. We just came from the hospital where their mother died about an hour ago. I don't know what to think, and I guess they don't know how to handle it either.' In that single moment, your entire perspective shifts from anger to empathy. This is a paradigm shift, and it's the key to unlocking a new level of effectiveness.
Write Your Own Eulogy
Habit 2, 'Begin with the End in Mind,' urges you to define what truly matters by visualizing your own funeral. Clarifying what you want people to say about you then provides a powerful compass for your daily actions.
Covey asks you to consider four speakers at your funeral: a family member, a friend, a coworker, and someone from your community. What character traits and contributions would you want them to remember? The gap between their potential eulogy today and your ideal eulogy reveals your core values and helps you prioritize what's truly important over what's merely urgent.
Focus on What You Can Control
We waste immense energy on our 'Circle of Concern'—things like politics, the weather, or other people's flaws. Proactive people (Habit 1) focus their time and energy on their 'Circle of Influence'—their health, their skills, their work, and their attitude—which in turn expands their ability to effect change.
Instead of complaining about a terrible boss (concern), a proactive employee focuses on becoming a 'transition figure.' They do impeccable work, anticipate problems, and present solutions, not complaints. This focus on their own performance (influence) makes them so valuable that the boss's weaknesses become less relevant to their success and well-being.
Diagnose Before You Prescribe
Most people don't listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply. Habit 5, 'Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood,' argues for empathic listening to accurately diagnose a situation before offering a solution.
A glasses salesman wouldn't give you his own pair and say, 'Here, I've worn these for years, they should work for you.' They'd give you an eye exam first. Yet, we do this all the time in our relationships, offering quick advice based on our own experiences before we've truly understood the other person's unique problem or perspective.
The Emotional Bank Account
Relationships aren't built on grand gestures but on consistent, positive deposits. Every interaction is either a deposit (keeping promises, listening, apologizing) or a withdrawal (being unkind, breaking trust, ignoring someone). A healthy relationship has a high balance.
Remembering small details, like a colleague's child's name or a promise to follow up on a minor issue, acts as a significant deposit. When you inevitably make a mistake (a withdrawal), a high account balance means the relationship can easily withstand it. But if the balance is low, even a small misstep can cause a major relational breakdown.
