Tom Salzer

Source: Stephen R. Covey Twitter feed

One of the most influential workshops I ever attended was The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The content was on point and accessible. As more of Covey's thinking began to weave into my daily life, my paradigms began to change, persisting to this day. I share Covey's cards here in the hope that at least one idea will take root in your life, too.

Here's the list of quotes on these Covey cards:

1. "I teach people how to treat me by what I will allow." - Stephen R. Covey
2. "Don't argue for other people's weaknesses. Don't argue for your own. When you make a mistake, admit it, correct it, and learn from it - immediately." - Stephen R. Covey
3. "As you care less about what people think of you, you will care more about what others think of themselves." - Stephen R. Covey
4. "There are two kinds of people, those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group; there is less competition there." - Indira Gandhi
5. "The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice." - George Eliot
6. "Today a reader, tomorrow a leader." - Margaret Fuller
7. "Ineffective people live day after day with unused potential." - Stephen R. Covey
8. "As long as you think the problem is out there, that very thought is the problem." - Stephen R. Covey
9. "You don't manage people; you manage things. You lead people." - Admiral Grace Hopper
10. "What you do has far greater impact than what you say." - Stephen R. Covey
11. "Have more than thou showest, speak less than thou knowest." - William Shakespeare
12. "Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them all yourself." - Eleanor Roosevelt
13. "Habit is the intersection of knowledge (what to do), skill (how to do), and desire (want to do)." - Stephen R. Covey
14. "Accountability breeds response-ability." - Stephen R. Covey
15. "Are leaders born or made? This is a false dichotomy - leaders are neither born nor made. Leaders choose to be leaders." - Stephen R. Covey
16. "Success is not a destination; it is a journey we must constantly pursue." - Gabriela Reyna
17. "It's not what happens to us but our response to what happens to us that hurts us." - Stephen R. Covey
18. "Public behavior is merely private character writ large." - Stephen R. Covey
19. "The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing." - Stephen R. Covey
20. "Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without strategy." - Norman Schwarzkopf
21. "Never find your delight in another's misfortune." - Publilius Syrus
22. "When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid, so it is better to speak." - Audre Lorde
23. "Admission of ignorance is often the first step in our education." - Stephen R. Covey
24. "The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me." - Ayn Rand
25. "Hire character. Train skill." - Peter Schutz
26. "I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself." - Arianna Huffington
27. "Don't be seduced by your own autobiography." - Stephen R. Covey
28. "Happiness - in part, at least - is the fruit of the desire and ability to sacrifice what we want now for what we want eventually." - Stephen R. Covey
29. "The greatest risk is the risk of riskless living." - Stephen R. Covey
30. "Empathy is not sympathy. Sympathy is a form of agreement. Empathy is not agreeing with someone; it is fully, deeply understanding that person, emotionally as well as intellectually." - Stephen R. Covey
31. "I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed." - Booker T. Washington
32. "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." - Martin Luther King Jr.
33. "Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out." - Stephen R. Covey
34. "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom." - Victor Frankl
35. "The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any." - Alice Walker
36. "Leadership is communicating to people their worth and potential so clearly that they come to see it in themselves." - Stephen R. Covey
37. "We are free to choose our actions...but we are not free to choose the consequences of these actions." - Stephen R. Covey
38. "Time is neutral and does not change things. With courage and initiative, leaders change things." - Jesse Jackson
39. "I have stood on a mountain of no's for one yes." - B. Smith
40. "If you just set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing." - Margaret Thatcher
41. "Leadership is the highest of the arts, simply because it enables all the other arts and professions to work." - Stephen R. Covey
42. "As a leader, it's a major responsibility on your shoulders to practice the behavior you want others to follow." - Himanshu Bhatia
43. "In relationships, the little things are the big things." - Stephen R. Covey
44. "Nothing destroys trust faster than making and breaking a promise, Conversely, nothing builds trust more than keeping a promise." - Stephen R. Covey
45. "Hold your head and your standards high even as people or circumstances try to pull you down." - Tory Johnson
46. "If you want small changes, work on your behavior; if you want quantum-leap changes, work on your paradigms." - Stephen R. Covey
47. "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 R. Covey
48. "How you treat the one reveals how you regard the many, because everyone is ultimately a one." - Stephen R. Covey
49. "Efficiency with people is ineffective. With people, fast is slow and slow is fast." - Stephen R. Covey
50. "Live, love, learn, leave a legacy." - Stephen R. Covey
51. "Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon him and to let him know that you trust him." - Booker T. Washington
52. "Trust is the highest form of human motivation." - Stephen R. Covey
53. "Holding people to the responsible course is not demeaning; it is affirming." - Stephen R. Covey
54. "All the well-meaning advice in the world won't amount to a hill of beans if we're not even addressing the real problem." - Stephen R. Covey
55. "If you put good people in bad systems, you get bad results. You have to water the flowers you want to grow." - Stephen R. Covey
56. "Courage doesn't always road. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, 'I will try again tomorrow.." - Mary Anne Radmacher
57. "Widen the path of opportunities and continue to leave a powerful and positive legacy in this world." - Luis Fonsi
58. "Imagine the personal and organizational cost of failing to fully engage the passion, talent, and intelligence of the workforce. It is far greater than all taxes, interest charges, and labor costs put together." - Stephen R. Covey
59. "In developing our own self-awareness many of us discover ineffective scripts, deeply embedded habits that are totally unworthy of us, totally incongruent with the things we really value in life." - Stephen R. Covey
60. "Independent will is our capacity to act. It gives us the power to transcend our paradigms, to swim upstream, to rewrite our scripts, to act based on principle rather than reacting based on emotion or circumstance." - Stephen R. Covey
61. "When it comes to defining a team's purpose, the time-proven rule applies: no involvement, no commitment." - Stephen R. Covey
62. "There are three constants in life...change, choice, and principles." - Stephen R. Covey
63. "Leadership is not a person or a position. It is a complex moral relationship between people based on trust, obligation, commitment, emotion, and a shared vision of the good." - Joanne Ciulla
64. "Setbacks are inevitable; misery is a choice." - Stephen R. Covey
65. "Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important." - Stephen R. Covey
66. "Effectiveness is no longer optional. The call and need of a new era is for greatness." - Stephen R. Covey
67. "How many people on their deathbeds wish they'd spent more time at the office." - Stephen R. Covey
68. "How different our lives are when we really know what is deeply important to us, and keeping that picture in mind, we manage ourselves each day to be and to do what really matters most." - Stephen R. Covey
69. "Leadership is a choice that lies in the space between stimulus and response." - Stephen R. Covey
70. "It is possible to be busy - very busy - without being very effective." - Stephen R. Covey
71. "Leaders who take interest in people merely because they should will be both wrong and unsuccessful. they will be wrong because regard for people is an end in itself. They will be unsuccessful because they will be found out." - Stephen R. Covey
72. "In the industrial age, leadership was a position. In the knowledge age, leadership is a choice." - Stephen R. Covey
73. "If there is no gardener, there is no garden." - Stephen R. Covey
74. "Loyalty must not be a higher value than integrity; in fact, real integrity is loyalty. You want your doctor to tell you the truth, even if you don't want to hear it." - Stephen R. Covey
75. "I didn't get there by wishing for it or hoping for it, but by working for it." - Estee Lauder
76. "Involve people in the problem, immerse them in it, so that they soak it in and feel it is their problem and they tend to become an important part of the solution." - Stephen R. Covey
77. "Management works in the system; leadership works on the system." - Stephen R. Covey
78. "In the last analysis, what we are communicates far more eloquently than anything we say or do." - Stephen R. Covey
79. "Don't fake it 'til you make it. Learn it as you become it." - Stephen R. Covey
80. "Face challenges, fear, and frustration by seeking out knowledge and opportunities for growth." - Fanny Mairena
81. "If I really want to improve my situation, I can work on the one thing over which I have control." - myself." - Stephen R. Covey
82. "We are not our feelings. We are not our moods. We are not even our thoughts...self-awareness enables us to stand apart and examine even the way we 'see' ourselves." - Stephen R. Covey
83. "Find the good. It's all around you. Find it. Showcase it and you'll start believing it." - Jesse Owens
84. "Are leaders born or made? This is a false dichotomy - leaders are neither born nor made. Leaders choose to be leaders." - Stephen R. Covey
85. "To retain the trust of those who are present, be loyal to those who are absent." - Stephen R. Covey
86. "The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities." - Stephen R. Covey
87. "I need to listen well so that I hear what is not said." - Thuli Madonsela
88. "Happiness must be cultivated. It is like character. It is not a thing to be safely let alone for a moment, or it will run to weeds." - Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
89. "Most people do not listen to understand. They listen with the intent to reply. They're either speaking or preparing to speak. They're filtering everything through their own paradigms, reading their autobiography into other people's lives." - Stephen R. Covey
90. "Almost every significant breakthrough in the field of scientific endeavor is first a break with tradition, with old ways of thinking, with old paradigms." - Stephen R. Covey
91. "I believe in a quiet, strong, grounded leadership. I think some of the best leaders are those whose work is widely known and respected but who, themselves, are relatively unknown." - Rachael Chong
92. "In becoming all things to all people, one eventually becomes nothing to everybody - particularly to oneself." - Stephen R. Covey
93. "Without involvement, there is no commitment. Mark it down, asterisk it, circle it, under it. No involvement, no commitment." - Stephen R. Covey
94. "Accountability breeds response-ability." - Stephen R. Covey
95. "We immediately become more effective when we decide to change ourselves rather than asking things to change for us." - Stephen R. Covey
96. "Step out of the history that is holding you back. Step into the new story you are willing to create." - Oprah Winfrey
97. "All of us are interested in things outside of our stewardship, and we should be, but the most important way to do anything about them is to magnify our own stewardship." - Stephen R. Covey
98. "Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers." - Stephen R. Covey
99. "Sheltering people from natural consequences teaches irresponsibility." - Stephen R. Covey
100. "Begin with the end in mind." - Stephen R. Covey>"Begin with the end in mind." - Stephen R. Covey
101. "Leadership is the highest of the arts, simply because it enables all the other arts and professions to work." - Stephen R. Covey
102. "Admission of ignorance is often the first step in our education." - Stephen R. Covey
103. "I learned a long time ago that there is something worse than missing the goal, and that's not pulling the trigger." - Mia Hamm
104. "Ineffective people live day after day with unused potential." - Stephen R. Covey
105. "Effective people are not problem-minded; they're opportunity-minded. They feed opportunities and starve problems." - Stephen R. Covey
106. "Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out." - Stephen R. Covey
107. "The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing." - Stephen R. Covey
108. "There are two kinds of people, those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group; there is less competition there." - Indira Gandhi
109. "The older I get, the more wisdom I find in the ancient rule of taking first things firs." - a process which often reduces the most complex human problems to manageable proportions." - Dwight D. Eisenhower
110. "There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing." - Aristotle
111. "At some time in your life, you probably had someone believe in you when you didn't believe in yourself." - Stephen R. Covey
112. "Holding people to the responsible course is not demeaning; it is affirming." - Stephen R. Covey
113. "Faith is taking the first step even when you can't see the whole staircase." - Martin Luther King Jr.
114. "I'd rather regret the risks that didn't work out than the chances I didn't take at all." - Simone Biles
115. "Being influenceable is the key to influencing others." - Stephen R. Covey
116. "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom." - Victor Frankl
117. "I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions." - Stephen R. Covey
118. "A leader is someone who holds her- or himself accountable for finding the potential in people and processes." - Brene Brown
119. "Leadership is a privilege to better the lives of others. It is not an opportunity to satisfy personal greed." - Mwai Kibaki
120. "As a leader, it's a major responsibility on your shoulders to practice the behavior you want others to follow." - Himanshu Bhatia
121. "What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make." - Jane Goodall
122. "Effectiveness is no longer optional. The call and need of a new era is for greatness." - Stephen R. Covey
123. "One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again." - Abraham Maslow
124. "The best investment you can make is in yourself." - Paulina Lopez
125. "Being humble doesn't mean that you lack self-confidence, or that you never stand up for your own opinions or principles. It does mean recognizing that you don't know everything." - and that you're willing to learn from others." - Justin Bariso
126. "Public behavior is merely private character writ large." - Stephen R. Covey
127. "Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors." - African Proverb
128. "Be a light, not a judge. Be a model, not a critic." - Stephen R. Covey
129. "You can't talk your way out of a problem you behaved yourself into." - Stephen R. Covey
130. "Nothing ever comes to one, that is worth having, except as a result of hard work." - Booker T. Washington
131. "Never find your delight in another's misfortune." - Publilius Syrus
132. "The difference between successful people and others is how long they spend time feeling sorry for themselves." - Barbara Corcoran
133. "The secret of leadership is simple: do what you believe in. Paint a picture of the future. Go there. People will follow." - Seth Godin
134. "You're never too young or too old to be a mentor." - Reshma Saujani
135. "Happiness, like unhappiness, is a proactive choice." - Stephen R. Covey
136. "Empathy is not sympathy. Sympathy is a form of agreement. Empathy is not agreeing with someone; it is fully, deeply understanding that person, emotionally as well as intellectually." - Stephen R. Covey
137. "It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed." - Theodore Roosevelt
138. "Nothing destroys trust faster than making and breaking a promise. Conversely, nothing builds trust more than keeping a promise." - Stephen R. Covey
139. "You can imprison a man, but not an idea. You can exile a man, but not an idea. You can kill a man, but not an idea." - Benazir Bhutto
140. "The most effective way to lead is to lead from within." - Lolly Daskal
141. "Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen." - Michael Jordan
142. "Every human being has four endowment." - self awareness, conscience, independent will, and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom: the power to choose, to respond, to change." - Stephen R. Covey
143. "One of the most important ways to manifest integrity is to be loyal to those who are not present. In doing so, we build the trust of those who are present." - Stephen R. Covey
144. "Primary greatness means character and contribution. Secondary greatness is prestige and wealth and position." - Stephen R. Covey
145. "I think the girl who is able to earn her own living and pay her own way should be as happy as anybody on Earth. The sense of independence and security is very sweet." - Susan B. Anthony
146. "You have trust in what you think. If you splinter yourself and try to please everyone, you can't." - Annie Leibovitz
147. "Leadership is working with goals and vision; management is working with objectives." - Russel Honore
148. "It's easy to say "no" when there is a deeper "yes" burning within." - Stephen R. Covey
149. "When I give the best of me, that becomes my legacy." - Karen Lopez McWilliams
150. "We need to start work with the idea that we're going to learn every day. I learn, even at my position, every single day." - Chanda Kochhar
151. "I can change. I can live out of my imagination instead of my memory. I can tie myself to my limitless potential instead of my limiting past." - Stephen R. Covey
152. "Correct principles are like compasses: they are always pointing the way. And if we know how to read them, we won't get lost, confused, or fooled by conflicting voices and values." - Stephen R. Covey
153. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." - The Declaration of Independence
154. "Leadership should be more participative than directive, more enabling than performing." - Mary D. Poole
155. "Live out of your imagination, not your history." - Stephen R. Covey
156. "I had to make my own living and my own opportunity! But I made it! Don't sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them." - Madam C.J. Walker
157. "Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first hour sharpening the axe." - Abraham Lincoln
158. "No legacy is so rich as honesty." - William Shakespeare
159. "Teachers open the door but you must enter by yourself." - Chinese Proverb
160. "Be patient, for the world is broad and wide." - William Shakespeare
161. "The greatest wealth is to live content with little." - Plato
162. "Courage is knowing what not to fear." - Plato
163. "There's tremendous power in thinking we, not me." - Todd Davis
164. "We are limited, but we can push back the borders of our limitations." - Stephen R. Covey
165. "It's not your job to like me, it's mine." - Byron Katie
166. "Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible." - Francis of Assisi
167. "Beware the barrenness of a busy life." - Socrates
168. "In order to be truly productive, we need to gain the habit of being conscious and intentional about everything we do. In today's world, we can't just go on 'I have a busy life' autopilot and expect to end up where we want to be." - Kory Kogon
169. "Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in getting up every time we do." - Confucious
170. "Make sure you spend as much time celebrating the achievement of goals as you do setting and accomplishing them." - Scott Miller
171. "Declare your intent, express your agenda and motives. Then be true to your intent." - Stephen M.R. Covey
172. "Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important." - Stephen R. Covey
173. "All of us are interested in things outside of our stewardship, and we should be, but the most important way to do anything about them is to magnify our own stewardship." - Stephen R. Covey
174. "Give every man thy ear but few thy voice." - William Shakespeare
175. "Necessity is the mother of invention." - Plato
176. "The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool." - William Shakespeare
177. "Primary greatness means character and contribution. Secondary greatness is prestige and wealth and position." - Stephen R. Covey
178. "It takes a lot of courage, humility, and self-awareness to look at ourselves closely and with honesty." - Todd Davis
179. "Many people believe that the only things we need for success are talent, energy, and personality. But history has taught us that, over the long haul, who we are is more important than who we appear to be." - Stephen R. Covey
180. "Let him who would move the world, first move himself." - Socrates
181. "The beginning is the most important part of any work." - Plato
182. "This above all: to thine ownself be true." - William Shakespeare
183. "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 R. Covey