The Art of Manliness - #607： The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. It's been

00:00:11.140 30 years since the landmark self-management book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective

00:00:14.700 People was published. It's been called the most influential business book of the 20th

00:00:18.020 century and the principles that espouses have become embedded in our culture. Seven Habits

00:00:21.720 had a big impact on me personally. This is the first time I read over 20 years ago as

00:00:25.320 a high schooler. The 30th anniversary edition of the book is out with new insights from

00:00:28.640 the late Stephen Covey's children. Today, it's my pleasure to speak to one of them,

00:00:31.960 Stephen M. R. Covey. Stephen had a big role in the launch of the first edition of The

00:00:35.840 Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, as well as his father's company, Franklin Covey,

00:00:39.340 and is himself the author of the book, The Speed of Trust. Today on the show, Stephen

00:00:42.840 and I discuss why The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People has had such staying power

00:00:46.420 and why it's just as relevant today as it was 30 years ago. We then walk through The

00:00:50.120 Seven Habits, exploring how each has lived individually, as well as work together to

00:00:53.800 create a flourishing life. If you've never read The Seven Habits, this episode is a great

00:00:57.420 introduction, and if you've read it before, this is a succinct refresher on a set of principles

00:01:01.420 worth building your life around. After the show's over, check out your show notes at

00:01:04.820 awim.is slash sevenhabits. Stephen joins you now via clearcast.io.

00:01:19.660 Stephen and Mark Covey, welcome to the show.

00:01:22.580 Hey, Brett. It's great to be with you. Excited to be here.

00:01:25.280 So you are one of the sons of the late Stephen Covey and the author of The Seven Habits of

00:01:30.680 Highly Effective People, other books. The Seven Habits is coming out with a 30th anniversary

00:01:35.700 edition this May. And so I brought you on the show. We can talk about that. But before we do,

00:01:40.540 let's talk about your involvement with your dad's work in the organization, Franklin Covey.

00:01:45.480 Yes, absolutely. In fact, I've been involved with the Franklin Covey organization and its predecessors.

00:01:52.460 It was called at the time Covey Leadership Center. And, you know, really almost from the very

00:01:57.900 beginning, it was clear back in 1989 when I joined the company out of Harvard Business School and I

00:02:06.140 was deciding kind of what to do. I had an opportunity on Wall Street, investment banking. I had an

00:02:11.660 opportunity in real estate development. And then I had an opportunity to join up with my father,

00:02:16.380 who had a small, you know, consulting leadership development company. And I, but I knew my father

00:02:24.800 had a great book coming out called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. It had yet to come out.

00:02:30.980 It was about to. And so kind of against the advice of everyone around me that said, you know,

00:02:36.360 go, go for Wall Street or go for this real estate development. You know, those are reputable jobs.

00:02:41.860 And I went with my father's company at the time, the Covey Leadership Center, now Franklin Covey,

00:02:47.680 because I really knew what was in store for people, that The Seven Habits of Highly Effective

00:02:54.520 People was about to come out as a book and that this book could have a profound impact on people.

00:03:01.420 And so I joined right at the very outset and helped, you know, helped my father build the

00:03:07.840 organization and become really one of the largest leadership development companies in the world

00:03:12.280 and using Seven Habits as the foundation for doing that.

00:03:16.160 So let's, so as I said, there's a 30th anniversary edition of The Seven Habits coming out this May.

00:03:21.540 I mean, why do you think this book has had such staying power after 30 years? I mean,

00:03:25.460 it's sold 40 million copies, even today on Amazon. It's usually on the top 10 on the Amazon charts,

00:03:31.420 which is like the top 10 books sold. What's going on? What do you think is,

00:03:34.780 why does this book resonate with so many people for so long?

00:03:37.840 It's pretty remarkable, isn't it? After all this time, it's still up there in the top 10 and,

00:03:43.580 or, you know, in the top sellers, whether top 10 or whatever. But I think it's because The Seven

00:03:50.340 Habits is really built on enduring and timeless principles that apply everywhere and in all

00:03:58.520 circumstances and really in all kinds of different times and places. And so it's based upon principles,

00:04:05.280 not practices. It takes an inside out approach, meaning that we all look in the mirror and we

00:04:10.900 start with ourselves versus kind of an outside in approach where you look at your circumstances or

00:04:16.400 everybody else and kind of blame. This is inside out. And you take responsibility based upon principles.

00:04:22.820 And, and so, and then also, I think my father had a real gift of making this accessible to people,

00:04:30.380 practical, tangible, you know, be proactive as one of the habits and so practical and tangible,

00:04:36.200 begin with the end in mind and, and so basic and so foundational. And yet suddenly he's making it become

00:04:43.440 more accessible. And that was really a gift. My father had is to, to take ideas that kind of had

00:04:48.800 always been out there. I mean, these are not his ideas per se, you know, he doesn't claim

00:04:54.340 to own the principles. No one owns the principles are universal. They belong to everyone. But my father

00:05:01.040 had a gift of making the principles accessible and actionable and practical. So people could

00:05:07.480 implement them in their lives, you know, begin with the end in mind is habit too. And, you know,

00:05:13.440 and so he taught people how to create a personal mission statement, just like you would, you know,

00:05:18.800 a company might have an organizational mission statement. What about a personal mission statement?

00:05:23.200 What about a family mission statement as a way of beginning with the end in mind and, you know,

00:05:29.820 and, and really prioritizing and, and, and, and identifying the most important roles in your life and the,

00:05:37.120 and then the goals that follow them in those and, and really implementing this. And,

00:05:41.180 and each of the seven habits was based upon a principle, but then made accessible through,

00:05:47.680 you know, through language and through applications that made this just so useful to people. So I think

00:05:52.940 that's the biggest reason is that it's based upon principles that are timeless. It's an inside out

00:05:59.460 approach, meaning that everyone can start with themselves and work on this. And it's accessible,

00:06:04.720 it's actionable, it's practical and useful for people. And because of that, I say, rather than being 30

00:06:10.780 years old, I think the seven habits is 30 years young and going.

00:06:15.160 Yeah. And that's one of the things when I first read the seven habits a long time ago, that focus on

00:06:20.380 principles was what stood out to me. And then your, your father talked about this. He did his whole,

00:06:24.580 in the beginning of the book, he does like a whole review of the self-improvement literature going all

00:06:29.060 the way back to the 19th century and, and then into the 20th century. And he said in the 20th century,

00:06:35.160 we had this, there's this shift in the 19th century, a lot of the self-improvement work

00:06:39.060 was very character based. Like it was all about building up your character, but then the 20th

00:06:43.060 century, there was a shift to what he calls a personality ethic. Can you talk about the

00:06:47.580 difference between those two? Absolutely. Yeah. This is kind of what gave root

00:06:52.820 to the seven habits was this 200 year study of all the success literature, like you've mentioned,

00:07:00.140 Brett. And, and he found, you know, in the first 150 years of this study, the focus was on character

00:07:08.000 and principles on things like, you know, fairness and integrity and courage and, you know, interdependence

00:07:16.640 and, and trust and things like this. But then the last 50 years, he began to notice a

00:07:22.560 discernible shift towards more things like techniques and, and, you know, and, and, and,

00:07:30.160 and skills based things, not necessarily bad, but kind of a shift away from character and more

00:07:37.500 towards personality. And it's not that personality is bad. It's just that we don't want to separate

00:07:43.720 the personality from the character roots. It's almost like an iceberg. And, you know, the personality

00:07:50.520 is the tip of the iceberg. It matters enormously, but the greater mass of the iceberg is the character.

00:07:56.540 And so the very first subtitle of the seven habits, you know, the book came out, the seven habits of

00:08:02.780 highly effective people. The first subtitle before the publishers had us change it to make it, you know,

00:08:08.240 more memorable. The first subtitle was restoring the character ethic. And it was exactly what you just

00:08:16.640 described, right? It was trying to say, let's get back to the foundational basics, the principles that

00:08:24.240 are so vital to people everywhere. And, and, uh, you know, a fairness of integrity, of balance, of courage,

00:08:31.780 of, of, uh, of unity, these, these kinds of principles. And, and as opposed to kind of just

00:08:38.600 focusing on techniques and practices and things that help you get ahead, which again, aren't necessarily

00:08:45.260 bad, but if they're severed from their character roots could lose the foundation that is so critical

00:08:52.040 for it. And that was the idea that kind of spawned the seven habits because each of these seven habits

00:08:57.080 are fundamentally based upon principles that are enduring as opposed to the fads, the techniques,

00:09:04.460 the practices that kind of would ebb and flow with changing times. And again, that's why seven habits

00:09:09.720 are so enduring because it's based upon these principles.

00:09:11.780 So let's dig into the seven habits. So people can, for who haven't read the book and get a taste of

00:09:16.320 what they'll find in the book, but also for people who have, it'd be a good refresher. So the first

00:09:20.460 three habits are about winning private victories, about starting with going from the inside out,

00:09:25.440 like, as you said, so the first habit is being proactive. What does that look like? What does that

00:09:30.480 mean? Yes. Yeah. So, um, let me just give, I'll just take what you just mentioned, Brett, and go a

00:09:37.180 little deeper on the context. The first three habits kind of move a person from dependence

00:09:43.920 to independence. And as you mentioned, my father called that the private victory. You go from

00:09:49.220 dependence to independence. The second three habits, habits four, five, and six, move a person from

00:09:54.760 independence to interdependence. So I'm independent, but now I try to say, can I work with others? So

00:10:01.760 he calls that the public victory. And the last habit kind of sustains and renews all of them.

00:10:07.100 So the foundational habit, as you mentioned, is habit one, be proactive. And the idea here is that

00:10:15.400 each of us, we are responsible for our lives. And, you know, we can take responsibility for our lives,

00:10:23.260 for our choices. We're, we're, we're influenced by circumstances. We're influenced by environment.

00:10:28.440 We're influenced by, you know, genetics. There's no question, but they, while they influence us,

00:10:35.240 they don't determine us. The idea is that we can choose. We have the power. We're agents. We can

00:10:41.980 choose our response to circumstances. We don't just have to be impulsive in between what happens to us

00:10:49.540 and our response to it is a space. And in that space, we can choose our response based upon our values,

00:10:56.460 as opposed to just based upon circumstances. And so when we choose based upon our values,

00:11:01.960 that's being proactive. When we just respond out of impulse, that's being reactive. And it's saying,

00:11:07.560 we can be proactive in our life. We can take responsibility for our life and we can be,

00:11:12.480 you know, we can be resourceful and take initiative and make things happen.

00:11:16.360 And so this is really trying to give people a sense of personal responsibility and, and,

00:11:24.440 and opportunity to say, I'm in charge of my life. I can create the life I want. Yes,

00:11:30.100 I'm influenced by all these things around me, but it's in my, my circle of influence to use a

00:11:36.060 metaphor he describes to take responsibility. And, and that's the idea. And the whole idea of

00:11:41.480 the circle of influence is this, is that there's a lot of things that happen to us in life that we

00:11:47.800 can't control, you know, the weather, what's happening right now, you know, in the, with this

00:11:55.380 global pandemic, you know, we can't control a lot of these things, but there are things that within

00:12:03.560 the things that are influencing us, our circle of concern, if you will, all these things around us

00:12:09.020 that concern us, there's us inside that circle of concern is a smaller circle of influence.

00:12:16.220 These are things that we can do something about. I can't do anything about the weather,

00:12:21.260 but I can do something about my attitude towards the weather, how I feel about it,

00:12:26.280 how I respond to it. I can carry my own, own weather with me. And when I focus on my circle of

00:12:32.140 influence, instead of my circle of concern, I'm being proactive. And what will happen,

00:12:38.960 is if I continue to focus on my circle of influence, my circle of influence will grow

00:12:43.300 and expand and enlarge. And, but if I focus on my circle of concern of, you know, my boss's

00:12:50.920 weaknesses, you know, my spouse's faults, my kids, and, you know, and, and focus on all their,

00:12:56.380 you know, everything outside of me, what happens is my circle of influence tends to wither and

00:13:01.440 diminish and grow smaller while my circle of concern expands. And so by being proactive,

00:13:07.220 focusing on what we can influence, then we grow that proactivity, we grow that influence

00:13:15.060 and, and we begin to ripple out. And that's, that's the idea. So, so, you know, be proactive

00:13:20.960 means you are responsible. You are in charge of yourself, of your life. Yes, we're influenced

00:13:25.880 by everything around us, but that, well, it influences us. It does not determine us. We are proactive.

00:13:31.380 We're agents to choose for ourself. And that's the foundational habit, because out of that comes

00:13:37.100 all the other habits, because once I'm responsible, now I can choose in a new and different way for

00:13:42.640 everything else I'm doing in my life. So you mentioned that this is a principle,

00:13:46.240 it's timeless, it's endearing, but within these principles, you're, as you're, as you said earlier,

00:13:49.760 your father provided very practical, actionable steps people can take to embody that principle.

00:13:54.540 So what's something that someone can start doing today to live this habit of being proactive?

00:14:00.680 Here's something you can do right away. Notice your language. And, you know, anytime you're saying

00:14:08.280 things like, I have to, or, you know, I'm required to do this, you know, I have to do this, I have to do

00:14:17.320 that. You're, you're being, you're using reactive language. We don't have to do anything.

00:14:22.780 We can choose to respond. Now we might realize that, Hey, if I don't do something like, like,

00:14:29.900 uh, my daughter's in school right now in online school. And she said, Oh, I hate this. I have to,

00:14:36.460 you know, be on these, uh, zoom meetings every day and, and, and do all these things. I have to do it.

00:14:42.200 And I say, you don't have to go. Yeah, I do. I have to, because if I don't, I'll fail. I said, well,

00:14:47.240 do you have to, or do you choose to? She goes, well, if I don't participate, I'll fail. Okay,

00:14:54.100 great. So you choose to be on the call because you want to pass the class and you don't have to,

00:15:00.900 you could choose not to, and then you would, you'd reap the natural consequences, which is you'd fail

00:15:05.020 the class, but it's still a choice. You choose to be responsible. You choose to pass the class,

00:15:11.480 but you don't, you don't have to do anything. So just that very simple thing. I have to,

00:15:15.800 here's another one. You know, he makes, he makes me so mad when someone bothers you. He makes me so

00:15:22.700 mad as if you have nothing to do about it. Is that a choice that you can choose to take offense

00:15:28.580 that you could choose to become angered? You know, we don't have to do anything. So watch our language

00:15:33.800 language and use language of, I choose to, instead of, I have to, and, and take responsibility.

00:15:41.160 And it's something you can do immediately. And what we all realize is we're all pretty reactive,

00:15:46.400 myself included. And, and we, you know, we, we're not perfect on this. It's very easy to fall into

00:15:52.100 reactive stances and you see it in your language and the most basic things. And, but I just learned

00:15:58.340 from my dad, you know, you never have to do anything you choose to you're responsible. And that

00:16:03.560 very simple thing. You might think that's a simple thing, but you start to become self-aware.

00:16:09.580 I am responsible. I am a product of my choices, not my circumstances. And I can choose to do

00:16:15.820 everything and language is one little thing. So I say to each of us, watch our language and choose

00:16:21.260 to, instead of have to, and you'll be amazed at kind of the self-awareness that gives you.

00:16:25.840 The second thing I give is what I just mentioned earlier, focus on your circle of influence,

00:16:30.620 not your circle of concern. And so when tough things happen, maybe at work and, and rather than

00:16:38.900 focusing on all the problems with, you know, let's say your boss and how you can't say you can't trust

00:16:46.600 your boss. Well, what if you focus on your circle of influence, which is your self-trust, your

00:16:52.540 credibility, your performance, such that you gain more clout, more influence, because you're doing

00:16:59.600 so well that that compensates sometimes for even, you know, lesser relationship with another person.

00:17:05.820 You know, if you focus on your circle of influence, that circle of influence will expand and, and you'll

00:17:11.440 become more effective, more powerful versus kind of focusing on the weaknesses of other people,

00:17:17.400 focusing on things you can't control so that, you know, again, you become so aware and, and, and habit

00:17:24.480 one is so much about self-awareness so that we can choose our response based upon our values.

00:17:32.240 All right. So the next habit is begin with the end in minds. What does that look like?

00:17:36.200 This is the habit of vision. If habit one is saying, you know, you are responsible, you are a programmer.

00:17:43.380 Habit two is saying, so write the program. What do you want? What's your vision for yourself? What's

00:17:50.300 the vision for your life? Who are you? What are you all about? What are you trying to accomplish?

00:17:55.140 What is your end in mind for yourself? And so the idea of, of, you know, one way of thinking about

00:18:02.100 this is, is to, you know, create a personal mission statement and maybe a way of doing a personal

00:18:07.940 mission statement is to, you know, think it, you know, an 80th birthday party where you're turning 80

00:18:15.040 and you've got all your friends and your family and maybe neighbors and maybe work associates there

00:18:22.520 and you have people that are going to stand up and give a tribute, maybe one from your family

00:18:28.260 and one from your neighborhood or community, one from your work. Maybe if you belong to a church,

00:18:33.900 one from your church or what have you, what would you like them to say, each of them, about you

00:18:40.440 as they celebrate you and your life on your 80th birthday? What would you hope that they would say

00:18:46.500 about you, you know, the family member? What would you hope that they would say about you from work?

00:18:52.380 What would they hope that they would say about you in your community or your church or

00:18:55.280 in your, you know, whatever is important to you? And in a sense, that's kind of beginning

00:19:01.760 with the end in mind for yourself, for your life. And it helps you think about what matters to you.

00:19:08.140 What, what do you value? What's important? What is your mission? And so you can come up with,

00:19:13.480 you might put it in writing, in words, a personal mission statement. That's just one application of

00:19:18.460 how you would begin with the end in mind. You know, you could create a personal mission statement,

00:19:22.700 but there's a whole lot of other ways that you can say, you know, what am I trying to achieve

00:19:27.860 and accomplish? Anytime you take on a project, what's the end in mind? You know, you start a

00:19:33.980 puzzle. Think of the puzzle, you know, let's say a thousand piece puzzle and you dump it out and

00:19:41.020 you've got a thousand pieces. In a sense, begin with the end in mind is seeing the picture on the

00:19:47.220 box of the puzzle of what you're trying to put together, that picture. And how important in

00:19:53.880 putting together a puzzle is the picture. It's really important because it gives you a sense of

00:19:58.460 what you're trying to do, what you're trying to do with these puzzle pieces. You're trying to

00:20:03.200 create this picture. So in a sense, begin with the end in mind is the picture of the puzzle that

00:20:09.780 you're assembling of your life, of who you are, what you're about, what you're trying to do.

00:20:14.860 And so it's really powerful because it's the habit of vision. Hey, Brett, I'll tell you an

00:20:21.620 interesting, fun story on this when I was just a young kid. Sure. Because we grew up in our home

00:20:27.380 with the, you know, my father first taught the seven habits to us as kids and there's nine of

00:20:33.100 us kids. So, you know, we had a big family and, and I remember one time I was, I can't remember,

00:20:38.180 maybe 12 or 13 years old. And, and my dad took the whole family. I think maybe there were six or

00:20:45.580 seven of us at the time up to a big building. And, and we went to the top of the building,

00:20:53.520 got on the very top of the roof because we were with an architect, got on the roof of the building.

00:20:57.580 And then we looked down right next door to the building we were standing on. There was a big

00:21:03.980 hole in the ground and another building was about to be built in that hole. They were doing the

00:21:09.960 foundation work and the art. My, my dad had an architect with us and he was a, he pulled out

00:21:16.080 these blueprints, you know, these blue pieces of paper, these blueprints. And he said, this next

00:21:23.860 building right now, you only see a hole, but that building has already been built mentally.

00:21:32.400 And, and, and he pulled out the blueprints and he said, look, here's the design of the building.

00:21:36.340 Here's the foundation. Here's what it's going to look like. And he says, I've already built this

00:21:41.400 building mentally. Now we're going to build it physically, but begin with the end in mind in a

00:21:48.460 sense is the mental creation, which precedes the physical creation. And, and, you know, and I just

00:21:55.680 remember that. So it's indelibly impressed in my mind as a young teenager that begin with the end

00:22:02.320 in mind and seeing the, you know, the, the hole in the ground and seeing blueprints from this

00:22:07.440 architect saying, I've already built this building mentally and on paper. Now we're going to do it

00:22:12.540 physically. Then we went back about a year and a half later or whenever it was done. And we went back

00:22:17.280 on that and stood on the same building and looked out and there was another building right next to it

00:22:21.140 that we had seen the blueprint of a year and a half ago. And now there it is standing up.

00:22:26.120 And I just remember saying, I get it. Begin with the end in mind, you know, the mental creation

00:22:32.240 precedes the physical one. So we need to do the same for our lives as decide who we are, what we're

00:22:37.780 about, and then try to, you know, carry that out. We're going to take a quick break for your words

00:22:42.920 from our sponsors. And now back to the show. All right. So the, the final of the private victory

00:22:50.360 habits, the third habit is put first things first. What does that look like?

00:22:54.180 That's the carrying out of your plan of your end in mind. And so in a sense, in habit

00:23:02.040 to begin with the end in mind, you are identifying what are the first things in my life?

00:23:07.920 What are the most important things? You know, what are the values? What are the things I care about?

00:23:12.760 My priorities and habit three put first things first is saying, okay, I've identified my priorities.

00:23:19.420 Now live by them. If they're the first things, then put them first, not second or last, you know,

00:23:26.880 put first things first, carry out your plan, you know? And so you manage your time based upon not

00:23:34.040 just kind of what's urgent and what's in front of you, but what's important and what matters to you.

00:23:40.460 Now, when something is both important and urgent, you're going to do that for sure, because you have

00:23:46.600 to, it's, it's, it's right upon you. It's pressing, it's urgent, and it's important. But what we want

00:23:51.900 to avoid doing kind of in, as we manage our time is avoid getting distracted by the things that are

00:23:58.700 urgent, that are pressing, you know, but aren't necessarily important to us. And so that could be,

00:24:04.060 you know, excessive, you know, just binge watching excessively, you know, a little binge watching

00:24:09.980 might be good for you because it might relax you, but you know, you could go too far where it becomes

00:24:16.300 excessive and, and, and, you know, or a pressing, you know, phone call and, and all the emails that

00:24:23.620 just come in and we can get distracted in our work and find ourselves just buried all day long

00:24:28.080 doing emails or spending time on social media back and forth. You can get lost in this and that's kind

00:24:34.040 of fun. And it might be kind of pressing and proximate and urgent, but, but oftentimes it's

00:24:40.740 not very important. What really is, you know, is critical to focus on are the things that are,

00:24:46.300 are important and they may or may not be urgent, but importance is the most important. Those are the

00:24:52.280 first things. So we learn to organize and execute our life around our priorities, around the first

00:24:59.340 things that we identified. So, you know, habit three is the habit of productivity and of time

00:25:05.060 management of really life management, because we've kind of in habit to begin with the end of mind.

00:25:10.300 We've said, here's what I'm all about. Here's what my life's all about. Now habit three, I'm living it.

00:25:16.400 So to use the computer metaphor, habit one, you are not a program. You're a programmer.

00:25:21.600 So habit two, write the program. Habit three, execute the program, carry it out. What you've

00:25:29.180 said is important to you, live it. You know, that's where the rubber meets the road. Because if you say

00:25:34.960 that you value, you know, your family, and then though in habit three, you find yourself never spending

00:25:44.600 any time with your family, putting work always ahead of family, and even other interests ahead

00:25:52.560 of family, then you're, but you say the most important thing in your life is your family.

00:25:59.260 You're not putting your first thing first. It's maybe second or third or fourth. And so this is

00:26:06.660 just basically saying, be true to your values. Be true to the first things in your life. You know,

00:26:13.460 put them first. If you say they're first, put them first. And you know, it's where the rubber meets

00:26:18.260 the road. When we teach this to kids, because we actually, Seven Habits has been taught to CEOs of

00:26:24.960 companies. It's been taught to heads of state. And it's been taught to school superintendents,

00:26:31.840 school principals, and to school children as young as kindergarten. And when we teach them to school

00:26:39.260 kids, you know, kindergartners and the like, here's what habit three says. Rather than say,

00:26:44.100 put first things first, here's what we say. Work first, then play. And it's basically saying,

00:26:50.540 you know, get your work done, then go play. And it's just kind of a, just a simple way of saying,

00:26:56.900 you know, the course of least resistance is just to go play. And yeah, of course you want to

00:27:01.720 play when you're a kid, but do your work first, then we'll go play. And that's kind of a way of

00:27:06.040 saying, put first things first. And so all these three habits, as you said earlier, they're all

00:27:10.380 designed to help people gain independence or become a mature person. And that's something your father

00:27:15.240 talked about, about this idea of maturity, because once you're mature, that allows you to move to these

00:27:19.940 public victories and able to work with other people. And so that's a good transition to the habit four,

00:27:26.460 which is think win-win. And this is kind of what you're, you focused on with your writing with the

00:27:31.360 speed of trust. So what does win-win look like? Yep. So you're right. Right now, we've, you know,

00:27:37.680 the first three habits make me independent. I'm a capable, responsible person. You know,

00:27:43.880 I'm a real man in the art of manliness, I, you know, metaphor, right? And because I'm responsible

00:27:49.860 and I'm capable, now can I work well with others? Because most of life is interdependent.

00:27:56.640 So the starting habit for that is habit four, think win-win. And this is a mindset. That's why

00:28:04.120 my father used the word think win-win. It's a mindset. It's a way of thinking. And the way of

00:28:11.440 thinking is mutual benefit. Win-win. I want, yes, I want to win. That's the first win. But I also want

00:28:19.600 you to win too. That's the second win. And so it operates out of the idea that there is an abundance

00:28:25.920 mentality as opposed to what you might call a scarcity mentality. So a scarcity mentality is

00:28:34.660 the idea that there's only so much out there for people. You know, there's a pie. And if someone

00:28:42.140 gets a piece of the pie, that means there's less for me. There's less pie available because someone

00:28:47.120 else has got a piece. Another person gets a piece. Again, less pie for me because the pie is fixed.

00:28:51.060 It's limited. And, you know, that's a scarcity mentality. So if someone get, you know, at work,

00:28:56.620 if someone gets the credit, then that's less credit I'm getting. That's praise I'm getting.

00:29:00.360 You know, if someone gets paid well, then that's less pay for me. That's a scarcity mentality.

00:29:06.100 And the abundance mentality is saying there's plenty. There's enough for everyone. We can grow the pie.

00:29:12.140 We can expand the pie. So if someone gets credit, great. That doesn't take away anything for me.

00:29:16.660 I'm happy for them. And there could be enough for me too. And we can grow this. We can expand it.

00:29:23.940 And so the idea that, yes, you can win and I can win too. We both can win versus if there's a winner,

00:29:31.740 there's got to be a loser. And so it's a mindset of saying if we're going to work interdependently,

00:29:38.500 collaboratively, the best way to do that is by having a mindset of thinking, win, win. I win,

00:29:46.240 you win. We both win as a better way of working together. You know, you go into, you get married.

00:29:51.640 You want that to be win-win. You know, it would be, can you imagine coming up and saying, hey,

00:29:56.320 who's winning in your marriage? You know, that doesn't make sense. That's not, that's going to,

00:30:00.840 that's going to end up being a lose-lose for both marriage partners. But, but, uh, you know,

00:30:06.480 you want your partner, your spouse to win as well as yourself. You want, if you're in a business

00:30:12.500 partnership, the best partnerships are those in which there's mutual benefit to both parties.

00:30:17.720 If you want that to be sustainable, if one party is winning, the other party is losing over time,

00:30:24.120 that's not going to work. And they'll either exit the partnership or, or go out of business,

00:30:29.840 you know, the parties that's losing, it's just not sustainable. So if the reality

00:30:35.100 is interdependent, you got to work together. Win-win is the best and really most sustainable

00:30:41.480 solution. So habit four is the mindset of thinking win-win. That doesn't mean you'll always achieve

00:30:48.500 it because sometimes you may not, the circumstances might be such that you're not able to achieve win-win

00:30:55.900 and, you know, it might be that you can't get a win for you, or maybe they can't get a win for them.

00:31:02.060 Um, so you're best off not working together. You know, so my father called that, um, win-win

00:31:08.660 or no deal. In other words, if we can't find a win-win, we're better off not doing the deal,

00:31:14.220 not doing the relationship, not going into the partnership if we're not, if it's not mutual

00:31:18.400 benefit. And so, so you can't always achieve it. You know, we're, my father was a realist on this

00:31:24.340 and, but you strive to achieve it. You, it's your mindset to achieve it because it's a better

00:31:29.660 approach to relationships and to life. And this now, again, is where we, when we move from

00:31:35.780 independence to interdependence. So the best mindset is to think win-win, mutual benefit.

00:31:42.900 It flows out of an abundance mentality.

00:31:45.800 So you're thinking win-win part, part of the way you achieve win-win or try to achieve win-win

00:31:51.120 is the, the fifth habit, which is seek first, understand, then be understood. So what, what

00:31:57.300 do you think keeps people from understanding others? Like, why is this, to me, this seems

00:32:00.460 like to be one of the hardest habits to do.

00:32:02.860 Brett, you're right. It's the single hardest habit. In fact, we have a, you know, we have a

00:32:08.740 seven habits, a feedback tool, a 360, a profile, a feedback instrument that you, people, your

00:32:16.280 listeners are probably seeing it at work. You know, you get a 360 feedback instrument around

00:32:20.940 the seven habits and the lowest rated habit is habit five. Seek first to understand, then to be

00:32:28.360 understood. It is difficult. And the reason it's the lowest rated habit is because most of us struggle

00:32:33.760 with this because our instincts are just the opposite. We want to be understood. We want to

00:32:39.960 give our side. We want to tell our story. We want to be heard. And we might think, Hey, I'm right. So

00:32:46.940 you need to hear this. And so our instincts are to lead out by saying, here's what I think. Here's,

00:32:52.780 you know, here's my thought. Here's my belief. Here's my idea. And my dad is not saying, don't do

00:32:58.940 that. He's just saying, don't start out with that. Do that second. Instead he's saying, seek first to

00:33:07.280 understand the other person. Then you can try to be understood. In other words, there is a time and a

00:33:13.680 place to say, here's my viewpoint on this. Here's how I see this. But his point is you will be more

00:33:20.040 effective at expressing your viewpoint at having influence with other people. When you first

00:33:28.040 take the time and the energy, the effort to try to understand the other person, because when the

00:33:34.000 other person feels understood, they become far more open to really listening to you and being

00:33:42.220 influenced by you. When they don't feel understood by you, when they feel like you didn't really listen

00:33:47.980 to them, then they're fighting for the equivalent of psychological air. You know, if we were to suck the 0.98

00:33:54.840 air out of the rooms that we're in right now, as we're doing this, this recording, Brett, if there

00:34:01.660 were no air available to either me or you, neither of us would care about what the other was saying.

00:34:06.000 We'd be just, we'd be fighting for air, right? To stay alive. Well, what, you know, but now that we

00:34:11.600 have air, we're not even thinking about it. So an unsatisfied need doesn't, excuse me, a satisfied

00:34:17.140 need doesn't motivate. When we have air, we don't think about it. But if you, if we didn't have air,

00:34:21.700 we'd be fighting for it. And the same thing is true of understanding another person.

00:34:28.920 What oxygen is to the body, understanding is to the soul of the person. They want, people want to

00:34:36.300 feel understood. It's a gift to understand another person that you give to them. So when you go into

00:34:42.420 a relationship and said, and say, Hey, let me try to understand you first. Let me listen to you.

00:34:48.460 And it's the deepest form of listening because it's empathic listening. Most people listen,

00:34:54.680 not with the intent to truly understand another person. Rather, most people are listening with the

00:35:01.040 intent to reply to the person to respond. So, you know, they might be respectful, kind of waiting

00:35:07.760 their turn, but they're kind of just formulating their reply and just kind of waiting for them to

00:35:13.680 finish. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. You got it. You got out what you wanted to say. Okay. Yeah. Well,

00:35:16.620 here's how I see it. And the person that talked first, doesn't really feel like you heard them.

00:35:21.640 Like you, they don't feel understood, but if you take the time to say, Hey, let me try to understand

00:35:27.340 you first. Let me really listen to the point where you feel understood by me. So I'm going to kind of

00:35:34.620 reflect back what I hear you saying. I'll reflect the feeling behind it. And I'll try to capture the

00:35:39.680 content and see if I, you know, help me to make sure I'm understanding you. And if I'm not, tell

00:35:45.740 me what I'm missing. So I, cause my goal is to understand. And see that takes courage to do that

00:35:51.540 because you're a little bit vulnerable. That's why the first three habits, the private victory

00:35:56.200 precedes this, that, that gives you the strength, the courage, the independence to say, I'm enough of a

00:36:02.580 man, you know, to use the metaphor of this show that I can choose to listen to and truly understand

00:36:10.380 another person. Even if I see the world differently than that person, even if I disagree with them,

00:36:16.160 because understanding does not necessarily mean agreement. You might not agree. In fact,

00:36:20.640 you might completely disagree. All understanding is saying is I'm trying to understand you to your

00:36:27.180 satisfaction where you feel heard, listened to, and truly understood. And I, again, I may agree.

00:36:34.060 I may disagree. That takes that. It takes the reason it's hard. It takes courage. It takes true

00:36:41.360 independence. We have to be a little bit vulnerable. That's why we have to have strength to do this

00:36:46.840 because we're a little bit vulnerable. That's why the private victory comes first, but also it kind

00:36:51.700 goes against our instincts to try to want to be heard, to tell what we think. And again, my father's

00:36:58.080 saying, don't, you know, deny that. Just don't lead with that. Have that be second, not first. Seek

00:37:06.220 first to understand, then to be understood. When you go in that sequence, when, when the person feels

00:37:12.640 understood by you, they are so much more open to your influence and they'll listen to you better.

00:37:18.620 You'll have more, when you say, you know, here's how I view it. And they felt like you paid the price

00:37:23.920 to understand them. They listen far more carefully to you. They're more influenced by you. And I've

00:37:28.760 seen this happen in personal relationships. You know, I do, if I do this well with my wife,

00:37:35.840 if I really listen to where she feels, I understand her. Oh, she becomes far more open to what I think

00:37:44.400 when I don't do this, when I kind of just pretend to listen or just kind of wait my turn.

00:37:50.060 I don't have anywhere near the influence. So it's in personal relationships. It's clearly

00:37:54.420 in business. When there's understanding, you can come up with all kinds of solutions. When

00:37:59.400 people don't understand each other, they have a hard time really achieving solutions. So you are right

00:38:05.060 when you said, Brett, think win-win, habit four. The way to get to win-win is habit five by

00:38:13.720 understanding first the interest of the other person to their satisfaction. Then you sharing

00:38:18.640 your interest to your satisfaction. And that sets you up for habit six.

00:38:24.460 Which is synergize.

00:38:26.560 Yeah. So, so yeah, I think the synergize, this is a, I think it's become a buzzword in corporate

00:38:32.340 culture. It's been, you know, such a buzzword has been parody, but I think that parody is like,

00:38:37.240 there's a misunderstanding of what your father meant by synergizing. What does your father mean

00:38:42.180 by synergizing the seven habits? Here's what he means by synergize. So, you know, habit six synergize.

00:38:47.560 So it's really those three habits working together. Think win-win, habit four, habit five,

00:38:53.340 seek first to understand, then you've been understood. That's how you understand each

00:38:56.880 other's differences. Habit six synergize means you, you are trying to create something that is

00:39:04.740 bigger than the sum of its parts, where the whole is more than the sum of its parts. So that means this

00:39:10.920 one plus one equals three or five or 10 or more. You know, the whole is more than some of its parts.

00:39:20.700 Compromise is where one plus one equals one and a half. You know, I gave, you gave, we didn't create

00:39:28.320 something better. We had to just compromise. So one plus one equals one and a half. Sometimes

00:39:33.280 compromise is all you can do. It might just be the reality. There's really low trust and the best you

00:39:38.580 can do, like so often in government, compromise is kind of the best they can do. The idea of synergize

00:39:44.480 is saying, what if we got creative? What if our mindset was think win-win, we want, I want to win,

00:39:51.200 I want you to win too, and vice versa. What if we both sought first to understand each other, then to be

00:39:57.060 understood, and we both did that, and we both felt like we mutually understood each other, then what are

00:40:02.940 the possibilities in habit six of synergizing, where we can come up with, come up with ideas and

00:40:08.480 solutions that might be better than what either one of us might come up, you know, come up with on our

00:40:15.300 own. And this is the whole idea that, that our differences can become our strengths. And we come

00:40:23.100 up with solutions that we never could have come up with if just independently that we could do together

00:40:30.160 creatively, you know. And, and so, you know, that's the wisdom of teams. It's, it's the idea of, of,

00:40:36.620 of really saying, look, let's, let's create, let's be innovative, let's be creative. And, and let's,

00:40:44.020 you see the world differently than I do. Great. Let's value those differences in habits four and habits

00:40:48.900 five. Think win-win, seek first, understand, then to be understood, to create something better. Habit six,

00:40:54.200 to synergize, to have one plus one, equaling three or more. But you're right, Brett.

00:40:58.760 When my father was first using this word, it was kind of a new word and a fresh word.

00:41:05.060 And over time, because it became a kind of a corporate word of synergies and in mergers and

00:41:11.800 the like that often was seen, it kind of got a negative connotation attached to it in some ways.

00:41:17.940 But if, if the idea could be, this is innovation, this is creativity, this is coming up with new ideas

00:41:27.440 and possibilities that are better that we could come up with together. It would be harder to come

00:41:33.600 up with independently and by yourself only. All right. So the final habit is sharpen the saw.

00:41:39.340 And this seems to be like a capstone habit. It's supposed to help with all the habits. So what

00:41:42.520 does your father mean by sharpen the saw? He's saying, look, if, if you were sawing down a tree

00:41:47.920 with a big saw and you could try to work harder, try to saw faster, that might help, but maybe the

00:41:57.820 smartest thing you could do would be to stop and take time to sharpen that saw. Because if the saw,

00:42:04.260 if the saw is more sharp, you will saw that, that down that tree a lot faster. And that's the idea.

00:42:09.860 Never be too busy sawing to take time to sharpen the saw. And so sharpen the saw kind of becomes a

00:42:17.000 metaphor for saying, renew yourself, you know, invest in yourself, renew your body, your heart,

00:42:24.760 your mind, your spirit, renew yourself physically, you know, so that you're, you're exercising and

00:42:30.200 you're, you're taking care of yourself physically, your body, renew your heart, your relationships,

00:42:35.320 love and relationships and, you know, emotional renewal, renew yourself mentally. So you're

00:42:41.420 learning and improving, getting better. And you're keeping your mind alert, clear, active,

00:42:46.220 engaged, renew yourself spiritually. The idea here is not necessarily religion, but rather,

00:42:51.000 you know, meaning and purpose and contribution and creating value. And, you know, who are you?

00:42:56.660 What are you all about? That's the spiritual dimension that the need for meaning and purpose.

00:43:01.200 And so you're kind of, kind of trying to reinvest in yourself and to renew yourself and to,

00:43:08.260 you know, to sharpen the saw in those four dimensions, your body, your heart, your mind,

00:43:14.360 your spirit. And, and, and the very process of doing that makes you a sharper saw. So you're able to

00:43:21.420 perform better, to do better. So rather than burning yourself out, you know, a lot of us suffer from

00:43:27.440 burnout in our lives. And because, you know, we're just so busy and, and we're just so wrung out by so

00:43:33.900 many things. And, and it's like the pounding surf, just one thing after another. And, you know, I've

00:43:39.780 been there too. And the point is never be so busy sign to take time to sharpen the saw. If you take

00:43:46.120 time to renew yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, you'll be more productive,

00:43:53.280 you'll be more effective and you'll be energized rather than burnt out. And you'll have more

00:43:58.800 capacity to do everything else better. So it kind of renews your ability to practice the other six

00:44:04.480 habits and to go back, trying to work well with other people, you know, starting with yourself,

00:44:09.900 being independent, and then becoming effectively interdependent, working well with others.

00:44:15.380 And then you renew your abilities, your capacity to do all of that. So that's kind of the capstone,

00:44:21.080 exactly what you said, Brett, of the seventh habit, sharpen the saw, helps you do the other

00:44:25.860 six on an ongoing basis. Well, Stephen, this has been a fantastic conversation. Where can people go

00:44:30.780 to learn more about the 30th anniversary edition of the seven habits and more about the work at

00:44:35.860 FranklinCovey? Absolutely. So the seven habits have had affected people. The 30th anniversary is

00:44:40.920 coming out in May, 2020. And you can go to Amazon or any bookstore. It will be everywhere on that.

00:44:48.060 And the great thing about this 30th edition, by the way, is that there's some value-added

00:44:53.140 pieces, even for the people that have already read the seven habits. If you liked the seven

00:44:57.820 habits before, you'll even like it more now. Let me tell you why. Because first, you know,

00:45:03.080 the seven habits is in there exactly as it was before. Not one word of my father has been changed.

00:45:07.800 But what we have done is we've added at the end of each chapter, additional fresh insights

00:45:14.460 to those different habits that my brother Sean wrote. And my brother Sean is the one that took

00:45:20.220 my father's work and adapted it to teens, seven habits of highly effective teens and seven habits

00:45:26.080 of happy kids. And he's also done a lot of work with organizations and, you know, with his work on

00:45:31.620 the four disciplines of execution, along with Chris Montesny and Jim Hewling. And so he has a real

00:45:37.460 insight and he's going to bring fresh insights. And it's kind of also kind of interviews with my

00:45:43.840 father and back, you know, behind the scenes, insight from my father that my brother is going

00:45:50.120 to add to this. So it's really additive to the seven habits for those that have already read it.

00:45:55.540 For those that haven't, I think you'll find this is such a useful, practical framework of being

00:46:01.480 effective in your life, you know, independently and then interdependently, you know, as a person,

00:46:07.180 as a man, you know, in the art of manliness and, and, and, and to help you succeed. So you can go to

00:46:15.700 the bookstore, you can go, you know, online, you can go to the Franklin Covey website. So just

00:46:21.300 FranklinCovey.com and, and you'll learn about the seven habits and, and kind of training programs and

00:46:27.340 all kinds of different tools to help you to learn more, go deeper into seven habits of highly

00:46:33.260 effective people, which really is 30 years young. And, and, and just, I think it remains, maybe

00:46:40.540 Rhett, if I could be bold to say this, just kind of like a Jim Collins, the author of Good to Great

00:46:46.680 called it an operating system of human effectiveness of helping people just kind of understand how to be

00:46:55.320 effective first, personally, and second with other people, because it's based upon your character.

00:47:02.580 They're these foundational principles that are so actionable. My father kind of has a gift of

00:47:07.740 making it actionable and memorable to people. So hope that our listeners are, you know, we'll find

00:47:13.140 great value from this newly released 30th anniversary edition.

00:47:17.540 Well, fantastic. Stephen M. R. Covey, thanks for your time. It's been a pleasure.

00:47:20.780 Hey, thank you so much. I really enjoyed talking to you, Brad, and appreciate the great work that you do.

00:47:26.060 My guest today was Stephen M. R. Covey. He is one of the sons of the late Stephen Covey,

00:47:29.720 the author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, which is out now with a 30th

00:47:34.200 anniversary edition with new insights from the kids of Stephen Covey. It's available on amazon.com.

00:47:39.280 You can find out more information about The Seven Habits at franklincovey.com. Also check out

00:47:43.320 our show notes at aom.is slash seven habits, where you can find links to resources where you can delve

00:47:47.500 deeper into this topic. Well, that wraps up another edition of The AOM Podcast. Check out

00:47:58.860 our website at artofmanliness.com, where you can find our podcast archives, as well as thousands

00:48:02.480 of articles we've written over the years about pretty much anything you can think of. In fact,

00:48:05.520 we've got a whole series about The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Go check that out. And if

00:48:09.340 you'd like to enjoy ad-free episodes of The AOM Podcast, you can do so on Stitcher Premium. Head

00:48:12.940 over to stitcherpremium.com, sign up, use code manliness for a free month trial of Stitcher

00:48:16.560 Premium. Once you're signed up, download the app, Android or iOS, and you start enjoying ad-free

00:48:20.660 episodes of The AOM Podcast. And if you haven't done so already, I'd appreciate it if you take one

00:48:24.140 minute to give us a review on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. It helps out a lot. And if you've done

00:48:27.500 that already, thank you. Please consider sharing the show with a friend or family member who you'd

00:48:31.720 think would get something out of it. As always, thank you for the continued support. Until next time,

00:48:35.420 this is Brett McKay, reminding you not to listen to the AOM Podcast, but put what you've heard into action.

00:48:42.940 Thank you.

The Art of Manliness - May 04, 2020

#607： The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

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