Well, you might ask, how a book with a title like this can draw interest of a self-help junkie like you?
A month ago a friend of mine suggested to read this book and I started reading it last Friday night. The essence of this book is the life principles (the 7 habits) that we are always seek to master them daily, both in personal and professional life. We all know these 7 habits (even Dr. Covey, the author, himself admitted that he didn’t invent these principles) but reading this book will provoke two haunting questions in your mind:
• What have you done right and what have done wrong in your life so far? and
• What can you do to make your life, your family’s life and your business’s life better?
As I highlighted theme below, the 7 habits are simple and yet the author crafts them within a framework of family and business so as to make them more appealing. So here are the 7 habits:
- Be Proactive – take responsibility of your life. You can’t keep blaming everything on your government, boss, friends, parents or grandparents.
- Begin with the End in Mind – I think this one affirms my system architectural framework. See it; feel it; experience it before you actually design it. Architects begin with the end in mind.
- Put First Things First – distinguish between important and urgent’ and it’s all right to say no when necessary and then focus on your highest priorities.
- Think Win/Win – constantly seeks mutual benefit in all human interactions.
- Seek First to Understand Then to be Understood – (I think here is where most of us struggle).
- Synergize – develop innovative solutions that leverage diversity and satisfy all key stakeholders. From a paradigm of a system architect, one is none, two is one.
- Sharpen the Saw – you are the instrument of your own performance, be effective, you have to sharpen the saw in all four ways:
- Physical (exercise, nutrition)
- Spiritual (Value & Commitment, Study & Meditation)
- Mental (Reading, Visualizing, Planning, Writing)
- Social / Emotion (Service, Empathy, Synergy, Intrinsic Security)
I think this is quality literature in self-help category that I recommend to anyone. The ideas in this book can reall make a positive impact on your life, both personally and professionally. And last, in the words of the author, “And most important, start applying what you are learning. Remember, to learn and not to do is really not to learn. To know and not to do is really not to know.”
